Publications

Theranos: How a broken patent system sustained its decade-long deception

Author(s): 
Daniel Nazer
Publication Date: 
March 4, 2019
Publication Type: 
Other Writing

When Patent Office Director Michelle Lee gave that speech, Theranos appeared to be one of the most impressive companies in Silicon Valley. But later that year, the public learned that Holmes hadn’t “proven” anything. Whistleblowers told The Wall Street Journal that Theranos wasn’t even using its own devices for most of its blood testing. Holmes had apparently spent more than a decade building a company based on unrealistic or outright false claims about its revolutionary technology.

How Trump speaks like a mob boss

Author(s): 
Henry Farrell
Publication Date: 
February 28, 2019
Publication Type: 
Other Writing

In Michael Cohen’s testimony Wednesday, he said President Trump “doesn’t give orders. He speaks in code. And I understand that code.” James Gagliano, a former member of the FBI’s organized crime squad, has said on Twitter that he couldn’t “begin to number” the amount of cooperating witnesses who described the orders that they got from mob bosses using similar language. This way of operating descends from the Mafia, which has its roots in Sicily.

Your Speech, Their Rules: Meet the People Who Guard the Internet

Author(s): 
Alex Feerst
Publication Date: 
February 27, 2019
Publication Type: 
Other Writing

When Facebook started 15 years ago, it didn’t set out to adjudicate the speech rights of 2.2 billion people. Twitter never asked to decide which of the 500 million tweets posted each day are jokes and which are hate speech. YouTube’s early mission wasn’t to determine if a video shot on someone’s phone is harmless speculation, dangerous conspiracy theory, or information warfare by a foreign government. Content platforms set out to get rid of expression’s gatekeepers, not become them.

Trump may be about to call Europe’s bluff on Iran. Europe isn’t bluffing.

Author(s): 
Henry Farrell
Publication Date: 
February 25, 2019
Publication Type: 
Other Writing

Last Friday, the editorial board of Bloomberg Opinion condemned Europe’s new INSTEX arrangement, a so-called Special Purpose Vehicle set up to allow European companies to engage in humanitarian trade with Iran, despite the renewal of U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic. This arrangement — which was set up by Germany, France and the United Kingdom — has made the United States very unhappy.

FBI's human rights investigators critical to prosecuting 'atrocity crimes'

Author(s): 
Beth Van Schaack
Publication Date: 
February 22, 2019
Publication Type: 
Other Writing

For over seven decades, the United States has stood as the cornerstone of a rules-based global system that arose from the ashes of World War II, organizing and leading a united group of nations as they held major violators to account at international tribunals convened in Nuremberg and Tokyo.

How far should organizations be able to go to defend against cyberattacks?

Author(s): 
Scott Shackelford
Publication Date: 
February 15, 2019
Publication Type: 
Other Writing

The deluge of cyberattacks sweeping across the world has governments and companies thinking about new ways to protect their digital systems, and the corporate and state secrets stored within. For a long time, cybersecurity experts have erected firewalls to keep out unwanted traffic and set up decoy targets on their networks to distract hackers who do get in.

Submission to PJCIS Regarding Assistance and Access Act

Author(s): 
Riana Pfefferkorn
Publication Date: 
February 14, 2019
Publication Type: 
Other Writing

Submission to Australia's Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) regarding its review of the Assistance and Access Act that had passed into law in early December 2018.

EXCLUSIVE: FBI’s War Crimes Unit on the Chopping Block

Author(s): 
Beth Van Schaack
Publication Date: 
February 10, 2019
Publication Type: 
Other Writing

[UPDATED] A special unit within the Federal Bureau of Investigation that handles war crimes may be shut down imminently, according to officials familiar with the administration’s decision-making process. The FBI’s International Human Rights Unit takes the lead on investigating individuals within the United States who have been accused of committing international crimes, including war crimes, torture, genocide, female genital mutilation, and the recruitment of child soldiers.

People used to joke about ‘Democrats in disarray.’ They’re not joking now.

Author(s): 
Henry Farrell
Publication Date: 
January 30, 2019
Publication Type: 
Other Writing

The comedian Will Rogers famously joked: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” Until relatively recently, neither Republicans nor Democrats were particularly organized. Instead, they were loose coalitions of politicians with very different ideologies. Sam Rosenfeld is an assistant professor at Colgate University.

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