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.
3,152 Articles

Two More British Citizens are Dead From a Targeted Killing in Syria
UK Prime Minister David Cameron speaking before Parliament on Sept. 7 revealed that in addition to alleged ISIL hacker, recruiter, and propagandist Junaid Hussain, two other Britons…

The Microsoft Warrant Case: A Response to Orin Kerr
With less than a week before the Second Circuit considers the dispute between Microsoft and the government over emails stored in Ireland (an issue I have blogged about here, here,…

The Difficulty With Metaphors and the Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution seems straightforward on its face: At its core, it tells us that our “persons, houses, papers, and effects” are to be protected…

Armed Drones and the Influence of Big Business on Police Surveillance Technology
On Wednesday, the Daily Beast reported that the North Dakota state legislature recently passed a bill allowing law enforcement drones to carry less-than-lethal weapons. In theory,…

Beyond the APA: The Role of Psychology Boards and State Courts in Propping up Torture
The image of torture in US popular culture is an intimate one: a government agent and a suspect in a dark cell, usually alone. But the reality of our state-sanctioned torture program…

A Legislative Fix to Inspectors’ General Difficulties Accessing Information?
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…

The Dream of Internet Freedom Doesn’t Have to Die
This post is a version of the introduction to the author’s keynote speech, “The Lifecycle of a Revolution” at this year’s Black Hat information security conference. Twenty…

Drones and Contractor Mission Creep
I have written previously about the transparency, oversight, and accountability issues that outsourcing aspects of the U.S. drone program can pose – issues that often get lost…

French Surveillance Law Compared to US Surveillance Law
Last Thursday, France’s constitutional court—le Conseil constitutionnel—issued a ruling upholding most of that country’s controversial new surveillance law, enacted in…

Jen Daskal’s The Un-Territoriality of Data is Honored
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a luncheon honoring winners for best of the 2014-2015 Call for Papers by the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) at its annual…

Legislative Cyber Threats: CISA’s Not The Only One
If anyone in the United States Senate had any doubts that the proposed Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA) was universally hated by a range of civil society groups, a literal…

Skeptical of Guantánamo Diary? Question the US Government Instead
It is sort of a cardinal rule for writers not to respond to negative reviews, and I can easily imagine that Mohamedou Ould Slahi would let the new review of his Guantánamo Diary…