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

‘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.

Canada Considers Most Far-Reaching Intell Reforms in Decades
The proposed bill strikes a healthy balance between facing up to new cyber-threats and ensuring accountability and oversight.

Intelligence, Ethics and Bureaucracy: The Duty to Warn Jamal Khashoggi
The Knight First Amendment Institute and the Committee to Protect Journalists have obtained "Duty to Warn" documents that shed new light on what a U.S. intelligence officer would…

Barr and Congress: Is the Focus on Criminality Too Narrow?–Five Experts Weigh In
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s questioning of Attorney General William Barr yesterday raises the question of whether Congress, in responding to the findings in Special Counsel…

JFK Records Suit Tests CIA Secrecy on Assassination
Morley v. CIA has wound its way through the courts for 16 years, and revealed some juicy nuggets along the way. The plaintiff, who is the biographer of two top CIA operations officers,…

Split Over Compelled Decryption Deepens With Massachusetts Case
Encryption is as omnipresent as computers, tablets, and smartphones. Yet the Supreme Court has not provided guidance on the constitutional implications of compelling a suspect…

CBP’s New Social Media Surveillance: A Threat to Free Speech and Privacy
U.S. Customs and Border Protection's efforts to map out the networks and activities of American activists and journalists through link analysis and social media monitoring pose…

A Caution on Congressional Subpoenas and “Constitutional Crisis”
Last week, as part of its ongoing investigation into White House security clearance procedures, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform subpoenaed former White House personnel…

New DoD Policy on Amends Needs to Address Transparency Gap
New information from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) reveals a previously unrecognized transparency gap in the U.S. military’s efforts to acknowledge and address civilian…

The (Redacted) Mueller Report: First Takes from the Experts
A roundup of leading experts' views on the publicly released — and redacted — Mueller report.