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

The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier to Conceal Abuse of Migrant Detainees
The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed a half-century of precedent on citizens’ rights to know what their government is doing, by making it more difficult for the public to probe…

U.S. Offensive Cyber Operations against Economic Cyber Intrusions: An International Law Analysis – Part II
Part I demonstrated that the United States is likely to struggle to make a convincing argument that economic cyber intrusions carried out against it breach international law. Consequently,…

Outside the Beltway: An Experiment on Human Rights & Potential CLOUD Act Agreements
What questions remain in assessing the human rights concerns of potential CLOUD Act agreements? How would executive branch lawyers approach these questions?

Five Takeaways from Talking Feds’ Mueller Preview Panel
As we prepare for the upcoming congressional testimony of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, we thought it would be helpful to tune into the Talking Feds podcast, which taped a series…

U.S. Offensive Cyber Operations against Economic Cyber Intrusions: An International Law Analysis – Part I
On June 11, 2019, White House National Security Adviser John Bolton announced that U.S. offensive cyber operations would be expanded beyond countering election interference to…

Policing, U.S. Style: With Little Idea of What Really Works
Until we better analyze police strategies, policies, and technologies, and learn, in a quantifiable way, what works and what doesn’t, we are not truly advancing public safety.…

Cyberattack Attribution and the Virtues of Decentralization
In the midst of rising tensions between the United States and Iran over tanker attacks and Iran’s downing of a U.S. drone, reports emerged that U.S. Cyber Command had launched…

Assange’s Indictment: A Threat to Everyone
Had the precedent of the Justice Department’s prosecution of Julian Assange existed in the past, there are numerous cases that could have resulted in a prosecution under the…

Citizens to the UN: Investigate Our “Torture Chambers in the Sky”
On behalf of the North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture (NCCIT), a citizen-initiated truth panel, we just submitted a 35-page communication to 10 U.N. Special Rapporteurs…

When Constitutional Law and Government Hacking Collide: A Landmark U.K. Ruling Is Relevant on Both Sides of the Pond
The U.K. Supreme Court's landmark judgment in R (Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal and others sets an important precedent for oversight of questions of law…

Journalist Watchlist Raises Specter of Civil Rights-Era Secret Surveillance
Throughout his campaign and now his presidency, historians have drawn parallels between President Trump’s treatment of the news media and the Nixon White House’s efforts to…

Scientists Are Aiding Apartheid in China
The international forensic genetic research community has failed to exercise due diligence in their cooperation with Chinese Ministry of Public Security researchers on forensic…