Paul Rosenzweig is the founder of Red Branch Consulting PLLC, a homeland security consulting company and a Senior Fellow at the R Street Institute. He is also a Senior Advisor to The Chertoff Group. Mr. Rosenzweig formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Homeland Security. He is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University and a Board Member of the Journal of National Security Law and Policy.
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The spending bill authorizes the Pentagon to create procurement pathways in which software can be purchased in less than a year. If effectively implemented, the change would be dramatic.
As is my annual custom, this song is both thanks to all those who serve our country and a reminder of why they serve—to "secure the blessings of liberty." This year, with so much strife in the world, it seems worth remembering those who sacrifice for our nation.
My best wishes to all Lawfare readers for a warm and wonderful holiday season and a happy new year.
Announcing an annotated partial bibliography of publicly available cybersecurity measurement methodologies.
Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI who was uncharitably fired the day before his intended retirement, has been under criminal investigation for more than a year—some say at the inappropriate insistence of President Trump. McCabe may recently have received a bit of good news.
President Trump, in his zeal to complete a border wall before the next election, has reportedly told his staff to disregard the law—in this specific instance, to take private property without due process—and not worry about the consequences.
Cybersecurity is a bit like obscenity. It seems that we know it when we see it, but we have a great deal of difficulty describing it, categorizing it or counting it. Much as with obscenity, there are some obvious answers on which all can agree—having an “internet of things” system with a hard-coded password of “123456” is insecure by any measure—but there is a vast gray area in between the poles where tradeoffs, cost-benefit assessments, and issues of practicality and scalability lurk.
In a remarkable interview with Axios on HBO, Jared Kushner, a senior adviser in the White House (and, coincidentally, the president's son-in-law), made a number of notable statements. Among them is his ambivalence regarding how he might handle a Russian approach (akin to the infamous Trump Tower meeting) if it were to happen again.