Executive Branch
Just Security’s expert authors provide analysis of the U.S. executive branch related to national security, rights, and the rule of law. Analysis and informational resources focus on the executive branch’s powers and their limits, and the actions of the president, administrative agencies, and federal officials.
4,757 Articles
Can We Do Without National Security Letters?
One of the more radical recommendations included in the report from President Obama’s Surveillance Review Group is the proposal to require judicial approval for National…
US Announces Investigation into Wedding Convoy Drone Strike: A Step Toward Accountability?
Last night, NBC’s Michael Isikoff reported that (anonymous) US officials said: “The Obama administration has launched an internal investigation into a Dec. 12 drone strike…
Version 4.0 – Do We Need A New Privacy and Civil Liberties Board?
One aspect of the President’s Review Group report on NSA surveillance that has gone relatively unnoticed is the recommendation that the current Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight…
Could the NSA’s Telephony Metadata Program Have Prevented 9/11? Judge William Pauley v. Lawrence Wright
In an earlier post, I proposed some analytic tools for evaluating the effectiveness of the NSA’s telephony metadata program – in light of recommendations by the President’s…
Helpful Resource from the Dept of Defense: Periodic Review Board Website
We wanted to flag for interested readers a helpful resource, the Department of Defense’s website for the Periodic Review Secretariat (PRS), the body responsible for the administrative…
FISC Approves Application to Renew Telephony Metadata Program [UPDATED]
Today, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declassified and announced that the FISC has approved the government’s application to renew the telephony metadata…
Reactions to the New York Times and The Guardian Editorial Boards’ Call for Clemency for Snowden
As Ruchi covered this morning in the news roundup, today the editorial boards of the New York Times and The Guardian called on the Obama Administration to offer Edward Snowden…
The “Front-Page Rule”
In my earlier post on the Report of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (PRGICT), I highlighted a recurrent theme of the Report–the…
How to Evaluate Whether the NSA’s Telephony Metadata Program Makes Us Safer (and What Proponents and Opponents Get Wrong)
[Editor’s Note: Just Security is holding a “mini forum” on the Report by the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. Others in the…
How Limited is 702?
[Editor’s Note: Just Security is holding a “mini forum” on the Report by the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. Others in the series…
Data-Mining, Section 215, and Regulating the Government’s Use of Stored Data: The Overlooked, but More Important, Question About NSA Surveillance
[Editor’s Note: Just Security is holding a “mini forum” on the Report by the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. Others in the series…
The Report of the UK Detainee Inquiry (December 2013)
On Thursday December 19, 2013, the long awaited Report of the Detainee Inquiry (“the Report”) was published. The subject of the Report was Britain’s involvement in US torture…