The Cyberlaw Podcast

Stewart Baker, Michael Vatis, and Jason Weinstein discuss this week in NSA: The Senate Judiciary Committee has come up with a new version of the section 215 reform bill passed by the House; Glen Greeenwald discloses that the NSA has a limited intelligence sharing arrangement with Saudi Arabia; four senators express concern about NSA's overseas intelligence collection program; Sony settles its service-suspending hack for $15 million worth of free stuff for users; the 9/11 Commission issues a soft endorsement of "direct action" by private parties who are hacked; Vladimir Putin signs legislation to keep Russian data in Russia; The Washington Post explains that the FBI "Going Dark" is real; the President's plan to talk about drone privacy; and Congress votes to end DMCA protection for locked cell phones. In our second half we interview, Richard Danzig, former Navy Secretary, board member of the national security think-tank, The Center for a New American Security, and author of the paper Surviving on a Diet of Poisoned Fruit: Reducing the National Security Risks of America's Cyber Dependencies. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.

Direct download: Steptoe_Podcast_30.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:22pm EDT

 
Stewart Baker, Michael Vatis, and Jason Weinstein discuss this week in NSA: Snowden claims that NSA employees are circulating inappropriate pictures and Glen Greenwald reports that the Government Communications Headquarters has developed the ability to send spam and tamper with web polls; last week's UK data retention legislation has been passed into law; advocates of the right to be forgotten push for censorship of the forgotten; the Chinese government demands that Internet companies self-censor; the FBI is concerned Google's driverless cars could be used as ‘lethal weapons'; to prevent whistleblowers, the Veterans Administration claims that talking about patient mistreatment is a violation of patient privacy; FBI affidavit by Agent Noel Neeman on Chinese cyberespionage tactics and motivations; class action privacy issues move from West Virginia to Illinois; and Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declares that you can be forced to decrypt your files. In our second half we interview, Orin Kerr, computer crime law guru and professor of law at George Washington University. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.
Direct download: Steptoe_Podcast_29.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:37pm EDT

Stewart Baker and Maury Shenk discuss false claims that NSA has flagged the Linux Journal as an "extremist forum"; the UK has introduced new stopgap legislation to make sure it doesn't lose its data retention authority in the wake of an unfavorable ECJ decision, and to allow UK law enforcement to require foreign entities to turn over data under a warrant; the UK government has also proposed creating their own PCLOB; the Senate Intelligence Committee produces a cybersecurity information sharing bill as a bookend to the House's bill; and Russia has proposed their own data protection rule. In our second half we have our first repeat interviewee, David Medine, Chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). We discuss the 702 report and have a roundup of this week in NSA, including a discussion of Glenn Greenwald's disclosure of the Americans targeted by NSA and Bart Gellman's defense of his Washington Post article. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.

Direct download: Podcast_28_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:04pm EDT

Stewart Baker and Michael Vatis discuss this week in NSA: Glenn Greenwald decides not to expose individuals who are targeted for surveillance; The Washington Post reveals that "9 out of 10" targets in the NSA's datasets are non-targets; NSA Director Mike Rogers says that Snowden's thefts can be managed; the Seventh Circuit ruled that FISA intercepts cannot be routinely shown to defense counsel; Ellen Nakashima and Bart Gellman reveal that the NSA thinks it may have to gather foreign intelligence from every country in the world; government reports triggered by Snowden continue to multiply; Microsoft's fight with the US government over warrants for overseas data gets more support; Google continues to reveal how it is applying the right to be forgotten; New York's cyberbullying law is struck down; and the SEC has begun investigating network intrusions, starting with Target. In our second half we have an interview with David Heyman, former DHS Assistant Secretary for Policy. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.

Direct download: pc27_WM_CU.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:34pm EDT

Stewart Baker, Michael Vatis, and Jason Weinstein discuss this week in NSA: The Lofgren amendment, which prohibits NSA and CIA from asking a company to "alter its product or service to permit electronic surveillance;" NSA's bulk collection program is extended again; the Supreme Court's 9-0 decision in Riley, refusing to allow police to routinely search the cell phones carried by people they arrest; Facebook challenges 300+ search warrants on behalf of the targets; Wyndham files an appeal on the FTC's jurisdiction over Internet privacy and security; and Steptoe launches the Data Breach Toolkit. In our second half we have an interview with Dmitri Alperovich, CEO of Crowdstrike, a well-known incident response cybersecurity startup whose recent report introduced the world to another unit of the PLA hacking force - one that is quite distinct from unit 61398, which was exposed by Mandiant last year, six of whose members were indicted recently by the Justice Department.

Direct download: Episode_26.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:55am EDT

1