Rational Security: The "Whale of a Tale" Edition

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This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Senior Editors Molly Roberts and Eric Columbus, and Contributing Editor Renée DiResta, to talk through the week’s big domestic news stories, including:“Signed, Sealed, Undelivered.” As the first mail ballots of the 2026 midterms go out this week, a fast-moving legal fight over President Trump’s effort to reshape mail-in voting is racing toward the Supreme Court. At issue is a new U.S. Postal Service rule—stemming from a Trump executive order—that requires states to submit absentee voters’ information to a federal portal before USPS will deliver their mail-in ballots. A federal ruling in Massachusetts blocked key parts of the rule last week, the administration is appealing, and a separate challenge is pending in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, an anonymous whistleblower in the U.S. Postal Service has come forward and warned that the hastily built portal it intends to use to vet mailed ballots is so untested and unforgiving that a single scanning error could stop tens of thousands of ballots from reaching voters. How did we get here? And what is it likely to mean for November’s election?“Meta Culpa.” Last week, Meta abruptly settled a landmark child-safety case midway through trial, agreeing to pay a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general as much as $17 billion and to overhaul how teenagers experience Instagram and Facebook. The proposed consent judgment—which has been approved by a federal judge in California—would require a default two-hour daily time limit for users under 18, a midnight-to-6 a.m. “night mode,” hidden “like” counts, stronger age checks, and a school-hours notification cutback, most of it locked in for a decade. It’s being billed as the largest big-tech settlement ever, but some children’s advocates are warning that its terms don’t touch the recommendation algorithms at the heart of the problem. Is this a turning point for social media regulation—or just a manageable cost of doing business?“Strictly Ballroom.” On Monday, a divided Supreme