Civil Liberties
1,368 Articles
Episode 49 of the National Security Law Podcast: Interrogation, Detention, Prosecution, and Targeting
In this week’s episode, Bobby Chesney and I pick up the thread on a handful of familiar issues, and introduce a few new ones as well. Interrogation: The topic is a blend,…
The House Intelligence Committee’s Section 702 Markup Was a Politicized Debacle
On Dec. 1, 2017, the House Intelligence Committee took the unusual step of holding an open markup of its bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance…
Incomplete Justice: The Officer Who Killed Walter Scott Should Have Gotten Life Behind Bars
On Thursday, Michael Slager, a former police officer with the North Charleston, S.C. Police Department, was sentenced to twenty years in federal prison—not life imprisonment.…
Responding to the Myths About Reforming FISA’s Section 702
Image: National Security Agency headquarters, Fort Meade, Md. As the New Year’s deadline for reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) approaches,…
Warrantless Backdoor Searches are Not “Business as Usual”
This week, Just Security ran two posts, one by Matt Olsen and one by Asha Rangappa, defending the government’s warrantless access to Americans’ communications obtained “incidentally”…
The Supreme Court May Be Ready to Further Limit Warrantless Access to Communications
Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Carpenter v. United States, a case involving the privacy of cell phone location information. At issue is whether the government…
Episode 47 of the National Security Law Podcast: Donuts and Depth Charges
And…we’re back! Fresh off of Thanksgiving, Professor Chesney and I are (all too) fired up to discuss the latest national security law news (not to mention a bunch of stuff…
Where Does the Trump Administration Stand on Encryption?
The circumstances are familiar: a deceased criminal, a locked phone, a determined FBI and a defiant tech company. After Devin Kelley murdered 26 people at the Sutherland Springs…
Extreme Vetting by Algorithm
Last week, a group of machine learning and data mining experts wrote to the acting secretary of DHS urging her to reconsider an automated Extreme Vetting Initiative being proposed…
Episode 46 of the National Security Law Podcast: The $15 Million Dollar Man
In this week’s episode, your devoted hosts dig into a bonanza of national security law odds-and-ends. First up is an en banc decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance…
How the Trump Administration Deals With Detainees Can Provide Insight Into its Counterterrorism Priorities
What is the US going to do with the “enemy combatants” it picks up during counterterrorism operations? How will we strike the difficult balance between protecting national…
The USA Liberty Act — aka Don’t Let the Constitutional be the Enemy of the Unconstitutional
The House Judiciary Committee has completed its markup of a major surveillance reform bill intended to better protect Americans’ privacy and enhance transparency. Responding…