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This week on Rational Security, Alan and Quinta were joined again by Brookings Senior Fellow and Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Reynolds to talk over the week\u2019s national security news, including:

• \u201cThe 702nd Time\u2019s the Charm?\u201d Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was originally set to expire on December 31, 2023. But somehow, Congress has managed to keep kicking the can down the road\u2014and we\u2019re once again in the middle of an argument about whether and to what extent the legislature should reform the bulk surveillance authority. How did we end up here, and is there any indication that Congress will manage to pass a lasting reauthorization in some form this time around?
• \u201cMagic Mike.\u201d Speaker of the House Mike Johnson\u2019s troubles don\u2019t stop with FISA, however. He\u2019s also tangled up in a prolonged dispute with his caucus over the U.S. aid to Ukraine\u2014which is becoming a matter of rapidly increasing urgency, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warning that his country \u201cwill lose the war\u201d if the aid is not approved. Johnson now says he\u2019ll put his own aid package on the table, still tying that aid to another tranche of aid to Israel. But will the House actually vote this time, or is this just another head fake?
• \u201cFinally, We Can Talk About Linux.\u201d A few weeks ago, a single software engineer alerted the world to an alarming discovery: malicious code inside a key piece of Linux software that, had it gone undetected, could have caused a catastrophic cyberattack. What on earth actually happened here? And what could stop it from happening again?

For object lessons, Alan recommended an adorable giraffe growth chart for keeping track of your child's height. Quinta took a cue from Molly and endorsed a podcast by a local NPR affiliate\u2014\u201cLost Patients,\u201d a series about mental health care from KUOW and the Seattle Times. And Molly shared a story about misprinted pens from the Clinton impeachment trial, as told in Peter Baker\u2019s book "The Breach."

Other references from this week\u2019s show:

• A chart explaining how dark it gets during a total solar eclipse
• Bruce Schneier\u2019s Lawfare article about the XZ Utils backdoor

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