Civil Liberties
1,368 Articles
Chris Soghoian on What’s Wrong With the Debate on Section 215
It’s great that the sunset of Section 215 has reignited the debate about mass surveillance in the United States, but all the focus on this one provision, more specifically on…
How Rand Paul Hijacked Surveillance Reform
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories…
The Patriot Act’s Sunset Recess
The Senate entered its Memorial Day recess without passing either a Patriot Act extension or a reform bill along the lines of the Freedom Act. Amid intense congressional wrangling…
The Queen’s Speech and the UK Government’s Legislative Agenda
The State Opening of Parliament took place in the UK yesterday. The focus of this event is the Queen’s Speech (full text here). This is important because it unveils the list…
Scaremongering about the Patriot Act Sunset
The Capitol Dome. Image Credit: Architect of the Capitol. In a last-ditch effort to scare lawmakers into preserving unpopular and much-abused surveillance authorities, the Senate…
Sen. Paul’s Great Surveillance ‘Filibuster’ and What to Expect Next
Senator Rand Paul, joined by Senator Wyden and other surveillance reform advocates, as well as five members of the House of Representatives, spent much of last night on the Senate…
Transcript: FBI Director Says Authors of Encryption Letter Are Uninformed or Not Fair-Minded
Earlier today, FBI Director James Comey implied that a broad coalition of technology companies, trade associations, civil society groups, and security experts were either uninformed…
German Cooperation With NSA Spies Broader Than We Knew
Late last month Der Spiegel reported that the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, participated in and directly supported the National Security…
ACLU v. Clapper Will End the Telephone Dragnet
Last week’s dramatic Second Circuit decision in ACLU v. Clapper, invalidated the alleged legal basis for the NSA domestic phone call dragnet, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act,…
Tightening the National Security Ratchet
A ratchet is a device that employs mechanical impediments to allow movement in only one direction. As such, it is a useful metaphor for national security policy, where restrictive…
United States v. Davis – Wrestling With the Third Party Doctrine
In the excitement over the Second Circuit’s ruling on the NSA’s bulk collection program, another very significant appellate decision that was issued last week has been largely…
What ACLU v. Clapper Means
Many others have already weighed in about the significance of last week’s ruling in ACLU v. Clapper. Here are my own quick thoughts. As regular readers of this blog already know,…