Rational Security 2.0: The 'Boys Next Door' Edition

Jen Patja, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Quinta Jurecic, Scott R. Anderson, Jacob Schulz
Wednesday, April 13, 2022, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

This week, Alan, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare managing editor Jacob Schulz to hash through some of the week's big national security news, including:

  • “Le Pen 15 Club.” As France enters the final run-off round of its presidential election, incumbent Emmanuel Macron is being closely trailed by extreme right-wing leader Marine Le Pen. What explains Le Pen’s political potency? And what would a President Le Pen mean for the rest of the world?
  • “The Biggest Botnet Takedown Since Geocities Deleted My Transformers FanFiction.” The Justice Department recently revealed that the United States and allied governments have been secretly removing Russian malware from global networks in order to thwart potential cyber attacks. What does this strategy tell us about the future of cyber conflict?
  • “Don’t Trust the DVE in Apartment 23.” Postal inspectors recently stumbled on a pair of heavily armed men impersonating DHS agents while living amidst—and showering expensive gifts on—Secret Service agents and other federal law enforcement officers in a Washington, D.C., apartment complex. What the hell was happening? And should we be concerned?

For object lessons, Alan invoked his love of nut spreads to endorse "pistacchiosa," a Sicilian pistachio spread with which he has recently become enamored. Quinta recommended Jonathan Chait's recent article on Ron DeSantis and Trumpism after Trump (as well as the app Audm). Scott recommended the movie Coco as a next step for those who have gotten sucked into the Disney+ universe by Encanto. And Jacob passed along a representative memento of his recent West Coast trip: the humble (and ubiquitous) skateboard rack.

Here are a few other articles and items we discussed, in no particular order:

  • Alex Iftimie's 2021 Lawfare article "No Server Left Behind," on the Justice Department's strategy of removing malware from private servers;
  • Ahmed Ghappour's 2017 Stanford Law Review article "Searching Places Unknown" on federal law enforcement jurisdiction in the cyber realm;
  • Carol Leonnig’s book on the Secret Service, "Zero Fail.”

Jen Patja is the editor and producer of The Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Alan Z. Rozenshtein is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, a senior editor at Lawfare, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he served as an Attorney Advisor with the Office of Law and Policy in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.
Quinta Jurecic is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a senior editor at Lawfare. She previously served as Lawfare's managing editor and as an editorial writer for the Washington Post.
Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
Jacob Schulz is the former managing editor of Lawfare. He previously served as deputy managing editor and associate editor. He hails from Pennylvania and attended Amherst College.

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