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

Unfinished Business: What Mueller Didn’t Cover, But Congress Can
An itemization of what the Mueller Report left untouched or undone, and where Congress can pick up the thread.
L’Affaire d’Assange: Why His Extradition May Be Blocked
The Department of Justice’s release of a superseding indictment accusing Julian Assange of numerous Espionage Act violations has stirred grave concern among defenders of a free…

The Snowden Effect, Six Years On
Six years ago, the world was introduced to a previously unknown government contractor who revealed the National Security Agency (NSA) was conducting an unparalleled level of warrantless…
Cooking the WMD Books: Politicizing the 2019 State Department Compliance Report
"I know. I used to work in State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance and then in the Office of the Under Secretary responsible for this report.…

Assange May Have Committed a Crime, But the Espionage Act Is the Wrong Law to Prosecute
Is Wikileaks leader Julian Assange a journalist? If journalism is a profession, it is because, like other professions, it has standards and a code of ethics. As an example, a journalist…

No Oligarch Left Behind: Trump’s Title III Cuba Policy
After the Revolution, Cuba expropriated the property of U.S. nationals and Cubans, including those who (like my family) came to the United States. In May, the Trump administration…

Countering Russia’s Malign Influence Operations
Putin’s successes with covert action show that such operations are not only more effective and cheaper than conventional military operations, but they have also resulted in far…

Bill Barr’s Dangerous New Powers
Former Justice Dept and National Security Council officials explain their concerns about unprecedented powers President Trump handed his A.G.

Indictment of Assange for Espionage Directly Threatens Press Freedoms
This article is co-published with The Bulwark. Boy, did I ever get this wrong. Back in mid-April, when the Department of Justice unveiled an indictment of Julian Assange,…

‘Flying Ginsu’ Missile Won’t Resolve U.S. Targeted Killing Controversy
Proponents of a new, modified Hellfire missile called the R9X tout it as a game-changer that can spare more civilian lives than traditional Hellfires. But the new technology can…

CTRL+HALT+Defeat: State-Sponsored Surveillance and the Suppression of Dissent
A new lawsuit in Israeli court seeks accountability for the export of malicious spyware used for digital surveillance of human rights defenders, journalists, and political dissidents.…

Shareholder Resolution Asks How Northrop Grumman Implements its Human Rights Policy
Welfare and national security risks could be mitigated by active implementation of Northrop's human rights policy.