Jack Goldsmith and Ben Wittes on Lawfare Origins and 9/11
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 September 2021
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
More than 11 years ago. Bobby Chesney, Jack Goldsmith and Ben started a national security law blog called Lawfare. Focused, almost exclusively on issues related to the US government's reaction to 9/11 and the reactions to those government policies and the legal justifications for them in its early days, Lawfare was largely unknown to the general public outside of national security lawyers inside the U S government Lawfare didn't even have a podcast.
Jack and Ben joined me to talk through these origins of Lawfare, it's intimate connection to 9/11 and its aftermath, and the importance of analyzing these issues at the intersection of national security, law, and policy.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | And it was very important to us that we give them an outlet. |
| 0:37.0 | And so we had lots of great, serious substantive debates on LawFair |
| 0:41.0 | with a whole group of people that disagree with us. |
| 0:44.0 | And we thought that that was an important element of what we were trying to do, |
| 0:47.0 | which to have. |
| 0:48.0 | The only thing we insisted on was that the debates stay high-minded and not get personal. |
| 0:54.0 | And I think we achieved that. And it was really an important part of the culture of the site early on. |
| 1:00.0 | And I still think, till today, much more so than any site like this I can think of, |
| 1:04.0 | is that we did invite opposite respect. |
| 1:06.0 | There's lots of critics wanted to weigh in, and we gave them space to do so on the site. |
| 1:10.0 | I'm David Prius, and this is a special episode of the LawFair podcast, |
| 1:16.0 | September 13th, 2021. |
| 1:19.0 | More than 11 years ago, |
| 1:21.0 | Bobby Chesney, Jack Goldsmith, and Ben Wittis started a national security law blog called LawFair, |
| 1:28.0 | focused almost exclusively on issues related to the US government's reaction to 9-11, |
| 1:35.0 | and the reactions to those US government policies and the legal justifications for them. |
... |
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