Civil Liberties
1,368 Articles
“Just looking for loopholes…”
…is what W. C. Fields supposedly said when someone found him leafing through the Bible. Apparently some lawyers in the Obama administration are following Fields’s lead,…
EU-Funded Study: Electronic Mass Surveillance Fails – Drastically
(This article presents the results of research by the SURVEILLE [Surveillance: Ethical Issues, Legal Limitations, and Efficiency] consortium, a European Union-funded multidisciplinary…
Shhh! Last Week Was All About Secrets
Editors’ Note: The following post is the sixth installment of a new feature, “Monday Reflections,” in which a different Just Security editor will take an in-depth look…
Twitter is Suing the US Government in an Effort to Reveal Surveillance Information
Twitter filed a case in the Northern District of California (docket number 14-cv-04480) on Oct. 7 seeking a court order that would allow the company to reveal more precise information…
Bahraini Prince Could be Investigated for Torture by UK Police
A member of the Bahraini royal family with close ties to the United Kingdom may soon be under investigation by British police for his alleged role in torturing dissidents during…
Smartphone “Backdoors” and Open Computing
Recently I wrote a longish post over at the Cato Institute’s blog trying to deflate some of the increasing hysteria over the announcement that Apple and Google will be turning…
Breaking news from the Supreme Court!
No, not that news (although it is rather shocking). The Court also denied certiorari this morning in two other cases that had received some attention in national security circles:…
It’s Time to Pass the USA Freedom Act—Warts and All
Thirteen years after 9/11, the United States Congress appeared poised to begin the long overdue process of reining-in the intelligence establishment’s runaway surveillance practices.…
Constitutional “Cross-Ruffing”: My New Article
About a year ago, I wrote about the Second Circuit’s decision in the Ghailani case, in which, among other things, the Court of Appeals rejected a former Guantánamo detainee’s…
The Need for Both Legal and Technical Privacy Protections
Last week, Apple and Google came under intense criticism from the law enforcement and national security communities for their decisions to encrypt user data when devices are locked.…
FBI is Hurting Apple and Google’s Competitiveness with Crypto Backdoor Demands
Last week, FBI Director James B. Comey dispatched his minions to yell at Apple and Google for architecting their smartphones such that government officials cannot decrypt information…
UK High Court Hears Case of Pakistani Held for a Decade Without Charges by UK and US
On Sept. 23, the United Kingdom High Court began its three-day hearing of a case involving the alleged kidnapping, torture, detention, and subsequent rendition of Pakistani citizen…