In this short video, Lord Martin Rees—the British astrophysicist and cosmologist–gives a brief and elegant statement of the problem Gabriella Blum and I have been writing a book about: the dissemination of radically-empowering technologies to small groups and individuals. … Read more »
Ken Anderson and I have just published a new policy paper through the Hoover Institution: Law and Ethics for Autonomous Weapon Systems: Why a Ban Won’t Work and How the Laws of War Can.
Our paper begins:
Public debate
In the President’s State of the Union Address, President Obama spent a fair amount of time on foreign policy and Lawfare-related matters. In addition to announcing his cybersecurity executive order, he discussed draw-down plans for Afghanistan, how to deal … Read more »
The ICRC, on its blog Intercross, has responded to a pair of recent articles in Slate on weapons. It’s an interesting exchange—well worth a look.
First, Slate ran this piece by Brad Allenby and Carolyn Mattick entitled, “Why We Need … Read more »
Last week, Human Rights Watch (along with the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic) published a report titled “Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots.” It argues for a preemptive prohibition by multilateral treaty on the development and use … Read more »
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, my friend Orin Kerr has a fascinating post on the case of US v. Stanley. It isn’t strictly cybersecurity but the case itself is still worth reading. For those who want a quick summary:… Read more »
Most of the press coverage of the Lawfare Drone Smackdown has focused, understandably enough, on the FAA’s intervention in the event. In this post, however, I want to focus on some of the lessons of the event itself. The Smackdown … Read more »
A drone has gone missing in Washington. No, not a Predator or a Reaper—and not one of the drones that is gearing up for the Lawfare Drone Smackdown. And no, not @drunkenpredator on his latest binge. It’s just some … Read more »
The Defense Science Board recently issued a new study on The Role of Autonomy in DoD Systems. Spencer Ackerman has a good story summarizing and explaining its conclusions:
The Pentagon’s science advisers want military robots to operate with far
Pepperdine law professor Greg McNeal, whose work Lawfare follows closely, is attending the 2012 North America exhibition of the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (#AUVSI) in Las Vegas and live-tweeting it – you can follow him at @GregMcNeal. Fascinating … Read more »
I just received a very interesting email from Major John Harwood, USAF, whom I met recently at the MILOPS Conference in Singapore, in response to my post this morning about the coming Drone Smackdown:
I love the Drone Smackdown,
I’m not too surprised by the negative reaction provoked by my post over the weekend about my coming drone duel with Alice Beauheim. It was a cheeky, flip post on a very serious subject—as several people have pointed out in … Read more »
Gabriella Blum has a new essay out entitled, “Invisible Threats.” Part of the Emerging Threats series of the Hoover Institution’s Koret-Taube Task Force on National Security and Law (of which Jack, Ken, Matt, and I am are all … Read more »
I missed this super-interesting speech by CIA Director David Petraeus on the relationship between technological change and the transformation, along many dimensions, of intelligence. (The speech was delivered at the In-Q-Tel CEO Summit in March.) A flavor:
[T]ransformational changes in
Over at the Empty Wheel blog, The Estimable Ms. Wheel critiques my critique of Friedersdorf and Krauthammer on domestic drones from earlier today–and she has a point which warrants a somewhat-mortified clarification from me.
In my post–responding to the … Read more »
As Raffaela noted earlier, Atlantic blogger Conor Friedersdorf has written in praise (sort of) of conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer for the latter’s opposition to domestic drones. I would consider this a heartwarming example of a cross-ideological meeting of the … Read more »
We’re pleased to note that our new essay, Law and Ethics for Robot Soldiers, has been posted to SSRN. The essay’s fundamental point is that lethal autonomous weapons systems – the “robot soldiers” of our title – are going … Read more »
In September, a team of Dutch virologists announced that they had created a strain of the avian influenza (H5N1) that, at least in lab animals, was as contagious as the seasonal flu. (A team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has … Read more »
Jubair Ahmad, a Pakistani man residing in the United States who created and uploaded an LeT propoganda video at LeT’s request, has pled guilty to violating the 1996 material support statute, 18 USC 2339B. Details from the press release follow:… Read more »
During the early months of the Arab Spring phenomenon, there was much discussion of the role that technology played in undermining the capacity of authoritarian regimes to suppress political dissent. Social media platforms and ubiquitous smart phones (or at least … Read more »
Thomas Barnett has an interesting post at Battleland playing off Thom Shanker’s piece in the Times today regarding biometrics and security in Afghanistan. Barnett’s point: such measures are more likely to be introduced over time at home if they are … Read more »
As part of my blood oath to spend the next few years writing on subjects other than detention, I have just released this paper on the inadequacy of privacy as a conceptual framework for regulating personal digital information. The paper … Read more »
A new essay of mine appears in the Hoover Institution’s publication, Defining Ideas. The essay is adapted from the chapter I wrote in the book “Rules for Growth” published by the Kauffman Task Force on Law, Innovation and Growth. It … Read more »
Friday, May 17, 2013
The Department of Justice’s Inspector General released an interim report on the Department’s handling of “known or suspected” terrorists who have entered the government’s witness protection program. The report found, among other things, that information on some program participants had not been turned over to no-fly list authorities; and, that two such people could not be located—though one… Read more »
