Rid and Toler on the Latest Megaleak
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 April 2023
⏱️ 49 minutes
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Summary
Thomas Rid is a Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Aric Toler is the Director of Research and Training at Bellingcat. Both have been writing about the latest megaleak out of the U.S. national security establishment, a story that the New York Times reported on last week and that gets weirder and weirder every day that passes. Rid has been tweeting about the subject, and Toler is the author of a major investigation for Bellingcat on it.
Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with them to talk about the strange details of the leak: the Discord servers, the Minecraft servers, the weird group of gamers who are by their own account a bit racist, the huge damage to both U.S. and Ukrainian national security interests, and that the leak appears to be a big win for Russia, even though Russia doesn't appear to be behind it.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
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| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | I assume he's just trying to flex, right? |
| 0:33.0 | He's trying to show off to his two-ish, again, that sounds bizarre. |
| 0:37.0 | He's basically his teenage friend, because he's playing Call of Duty in Halo. |
| 0:41.0 | He's the most of the teenagers, and you know, get people younger than he was. |
| 0:45.0 | So it's kind of very bizarre. |
| 0:47.0 | I think it's just a sample. |
| 0:49.0 | It's like, I have this forbidden fruit. |
| 0:51.0 | Don't you want to taste of it, too? |
| 0:53.0 | Don't you want to see it? Don't you want to know that I can access this? |
| 0:56.0 | And don't you want to see it, too? |
| 0:58.0 | I'm Benjamin Widis, and this is the LawFair podcast, April 12, 2023. |
| 1:06.0 | Tom Ridd is a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. |
| 1:15.0 | Eric Toller is the director of research and training at Bellingcat. |
| 1:21.0 | They are, in my opinion, the two people who've had the most interesting things to say about the latest mega leak out of the US National Security establishment. |
| 1:33.0 | You know the mega leak I'm talking about. |
| 1:36.0 | Giant story in the New York Times last week, and it gets weirder and weirder every day that goes on. |
... |
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