Civil Liberties
1,474 Articles
UK Prime Minister David Cameron unveils new counter-terrorism measures
Citing the threat posed by the “creation of an Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and Syria and the Islamist-extremist export of terrorism on which it is based,” UK Prime Minister David…
FISC OKs Section 215 Investigations of Americans, Despite First Amendment
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court declassified an opinion today which, although highly redacted, illuminates the way at least one Judge is interpreting his mandate to…
Hope for Yemeni Detainees?
Over at Politico, Josh Gerstein reports that the Obama administration has broken its self-imposed suspension of transfers to Yemen and sent two long-term detainees from U.S. military…
Intercept Reporting Raises Broader Metadata Minimization Question
Does the NSA minimize Americans metadata? Today’s reporting by the Intercept calls into question whether the NSA minimizes so-called metadata relating to Americans’ digital…
James Foley and the Hostage Act
Some commentators have suggested that the newly disclosed special forces operation to rescue James Foley may have lacked congressional authorization, thereby further underscoring…
Executive Order 12333, Notice, and the Due Process Rights of Criminal Defendants
In a world of electronic surveillance and secret searches, notice is more essential than ever. Notice allows criminal defendants to test whether the government’s evidence was,…
How Not to Authorize Force Against ISIS: A Response to Jack Goldsmith
Over at Lawfare, Jack Goldsmith appears to suggest that President Obama’s decision to authorize limited uses of force in Iraq underscores the need for an open-ended congressional…
Judge Bates (Unintentionally) Makes the Case for FISC Reform
Whatever one thinks of the Senate version of the USA FREEDOM Act–which offers a series of substantive and procedural reforms to U.S. surveillance programs–it is now…
Deferential D.C. Circuit Upholds Genital Searches at Guantánamo
I’ve written before about the potential significance of the Guantánamo “counsel access” case—Hatim v. Obama–which raised the question of whether…
Updated developments regarding FAA Section 702 and related matters
I’ve published a couple of posts here tracking some of the more important recent developments respecting Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. This post is an…
New Report on the Costs of NSA Surveillance
On the same day Senator Leahy introduced an updated USA FREEDOM Act [and don’t miss Jennifer Granick’s analysis of the bill], the New America Foundation‘s Open…
Sen. Leahy’s Latest NSA Bill: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
This morning, Senator Patrick Leahy released a new version of the USA Freedom Act, a bill intended to reform NSA surveillance following Edward Snowden’s revelations that the…