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
No Asking and No Telling – A Quick Thought on Stephen Preston’s Speech at ASIL
As Marty Lederman and Jennifer Daskel have already noted, the Department of Defense’s General Counsel Stephen Preston gave an extensive and lengthy keynote speech on Friday last at…
The Investigation into 12333 Begins
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) voted 4–1 yesterday to conduct reviews of how Executive Order 12333 is used in counterterrorism investigations by the…
The Unreal Secrecy About Drone Killings
Last year, after concluding that many passages in the document “no longer merited secrecy,” the Second Circuit published a redacted version of the Justice Department’s July…
Talking About Section 215: A Readers’ Guide
Media coverage of John Oliver’s critique about the lack of discussion surrounding government surveillance programs seems to prove his point. Much, if not most, of the attention…
Is Flawed Terrorism Research Driving Flawed Counterterrorism Policies?
More than thirteen years after the U.S. intelligence community named the prevention of terrorism its number one goal, it seems to have little understanding of what drives terrorism,…
How a Case of Stolen Corn Seeds Shows the Problem with the FISA Court
As collateral challenges to the mass surveillance programs disclosed by Edward Snowden like US v. Moalin, US v. Muhtorov, and US v. Mohamud are winding their way through the courts,…
Court Denies FOIA Request for Panetta Review on CIA Torture
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg today said that the CIA is not obligated to release the Panetta Review, an internal review of the CIA’s torture program that was heavily…
Wikimedia v. NSA: Standing and the Fight for Free Speech and Privacy
On March 10, 2015, represented by the ACLU, the Wikimedia Foundation and eight co-plaintiffs filed suit against the NSA, the Justice Department, and others, over the mass search…
Ninth Circuit Grants En Banc Rehearing in Posse Comitatus / Unlawful Surveillance Case
Back in September, I wrote about the Ninth Circuit’s fascinating decision in United States v. Dreyer, which applied the exclusionary rule to suppress evidence obtained…
The Right Way to Share Information and Improve Cybersecurity
This year is turning out to be a banner one for flawed proposals that would allow businesses to share information about Americans’ online activity with the Department of Homeland…
Reforming the FISA Court
There has been much discussion, on the pages of this blog and elsewhere (here, here, and here to name just a few), about the procedural shortcomings of the FISA Court — the lack…
It’s Time for an International Drone Accountability Regime
Editors’ note. This piece is a preview of a new article by the authors published in the Spring 2015 issue of Ethics and International Affairs. Lethal drones are being used…