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.
1,837 Articles
Rand Paul and Surveillance Reform, Part II
My post from yesterday about how Rand Paul hijacked the surveillance reform debate provoked a series of interesting responses both via e-mail and on Twitter, including a note from…
The Symbolic Sunset & What’s Next for the USA Freedom Act
Because the gods of traffic metrics are stern taskmasters, you’ll likely read a lot of headlines today about “the expiration of the Patriot Act,” possibly paired…
Mootness and the 215 Challenges
As a nerdy follow-up to the stories about last night’s expiration of section 215, I thought I’d say a quick word about how that denouement will affect the ongoing litigation…
Chris Soghoian on What’s Wrong With the Debate on Section 215
It’s great that the sunset of Section 215 has reignited the debate about mass surveillance in the United States, but all the focus on this one provision, more specifically on…
How Rand Paul Hijacked Surveillance Reform
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories…
The Patriot Act’s Sunset Recess
The Senate entered its Memorial Day recess without passing either a Patriot Act extension or a reform bill along the lines of the Freedom Act. Amid intense congressional wrangling…
Scaremongering about the Patriot Act Sunset
The Capitol Dome. Image Credit: Architect of the Capitol. In a last-ditch effort to scare lawmakers into preserving unpopular and much-abused surveillance authorities, the Senate…
Sen. Paul’s Great Surveillance ‘Filibuster’ and What to Expect Next
Senator Rand Paul, joined by Senator Wyden and other surveillance reform advocates, as well as five members of the House of Representatives, spent much of last night on the Senate…
Transcript: FBI Director Says Authors of Encryption Letter Are Uninformed or Not Fair-Minded
Earlier today, FBI Director James Comey implied that a broad coalition of technology companies, trade associations, civil society groups, and security experts were either uninformed…
Polish Outrage to Paying Victims of CIA Black Sites—and What the Eur Court Said
Poland will be paying a quarter of a million dollars to two Guantánamo detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The payment arises in the context of the torture of…
German Cooperation With NSA Spies Broader Than We Knew
Late last month Der Spiegel reported that the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, participated in and directly supported the National Security…
ACLU v. Clapper Will End the Telephone Dragnet
Last week’s dramatic Second Circuit decision in ACLU v. Clapper, invalidated the alleged legal basis for the NSA domestic phone call dragnet, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act,…