Civil Liberties
1,474 Articles
National Security Letters and Leak Investigations
Journalists were reminded again last week of how little legal protection actually exists when the federal government decides to investigate national security leaks. In an ongoing…
“Ideating” on ISIS and Silicon Valley
In a lot of Silicon Valley meetings, participants “iterate,” “ideate,” and “sync,” and do other buzzwordy things. Every once in a while something innovative and impactful…
USA Freedom: The Rubber Meets the Road
The National Security Agency has released its Transparency Report on the implementation of the USA Freedom Act — as well as the minimization procedures to be used for the new…
James Comey’s Default-Encryption Bogeyman
FBI Director James Comey recently told the Senate Judiciary Committee that encryption routinely poses a problem for law enforcement. He stated that encryption has “moved from…
Fixing Pre-Publication Review: What Should Be Done?
Jack Goldsmith and Oona Hathaway called attention in several recent columns to the pre-publication review process (here, here, here, and here) that many current and former national…
Settlement of NYPD Muslim Surveillance Lawsuits: A Platform for Better Oversight
Last week, the City of New York agreed to settle two federal lawsuits challenging the NYPD’s surveillance of American Muslims, promising to reform the rules that govern how the…
Content Is Content, No Matter How Small
Recently, Orin Kerr and I had a brief conversation on Twitter regarding the Fourth Amendment and the content/non-content distinction. Specifically, Orin asked those of us who subscribe…
Social Media Companies Should Decline the Government’s Invitation to Join the National Security State
The pressure on social media companies to limit or take down content in the name of national security has never been greater. Resolving any ambiguity about the how much the Obama…
A Few Keystrokes Could Solve the Crime. Would You Press Enter?
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons Suppose a laptop were found at the apartment of one of the perpetrators of last year’s Paris attacks. It’s searched by the authorities pursuant…
Congress Squawks as Surveillance Chickens Come Home to Roost
A year that has alternated between major surveillance reforms and calls for new spying laws in the wake of ISIS attacks is set to close with a pendulum swing back against NSA surveillance…
The Scope of the Prepublication Review Problem, and What to Do About It
Editor’s note: This post also appears on Lawfare. The problems in the prepublication review process that we identified in our Washington Post op-ed and in a subsequent post…
Path Dependence and the Prepublication Review Process
Editor’s note: This post also appears on Lawfare. Over the weekend, we wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about the lifetime prepublication review process required of nearly…