Democracy & Rule of Law
Rule of Law
945 Articles
Secrecy and Security: Guardian News vs. AB, CD
As summarised in an earlier post, last week the English Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) gave its decision in Guardian News and Media Ltd v AB and CD (“the Decision”). As…
British Appeals Court Denies Government’s Request to Hold Terrorism Trial in Secret
File this one away in the “what were they thinking” category. Today, the Guardian reports that a British appeals court has blocked an attempt by UK prosecutors to…
Is Edward Snowden Engaged in Civil Disobedience? —A Response to Glennon
In his recent post, “Is Snowden Obliged to Accept Punishment?,” Michael Glennon takes on Edward Snowden’s critics who argue that the former contractor’s unwillingness to…
Is Snowden Obliged to Accept Punishment?
This is Secretary of State John Kerry’s answer, given May 28 on CBS This Morning: “He should man up, come back to the United States. If he has a complaint about what’s…
A(nother) Procedural Roadblock for Drone Casualty Reporting Requirements
Yesterday, efforts to bring greater transparency to the U.S. drone program hit a(nother) legislative procedural roadblock, as the House Rules Committee voted to not include an…
Lavabit’s Owner Goes Public: His Legal Ordeal Makes For Bad Law
I’ve written several times here about the Department of Justice’s efforts to force secure email provider Lavabit to turn over its encryption keys. The DOJ wanted transactional…
Secret Courts and the Policy of “Neither Confirm Nor Deny”
On May 2, the English Court of Appeal gave judgment in (1) Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed (2) CF v Secretary of State for the Home Department. The case is the latest development in the…
Why Civil Libertarians and Drone Critics Should Support David Barron
Sen. Rand Paul has an op-ed in the New York Times today opposing the nomination of David J. Barron to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit until the memos Barron wrote…
Why Can’t We Even Say How Many We Have Killed?
On Monday, Just Security marked the ten-year anniversary of the disclosure of the Abu Ghraib scandal with a pair of eloquent posts by David Luban (Part 1 and Part 2). The Senate…
Drone Casualty Reporting Requirement Dropped from Intel Authorization Bill
Over the last several months, we’ve been following closely several legislative proposals in the House and Senate aimed at bringing greater transparency to the U.S. drone…
White House Makes Reassuring Noises On 0-Day Policy
Yesterday afternoon, the White House put out a statement describing its view of vulnerability disclosure: the contentious issue of whether and when government agencies should disclose…
Secrets Revealed: The Government’s No Fly List Arguments Aren’t Flying
Last week Judge William Alsup (N.D. Cal.) released the unredacted version of his ruling in the first-ever challenge to the no-fly list to be decided on the merits – a case that…