Intelligence & Surveillance
Just Security’s expert authors provide legal and policy analysis of intelligence and surveillance activities, focusing on their impact on national security and on civil liberties and privacy rights, and their oversight by Congress and the courts.
1,846 Articles
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,…
Politicization of Intelligence: Lessons From a Long, Dishonorable History
The Daily Beast and the New York Times have reported allegations that senior (but thus far unidentified) Defense Department and United States Central Command (CENTCOM) officials…
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…
Better Never Than Late? The D.C. Circuit’s Problematic Standing Holding in Klayman
This morning, nearly 10 months after it was argued, the D.C. Circuit finally handed down its decision in Obama v. Klayman—the government’s appeal of Judge Leon’s December…
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,…
Does CISA Contain a Surveillance Law XSS Attack?
Skeptical concerns about the proposed Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act have, thus far, tended to fall into two main categories: Doubts about efficacy—most actual practitioners…
Warrantless Phone Tracking: The Fourth Amendment and Circuit Splits
Last week, a divided three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit ruled in United States v. Graham that the government must obtain a warrant to obtain from a phone user’s historical…
The APA’s Watershed Move to Ban Psychologists’ Complicity in Torture
As Marty Lederman wrote about here, the APA Council of Representatives made waves on Friday by approving, with a near-unanimous vote, a resolution that (1) bans psychologists…
Background Reading on Umm Sayyaf’s Transfer to Kurdish Authorities
The Pentagon yesterday announced that it has transferred Umm Sayyaf, the US’s first detainee in the campaign against ISIL, to the Interior Ministry of Iraqi Kurdistan where…
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…