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.

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District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. of New York County, New York; cyber security fellow Matt Tait of University of Texas at Austin, Texas; Erik Neuenschwander, Manager of User Privacy of Apple, Inc.; Jay Sullivan, Product Management Director for Privacy and Integrity in Messenger of Facebook, Inc. testify during a hearing before Senate Judiciary Committee December 10, 2019 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Client-Side Scanning: A New Front In the War on User Control of Technology

When technology has expanded to nearly every corner of our lives, how much control should users have over the devices they own?
Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Bert Koenders hosts the large international consultations with representatives of the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) and the Anti ISIS coalition in the fight against terror In The Hague, January 11, 2016. The representatives sit in a large room around tables arranged into a square. Large screens show projections of the minister speaking.

Watchlisting the World: Digital Security Infrastructures, Informal Law, and the “Global War on Terror”

The Global Counterterrorism Forum's new "toolkit" ignores input, tracks US practice to dangerously expand the unaccountable post-9/11 system.
National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen, FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn testify during a hearing before Senate (Select) Intelligence Committee January 29, 2014 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

20 Years After the Patriot Act, America Must End Secret Law

Of the many abuses that sprung from the Patriot Act’s toxic soil, the most pernicious and enduring is the growth of secret laws. The insistence that the government must not only…
US President George W. Bush signs into law an anti-terrorism bill that expands police and surveillance powers in response to September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 26 October 2001 in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. With Bush from left to right are Rep. Mike Oxley, R-OH, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-UT, Sen Pat Leahy, D-VT, Sen. Harry Reid, D-NV, and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI.

Rethinking Surveillance on the 20th Anniversary of the Patriot Act

20 years ago, Congress enacted the PATRIOT Act. It's time to move on from that outmoded model of surveillance.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting about cybersecurity in the East Room of the White House on August 25, 2021 in Washington, DC. Members of the Biden cabinet, national security team and leaders from the private sector sit around long tables arranged in a circle or square attending the meeting about improving the nation's cybersecurity. Many of the chairs are socially distanced.

US Cybersecurity Has a Metrics Problem. Here’s How to Fix It.

Lawmakers have taken critical steps this year, but the lack of data makes it hard to know whether U.S. cybersecurity is actually improving.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin delivers remarks at the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence Global Emerging Technology Summit on July 13, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Artificial Intelligence in the Intelligence Community: Know Risk, Know Reward

For AI, where the risk of inaction can be greater than the risk of action, the IC needs a flexible, strategic risk assessment framework.
Relatives gather to look at the dead bodies of ten people including children after a raid on their farms in Bariire, some 50 km west of Mogadishu, on August 25, 2017.

Insight Into Biden’s Counterterrorism Thinking Suggests More of the Same

Rather than rebrand painfully flawed approaches, the US must heed the calls and ideas of civil society, academics, and practitioners.
A relative of Ezmarai Ahmadi on September 18, 2021, inspecting the debris of a destroyed vehicle that was damaged in a US drone strike in the Kwaja Burga neighbourhood of Kabul.

The Overhyping of Over the Horizon

It might represent the only option for the US on terrorist threats from Afghanistan, but it will be brute, imperfect military force.
A dark wooden library with long tables with chairs and lamps for people to work at. People are scattered in seats along the tables. A book stands at the forefront of the photograph with a reading lamp above it.

Surveillance and Privacy Scholars: Four Things the Government Needs From You

Adam Klein, who recently served as Chair of Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), calls for specific lines of scholarly research and analysis.
Surveillance cameras cover a pole on the corner of Tiananmen Square in Beijing on September 6, 2019.

What Biden Needs to Say About Surveillance Tech and Foreign Policy

Western countries have critiqued China's use of surveillance tech while continuing to export these tools. It's time to align human rights and trade policies.
Side by side images of a plaque reading “Committee on the Budget” and a digital graphic of a face made of up of wires, numbers, and a grid like facial recognition or AI. The back of the head dissolves to numbers floating in a trail behind the head.

Artificial Intelligence in the Intelligence Community: The Tangled Web of Budget & Acquisition

To successfully integrate AI into the IC, budget and acquisition processes must increase in speed, flexibility, and simplicity.
Three people check Facebook over tea and food at a teashop in Yangon, Myanmar.

Q&A on Court Ordering Facebook to Disclose Content on Myanmar Genocide

Implications for future investigations and more...
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