Civil Liberties
1,474 Articles
Extending Privacy Protections to Foreigners Will Benefit Americans
I wanted to add a few thoughts to Ryan Goodman’s post outlining policy arguments for and against giving foreigners the same privacy protections enjoyed by Americans (at least…
A Cult of Rules: The Origins of Legalism in the Surveillance State
Editor’s note: this post is a preview of ideas raised in an upcoming article by the author, Intelligence Legalism and the National Security Agency’s Civil Liberties Gap,…
National Security Politics in the 114th Congress
Last September, I wrote a post exploring whether some of the congressional reactions to the Snowden disclosures might have been portents of a coming political realignment on national…
2014 Congressional Midterms and Surveillance Reform: Races to Watch
This is the first of two posts discussing the future of surveillance reform after the 2014 midterms. The second post is available here. The high water mark for NSA reforms in the…
Should Foreign Nationals Get the Same Privacy Protections under NSA Surveillance–or Less (or More)?
When it comes to mass surveillance, should foreign nationals in foreign territory be afforded the same privacy protections as one’s own nationals? According to a recent report…
My Agenda as New UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression
This past June, the UN Human Rights Council appointed me special rapporteur on the protection and promotion of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, effective August…
Ottawa’s Aftermath: Legislate in Haste, Repent in Leisure
Editors’ Note: The following post is the eighth installment of a new feature, “Monday Reflections,” in which a different Just Security editor will take an in-depth look…
Decision on Secret Evidence by the European Court of Human Rights Worth Noting
Two European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) cases decided in July 2014 bring some clarity to the utility and compatibility of secret evidence with international human rights standards.…
Apple, Boyd, and Going Dark
Apple’s recent announcement that it will encrypt its newest iPhones is again pushing to the fore the question of whether the law should be updated to require companies to have…
Military Commissions After Guantánamo
This Wednesday morning at 9:30 (EDT), a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit (Henderson, Rogers, & Tatel, JJ.) will hear oral argument in al Bahlul v. United States–a Guantánamo…
“Just looking for loopholes…”
…is what W. C. Fields supposedly said when someone found him leafing through the Bible. Apparently some lawyers in the Obama administration are following Fields’s lead,…
EU-Funded Study: Electronic Mass Surveillance Fails – Drastically
(This article presents the results of research by the SURVEILLE [Surveillance: Ethical Issues, Legal Limitations, and Efficiency] consortium, a European Union-funded multidisciplinary…