In an amicus brief written in defense of computer expert and hacker Andrew Auernheimer, Jennifer Granick and Jonathan Mayer argue that independent security testing of websites strengthen user privacy. Auernheimer, known online as weev, was convicted of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) by acquiring AT&T's private user information without permission through a privacy flaw in AT&T's website.

Granick and Mayer claim that Auernheimer used the same techniques as legally-operating security and privacy research firms, and that this independent testing can expose security and privacy flaws that businesses would otherwise not disclose publicly. 

In this piece for Foreign Affairs, CISAC's Thomas Hegghammer and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Aaron Zelin estimate that violence in Syria will skyrocket due to an influx of foreign fighters. 

Egyptian theologian and top Sunni cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi called for Sunni Muslims worldwide to fight in Syria against Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah, and Shiite influence. Qaradawi's call, echoed by other prominent Sunni theologians, could inflame tensions and political differences across the region, and flood Syria with even more foreign fighters. Hegghammer and Zelin estimate that Syria has over 5,000 Sunni foreign fighters, the second-largest foreign-fighter destination in the history of modern Islamism, and that the number is slated to double in the near future.  

CISAC Affiliate and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists columnist Pavel Podvig argues that the United States could begin reducing its nuclear weapons arsenals unilaterally, without negotiating another arms control treaty first. Russia has signaled that it will only concede to a new round of arms control negotiations if certain criteria are met, which would stall the negotiations process. According to Podvig, a unilateral U.S. reduction would force Russia to decide whether it wants to remain an equal partner in the arms control process, or allow the United States to take its own nuclear path. 

Abstract:

The paper summarizes and evaluates our current understanding of relations between democracy and economic growth and analyzes the mechanisms of the causality from democracy to growth. Specific features of democracy - civil liberties; elections; protection of minorities; peaceful transition of power; and accountability of the government - have set the framework for explaining the mechanism of influence. These mechanisms include: political stability and predictability; distortion of economic institutions; public sector size; investments in human capital; rule of law; economic inequalities and compulsory redistribution; and investments in physical capital. Although some countervailing effects of democracy to growth have been identified in almost every mechanism specified it is evident that on the margin democracy is more likely to be beneficial to economic growth compared with autocracies. The strongest mechanism of positive effect is rule of law. Reverse causality from growth to democracy was recorded with a policy implication that fast-growing autocracies are not politically sustainable in the long run. Democratization does not produce linear effects to economic growth. Nonetheless, the type of the relation is still unclear. The paper ends with the conjecture that democracy is more important to economic growth at higher levels of economic development.

Abstract

The Lavon Affair, a failed Israeli covert operation directed against Egypt in 1954, triggered a chain of events that have had profound consequences for power relationships in the Middle East; the affair’s effects still reverberate today. Those events included a public trial and conviction of eight Egyptian Jews who carried out the covert operation, two of whom were subsequently executed; a retaliatory military incursion by Israel into Gaza that killed 39 Egyptians; a subsequent Egyptian–Soviet arms deal that angered American and British leaders, who then withdrew previously pledged support for the building of the Aswan Dam; the announced nationalization of the Suez Canal by Nasser in retaliation for the withdrawn support; and the subsequent failed invasion of Egypt by Israel, France, and Britain in an attempt to topple Nasser. In the wake of that failed invasion, France expanded and accelerated its ongoing nuclear cooperation with Israel, which eventually enabled the Jewish state to build nuclear weapons.

The University of Virginia's Christopher Jon Sprigman and CISAC's Jennifer Granick reveal how foreigners living in the United States do not have the same privacy protections as U.S. citizens, and are frequently subjected to legal wiretapping of e-mail, phone calls, and other electronic activity. They argue that amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reworded language to allow for surveillance of any foreigner as long as it relates to foreign affairs. 

In this op-ed for The New York Times, CISAC Affiliate Jennifer Granick and University of Virginia Professor Christopher Jon Sprigman posit that the twin revelations that telecom carries have been secretly giving the National Security Agency information about Americans' phone calls and that the NSA has been capturing emails and private communications from Internet companies violate both the letter and the spirit of federal law.