Civil Liberties
1,361 Articles
Judge (Justice?) Merrick Garland & International Law
I recently had occasion to review the international law jurisprudence of Judge Merrick Garland as part of an evaluation prepared by the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee…
Whose World Is This?: US and UK Government Hacking
On both sides of the Atlantic, we are witnessing the dramatic expansion of government hacking powers. In the United States, a proposed amendment to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules…
The Encryption Debate: All Quiet on the Western Front?
The US war on encryption has quieted down recently. The San Bernardino and Brooklyn court cases concerning encrypted iPhones both ended this spring not with a bang, but with a…
Looking Back on the Pentagon Papers Decision
In a hallway of The New York Times offices, there is a framed copy of the Telex traffic between the Justice Department and The Times from June 1971 when the government demanded…
Donald Trump and the Ghosts of Joseph McCarthy
Following the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, presumptive Republican presidential nominee and celebrity businessman Donald Trump repeatedly implied that President…
Seven Myths Busted: FBI Surveillance and the NSL Expansion Vote in the Senate
Yesterday, the Senate failed to pass a motion to end debate and move to a final vote on a highly controversial amendment related to Internet records, which New America’s Open…
Disappointing DOD Inspector General Report on Pre-Publication Review
Editor’s note: This post also appears on Lawfare. Earlier this year, we wrote about the US Government’s broken pre-publication review process (see here, here, here, here, and…
Brexit and National Security
This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories from the previous week or looks…
FBI Guidelines Weaken Separation of Community Outreach and Intelligence Gathering Efforts
Community outreach programs are a staple of modern law enforcement, designed to build trust, address local concerns, and communicate effectively with the public — at least in…
Beware of the Emergency Exception Loophole in the Email Privacy Act
The Email Privacy Act, which passed the House 419-0, is slated for consideration in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week. The legislation updates the now 30-year old…
A Return to Torture? Unlikely
One could be forgiven for thinking that all signs point towards torture making a comeback. Calls for the resumption of torture have been disturbingly prominent in this year’s…
With Remote Hacking, the Government’s Particularity Problem Isn’t Going Away
Electronic surveillance succeeds because it is secret. When the government seeks to record “what is whispered in the closet,” in the words of Justice Brandeis, it must use…