Latest in Lawfare
Lawfare will be breaking with tradition by not posting an April Fool’s Day joke this year. We just couldn’t come up with anything so silly and clearly factually inaccurate that there was no chance anyone at the White House would take it seriously. We didn't want to risk sparking a crisis.
Yesterday, FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Russian interference in the U.S. election for an exhausting five and a half hours. They made a lot of news, but there were also a lot of refusals to comment and speeches made by members of the Committee. So we've cut down their testimony to less than an hour, giving you only what you need to know.
This morning, Emily Bazelon of the New York Times Magazine wrote a thoughtful profile of Lawfare: “How a Wonky National-Security Blog Hit the Big Time.” The piece reflects some of the wild year we’ve had at Lawfare, as our writers have grappled with what President Trump’s campaign, election, and administration mean for hard national security choices.
I’m excited to announce that we are now accepting applications for a new Associate Editor at Lawfare. If you have ever thought to yourself, “I want to be Quinta Jurecic when I grow up,” this is your chance.
No, Quinta’s not going anywhere. We’re expanding. Over the last few months, Lawfare has seen an enormous increase both in our readership and in the volume of material we publish on the site. This growth necessitates staff growth.
Yesterday morning, I had pleasure of speaking to the great Ira Glass of This American Life about my piece on President Trump’s executive order on refugees and visas. Later on, Glass sent me a lovely note about Lawfare: “On Saturday I stumbled across your analysis of the Executive Order banning people from seven countries. Two days later you were the first to post the State Department dissent.
If you are one of the many readers who has donated to Lawfare this year, I want to take this opportunity to thank you. Your support means a great deal to us as we continue to grow. This year has seen astonishing growth at Lawfare, a matter I'll detail in my New Year's post, but suffice it for now to say that we continue—organizationally speaking—to chase the tiger whose tail we grabbed with this project years ago. Your support makes a huge difference in our ability to stay agile, stay growing, and continue to experiment with new features and new content streams.
Has Lawfare changed? It turns out quite a few people think so, judging both by the private messages that have been coming to the founders of the site (me, Jack, and Ben) and by the post that Brett Max Kaufman put up at Just Security earlier today. The perceived change pleases some and disappoints others.
Last week, the courts once again restricted the ability of terrorism victims to collect compensation, this time on grounds of personal jurisdiction.
Recap
Today is Lawfare's sixth birthday.
The years since we launched this site have been a wild ride. Lawfare continues to grow in readership and in the diversity, scope, and volume of its content offerings. What began as a small blog of three friends and colleagues has evolved into a full-featured digital magazine. Lawfare's success is in no small part a function of its thoughtful and engaged readership. Thank you to all our readers for helping to make Lawfare what it is.
If you've noticed any slowness in Lawfare's performance this morning, the reason is another denial of service attacks.