In this episode I cross swords with John Samples of the Cato Institute on Silicon Valley’s efforts to disadvantage conservative speech and what to do about it. I accuse him of Panglossian libertarianism; he challenges me to identify any way in which bringing government into the dispute will make things better. I
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Episode 269: A McLaughlin Group for cybersecurity
By Stewart Baker on
Our interview guests are Dick Clarke and Rob Knake, who have just finished their second joint book on cybersecurity, The Fifth Domain. We talk about what they got right and wrong in their original book. There are surprising flashes of optimism from Clarke and Knake about the state of cybersecurity, and the book itself is an up-to-date survey of the policy environment. Best of all, they have the courage to propose actual policy solutions to problems that many others just admire. I disagree with about half of their proposals, so much light and some heat are shed in the interview, which I end by bringing back the McLaughlin Group tradition of rapid-fire questions and an opinionated “You’re wrong” whenever the moderator disagrees. C’mon, you know the arguments are really why you listen, so enjoy this one!…
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Episode 248: Tomayto, Tomahto: Right to be Forgotten Meets Right to Die
By Stewart Baker on
If the surgeon about to operate on you has been disciplined for neglecting patients, wouldn’t you like to know? Well, the mandarins of the European Union privacy lobby beg to differ. Google has been told by a Dutch court not to index that story, and there seems to have been a six-month lag in disclosing even the court ruling. That’s part of this week’s News Roundup. Gus Hurwitz and I are appalled. I tout my long-standing view that in the end, privacy law just protects the privileged. Gus agrees.
The interview is with John Carlin, author of Dawn of the Code War. It’s a great inside story of how we came to indict China’s hacker-spies for attacking US companies.…
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Episode 240: If Paris Calls, should we hang up?
By Stewart Baker on
Mieke Eoyang joins us for the interview about Third Way’s “To Catch a Hacker” report. We agree on the importance of what I call “attribution and retribution” as a way to improve cybersecurity. But we disagree on some of the details. Mieke reveals that this report is the first in a series that will hopefully address my concerns about a lack of detail and innovation in the report’s policy prescriptions.…
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