Civil Liberties
1,459 Articles
Top Human Rights Lawyers’ Views on Trump’s Human Rights Record
“Human rights are at a nadir in Egypt,” wrote Human Rights Watch on the eve of President Donald Trump’s Monday meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at the…
Trump’s Islamophobic Record Provides Backdrop for New Counterterrorism Policies
Every one of the 10 airports targeted by the new “laptop ban,” issued last week by the Department of Homeland Security, is located in a Muslim-majority country. Unsurprisingly,…
Reforming Surveillance In the Age of Donald Trump
Above: An NSA site in Germany. On Wednesday, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes (R-CA), gave a press conference in which he reported that Trump…
President Trump’s Campaign Promises Stick with Us—They should stick with him, too
The ongoing travel ban litigation has triggered intense debate on whether an assessment of the ban’s constitutionality must be limited to the “four corners” of President…
Incidental Collection Is Extremely Troubling, Regardless of Legality
A lot of ink has been spilled over statements by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes that President Trump’s communications were incidentally collected pursuant to a surveillance…
Drawing a Line on Mass Surveillance: How Congress Must Reform Section 702
RAF Menwith Hill in the United Kingdom, host to U.S. National Security Agency facilities. On Monday, members of the House Intelligence Committee held an open hearing into Russian…
Judge Gorsuch and Executive Power
I’ll be testifying tomorrow before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Judge Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court. I intend to focus on Judge Gorsuch’s tenure at the…
Preventing an Aerial Panopticon Over American Cities
A Defense Department slide showing the development of aerial surveillance systems. The following is an abbreviated version of “Preventing an Air Panopticon: A Proposal for Reasonable…
Whitewashing Guantánamo
President Trump has made no secret of his desire to continue–if not affirmatively re-invigorate–the detention of non-citizen terrorism suspects at Guantánamo. That’s…
Encryption Backdoors, Vault 7, and the Jurassic Park Rule of Internet Security
Surely without a hint of irony, just a day after WikiLeaks dumped a vault-load of documents detailing the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of hacking tools and software exploits,…
The “Travel Ban” Executive Order as Separation-of-Powers Test Case
The White House’s March 6 executive order “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States” (the March EO or the new EO) is a telling blend…
Three Problems with President Trump’s Guantánamo Tweet
In case you missed it, this morning’s tweetstorm from the White House began with this missive: 122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have…