Joshua R. Fattal on Fighting Disinformation with the Foreign Agents Registration Act
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2020
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Lawfare’s Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Joshua R. Fattal about a fascinating law review article he’s written: “FARA on Facebook: Modernizing the Foreign Agents Registration Act to Address Propagandists on Social Media.” The Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA, is an American law that requires lobbyists for foreign entities to register with the Justice Department. It made the headlines when Special Counsel Robert Mueller claimed that Russians spreading social media disinformation around the 2016 election failed to register under the law. Josh argues that Mueller’s indictments represent an innovative new use of FARA—and he suggests that the law could offer a mechanism for the U.S. government to address disinformation campaigns.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | There's been a 40% increase in registrations since 2014 and many lobbyists today I think |
| 0:43.1 | are feeling pressure to register themselves ahead of time not to get in trouble after |
| 0:49.1 | the fact and so registrations have become a lot more common. |
| 0:52.7 | But I think it's interesting to note that we all hear so much about Russia being a foreign |
| 0:59.2 | influence actor these days and when you search the DOJ's FARRA registry which anyone can |
| 1:05.8 | do and locate and identify who is registered and who hasn't, the number of registrations |
| 1:11.7 | from Russia is in the single digits. |
| 1:15.2 | And so it does take the question of whether all those who actually should be registering |
| 1:20.3 | are. |
| 1:21.3 | I'm Quintajeresic and this is the LawFair podcast March 12, 2020. |
| 1:31.2 | This week on LawFair's Arbiters of Truth Series on Disinformation, I've one to whack |
| 1:35.6 | and I spoke with Joshua R. Fatal about a fascinating lower U-article he's written. |
| 1:40.7 | FARRA on Facebook, modernizing the Foreign Agents Registration Act to address propagandists |
| 1:46.7 | on social media. |
| 1:49.3 | The Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARRA, is an American law that requires |
| 1:53.7 | lobbyists for foreign entities to register with the Justice Department. |
| 1:58.0 | It made the headlines recently when special counsel Robert Mueller claimed that Russian spreading |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.