Civil Liberties
1,361 Articles
Engines of Liberty: How Civil Society Helped Restore Constitutional Rights in the Aftermath of 9/11
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…
Digital Disruption of Human Rights
Last week, we explored the conceptual challenges to the universal human rights framework that have been brought by digital technology. Today, we shift from conceptual to concrete…
Surveillance Oversight Should Be President-Proof, But We’re Still a Long Way Off
Last week, at an event co-hosted by Just Security and NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, the NSA’s Civil Liberties and Privacy Director Rebecca Richards dropped the ball. When…
FBI Discovers It Can Access That iPhone After All
Update: The FBI is now explicitly denying that the method described in this post is the one they’re planning to employ — so apparently my suspicion was mistaken and they…
Frank and Candid Conversations About Human Rights in Cuba
Yesterday was an historic day for US-Cuba relations. President Obama and almost 40 members of Congress, including both Republicans and Democrats, traveled to Havana for an unprecedented…
Trump and Torture
Presidential candidate Donald Trump has made headlines with his campaign promise to revive torture as a US government practice. First, with his signature bluster, Trump declared…
Justice Garland and National Security Accountability: What’s Missing from the Dueling Guantánamo Accounts
Not surprisingly, folks looking for interesting things to say about Chief Judge (and Supreme Court nominee) Merrick Garland’s jurisprudence during his 19-year tenure on the…
So Software Has Eaten the World: What Does It Mean for Human Rights, Security & Governance?
In 2011, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen famously wrote the startling essay, Why Software is Eating the World, in which he described how emerging companies…
ISIL = Genocide, Per Secretary Kerry
Secretary of State John Kerry announced on March 17 that, in his judgment, ISIL is committing genocide against a number of minority groups in Syria and Iraq, including Christians:…
Strong Intelligence Oversight Can Happen Within the Executive Branch
That the American public is divided on the current showdown between Silicon Valley and the national security state is to be expected. What is more striking, at least at first blush,…
Overseas Surveillance in an Interconnected World
Outside the pages of Just Security and a handful of other places, it’s hard to find much debate over the NSA’s overseas surveillance activities. The same lawmakers and pundits…
The Growing Divide Between European Governments and Regional Courts on Surveillance
Last week, as he delivered his first report to the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy made headlines with his sharp criticism of the United…