Latest in Election 2016
WikiLeaks founder and CEO Julian Assange might be nearing his final days in Ecuador’s London embassy, where he’s lived and worked since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden for rape charges or, potentia
Russian involvement in the US presidential election, as formally alleged by the Obama administration, represents a constitutional moment for state conduct in cyberspace. On the one hand, it could catalyze disruptive and potentially destabilizing activities on digital networks by nation-states. This scenario looks likely in the short term. On the other hand, this period could spur the creation of international instruments to regulate the behavior of states and their proxies, though a treaty, say, for the “peaceful uses of cyberspace,” is in any case many years away.
“We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its campaign aimed at the U.S. presidential election to future influence efforts in the United States,” says the U.S. intelligence community in the most important sentence in its dismayingly evidence-free report on Russian activities in the presidential election. But how is the United States going to check these future influence efforts?
Like many of you, I find myself unable to resist watching the debate this evening despite the fact that the last one actually left me felling physically ill. But I'm hoping to lighten the experience a bit this time around, with help from my students. I am teaching "Law of the Intelligence Community" this semester, and during a prior debate we had a good laugh talking about whether the words "702" might be uttered. So, today, we spent an entirely-inappropriate amount of time constructing a full-fledged bingo card for tonight's debate.
What is worse than the Federal government having actionable confidential information that it doesn't share with state and local governments, even though that information could assist them? How about sharing that information only to turn around and find that someone has taken it and leaked it to the press? It is hard to imagine a better way to stop the flow of useful information from the Federal government.