The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
Technology and Terror
Episode 475 of the Cyberlaw Podcast
Today's episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast begins, as it must, with Saturday's appalling Hamas attack on Israeli civilians. I ask Adam Hickey and Paul Rosenzweig, both with long histories in counterterrorism, to comment on the attack and what lessons the U.S. should draw from it, whether in terms of revitalized intelligence programs or the need for workable defenses against drone attacks.
In other news, Adam covers the disturbing prediction that the U.S. and China have a fifty percent chance of armed conflict in the next five years – and the supply chain consequences of increasing conflict. Meanwhile, Western companies who were hoping to sit the conflict out may not be given the chance. Adam also covers the related EU effort to assess risks posed by four key technologies.
Paul and I share our doubts about the Red Cross's effort to impose ethical guidelines on hacktivists in war. Not that we needed to; the hacktivists seem perfectly capable of expressing their doubts on their own.
The Fifth Circuit has expanded its injunction against the U.S. government, prohibiting the White House and several agencies from encouraging or coercing social media to suppress "disinformation." Adam, who oversaw FBI efforts to counter foreign disinformation, takes a different view of the facts than the Fifth Circuit. In the same vein, we note a recent paper from two former Facebook content moderators who say that government jawboning of social media really does work (as if you had any doubts).
Paul comments on the EU vulnerability disclosure proposal and the hostile reaction it has attracted from some sensible people.
Adam and I find value in an op-ed that explains the camps locked in a weird war, not over whether to regulate AI but over how and why.
And, finally, Paul mourns yet another step in Apple's step-by-step surrender to Chinese censorship and social control.
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