Civil Liberties
1,361 Articles

Bulk Collection Under Section 215 Has Ended… What’s Next?
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…

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité … Sécurité
Within a few hours of the terrorist attacks on Paris which left 130 dead and some 350 injured, President François Hollande declared a nationwide state of emergency in accordance…

Remember Why We Have the Fourth Amendment
The Paris attacks have fueled a debate over surveillance on both sides of the Atlantic that, while not new, has reached a level of hysteria that I have not witnessed since the…

The UK Draft Investigatory Powers Bill (aka, the Revised “Snooper’s Charter”)
Earlier this month the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill, the UK Government’s attempt to legitimize State surveillance powers, was presented to Parliament. Depending on your perspective,…

The Government Should Stop Rewarding Bad Policies for Police Body Cameras
Body cameras have major potential to increase police accountability. However, without informed policies governing their use, they might not only fail in this goal, they could actually…

Still Secret: Second Circuit Keeps More Drone Memos From the Public
Secret law has been anathema to our democracy since its Founding, but a federal appeals court just gave us more of it. Almost two centuries ago, James Madison wrote that “[a]…

Why Al Bahlul IV Won’t Matter
Editor’s Note: This is the most recent post in a mini-symposium leading up to next week’s en banc oral argument in the DC Circuit in Al Bahlul v. United States. You can check…

Cross-Border Data Requests: A Proposed Framework
Editor’s note: This post also appears on Lawfare. We’ve both written and spoken extensively (for example, here, here, here, here, and here) about issues related to cross-border…

Connecting Past and Present: Assessing French Emergency Powers in Historical Perspective
Editor’s note: Some parts of this post first appeared in the book Law in Times of Crisis. Reflecting on the horrific events of Friday, November 13, in Paris and the French…

Al Bahlul’s Commission Conviction and the Pragmatic Jurisprudence of Article III
Editor’s Note: This is the most recent post in a mini-symposium leading up to next week’s en banc oral argument in the DC Circuit in Al Bahlul v. United States. You can…

The Course of Least Resistance: Ignoring the Lessons of History in Responding to ISIS
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…

Previewing Next Tuesday’s Oral Argument in “Al Bahlul IV”
Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a mini-symposium leading up to next week’s en banc oral argument in the DC Circuit in Al Bahlul v. United States. You can check…