Democracy & Rule of Law
Just Security’s expert authors provide analysis on threats and challenges to democracy and the rule of law in the United States and globally. Coverage includes analysis of the separation of powers, good governance, democratic backsliding, authoritarianism, judicial independence, freedom of the press and association, and accountability for rule of law violations.
3,168 Articles
Correcting the Record on Section 702: A Prerequisite for Meaningful Surveillance Reform
The legal authority behind the controversial PRISM and Upstream surveillance programs used by the NSA to collect large swaths of private communications from leading Internet companies…
Supreme Court Grants Temporary Stay in Backpage Senate Subpoena Litigation
I recently wrote about the Senate civil enforcement action seeking to enforce a subpoena of Backpage.com records issued by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI). Backpage…
The Vulnerability Equities Process Should Consider More than Intelligence Community Needs
Dave Aitel and Matt Tait’s recent post in Lawfare argued that the U.S. government’s procedure for deciding whether to withhold unknown or little-known vulnerabilities in…
A 9/11 Commission Approach to the Russian Hack of the DNC
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…
A Problematic Pseudo-Category of Surveillance Information and Promising Post-Collection Policy
This week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declassified a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR) opinion that has important broad implications…
Trump’s CEO’s Smear Campaign Against Gold Star Father Khizr Khan – Headlines and Excerpts
Stephen Bannon, the new chief executive of Donald Trump’s campaign, ran the online outlet Breitbart News until joining the campaign. Below is a collection of headlines and excerpts…
The PPG Visualized, What the US Kill and Capture Bureaucracy Looks Like
This 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 ahead…
We Shouldn’t Wait Another Fifteen Years for a Conversation About Government Hacking
With high-profile hacks in the headlines and government officials trying to reopen a long-settled debate about encryption, information security has become a mainstream issue. But…
Today’s Important Deadline in the ACLU’s Targeted-Killing Transparency Case
Today, more than three years after President Obama announced that he had issued a classified “Presidential Policy Guidance,” commonly known as the PPG, meant to govern the…
Cybersecurity, Elections, and Critical Infrastructure at Home and Abroad
In the last few days, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco have both suggested that in the wake of the DNC hack, the United States…
Secret Law, Targeting, and the Problem of Standards: A Response to Dakota Rudesill
In his recent posts and an article, Dakota Rudesill tackles the phenomenon of secret law. Dakota persuasively describes a growing body secret law, which he defines as “legal…
It’s Time to Come to Terms With Secret Law: Part II
On Wednesday, I summarized the findings of my recent study of alleged secret law in the three branches of the US government and my conclusion that secret law is a limited but important…