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Rational Security: The 'Wickedly Talented Adele Dazeem' Edition

Jen Patja, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Quinta Jurecic, Scott R. Anderson, Shane Harris
Sunday, March 26, 2023, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
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This week, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined for a special episode by the most glamorous of RatSec co-hosts emeritus, Shane Harris, to hand out some Academy Awards for events in national security over the past year.

The nominees include:

For “Best Make-Up” (i.e., what was the year’s most memorable apology?):

For “Best Score” (i.e., who came away as the year’s most unexpected winner?):

For “Best Supporting Actor” (non-state actor, that is) (i.e., which non-governmental figure had the most oversized role on the national security stage this year?):

For “Best Actor” (i.e., which world leader left their mark on the world stage this past year?): 

For object lessons, Alan recommended the Twitter account @hamcarless for those who want to see some of the potential of AI image generation (or just see the Founding Fathers with face tattoos). Quinta passed along a note of pride in her hometown institution of Princeton University, which is officially the first Ivy League institution to have a student arrested for participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Scott dug into his record collection again and—at the recommendation of the Sound Opinion guys—urged listeners to check out the huge back catalogue of Yo La Tengo cover songs for some real gems (as well as their new album). And, staying on theme, Shane endorsed Michael Schulman's book "Oscar Wars," which gives a thorough history of the contest around the real Academy Awards.


Topics:
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.
Shane Harris has written about intelligence, security and foreign policy for more than two decades. He is a staff writer with The Washington Post, covering U.S. intelligence agencies and national security. He was part of the team that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for stories about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the presidential election. In 2019, he was part of the team that was a finalist for the Public Service award for coverage of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Shane has previously been a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Beast, and National Journal. He is the author of two books, "The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State" (Penguin Press, 2010) and "@War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex" (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014). He frequently appears on national and international television and radio. He is also a co-host of the weekly podcast "Chatter." Shane graduated from Wake Forest University in 1998. He lives in Washington.

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