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.
1,805 Articles
UK Surveillance Watchdog Releases Report Endorsing UK Surveillance Programs
As we covered in yesterday’s Early Edition, Sir Anthony May, the UK’s Interception of Communications Commissioner (the UK’s surveillance watchdog), has concluded…
State of play of the SSCI report on the CIA interrogation program: the relationship between declassification and disclosure
Last Thursday, Senator Diane Feinstein, the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), issued a statement that the SSCI had voted that afternoon “to…
Hersh’s Syria Conspiracy Theory: The CIA and Intelligence Oversight Questions
In a previous post, I discussed the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the attack against U.S. facilities and personnel in Benghazi, Libya. That post contemplated bias by…
European Court says Data Retention Directive is Invalid
Yesterday, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) gave a compelling judgment in two joined cases: Case C-293/12 Digital Rights Ireland; Case C-594/12…
Why the CIA? Why no U.S. acknowledgement?
Just to follow up on Ryan’s post: Mark Mazzetti’s story for the Times, assuming it is accurate, confirms what I tried to explain in a post a few weeks ago —…
Yemen Banned Pentagon’s Drone Operations after US Struck Wedding Procession
In Sunday’s New York Times, a must-read story by Mark Mazzetti chronicles a wide range of issues involving the CIA and counterterrorism programs. A news development that might…
Searchable Database of NSA Documents
Some Just Security readers will be interested to know that the ACLU has just launched a text-searchable database of NSA documents released since June of 2013. The database is here.
The SSCI Report and the Right to the Truth about the CIA’s Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition Program
Today’s vote to declassify and ultimately release portions of the exhaustive Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) report on the CIA’s rendition, detention, and interrogation…
SSCI Votes to Declassify Portions of CIA Interrogation Report [Updated with Statement from Sen. Feinstein]
Breaking news this afternoon: the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has voted to declassify portions of its report on the CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation and detention…
The Difficulty of Relative Judgments about the Utility of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques: The SSCI Report in Context
Transparency is critically important to the legitimacy and effectiveness of democratic governments. Transparency facilitates both the responsiveness of government to the needs…
John Bellinger’s Testimony before the PCLOB (and implications for Senate approval of the Persons with Disabilities Convention) [Updated on April 2]
My friend and former legal adviser to the State Department John Bellinger recently testified before the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board (PCLOB) on the question whether international…
Getting Under the Hood of the HPSCI Bulk Collection Bill
While details on the president’s proposal to end NSA bulk collection of telephony records remain sparse, we do now have an actual piece of legislation to look at from the…