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
The Politics of Trump’s Mismatched Response to Election Interference
With just over a month until the midterm elections, President Donald Trump took to the UN Security Council to call out an adversary in the room for interfering in our elections.…
New U.K. Law Fails European Court Standards on Mass Interception Disclosed by Snowden
The U.K. government trots out its new surveillance legislation as curing the ills identified by the European Court of Human Rights. That's not the case. The Court’s judgment…
Shining a Light on Federal Law Enforcement’s Use of Computer Hacking Tools
Ten years ago, an FBI official impersonated an Associated Press reporter to lure and track a teenager suspected of sending in prank bomb threats to his school. To find him, the…
Post-9/11 Generation Reaches Enlistment Age in Unmoored ‘War on Terror’
Human Rights First International Legal Counsel Rita Siemion says it's long past time to ensure that war-based authorities are used only when specifically authorized by Congress…
Trump’s Ability to Classify Mueller Report Is Greater Threat Than Executive Privilege
The prospect of the President invoking Executive Privilege to keep the Special Counsel's report secret has received plenty of attention. Less well-known is this: there are no restrictions…
Trump Declassifying Page, Ohr Records Will Have Broader Effects
President Donald Trump plans to declassify documents as early as this week about the FBI’s surveillance of campaign advisor Carter Page pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance…
Rebecca Ingber’s Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Committee
Today, Rebecca Ingber, associate professor of law at Boston University School of Law, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh…
Does Pervasive Secrecy Impede Intelligence Collection?: How Intelligence Agencies Could Use Crowdsourcing to Foil WMD Attacks
For decades, the edifice of the U.S. intelligence community (IC) has been built on a single principle: that intelligence is best when it is secret. Within the IC, this principle…
A Rush to Confirm Judge Kavanaugh at the Expense of Senate Interests
The Senate is now considering President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Whoever replaces Justice Kennedy,…
A Call to Former Intelligence Community Employees Who Are Subject to a Prepublication Review Requirement
Millions of former public servants who once had access to classified information—and many who didn’t—are subject to a requirement of prepublication review. They are generally…
Security Clearance Records, FOIA, and Privacy: What Went Wrong for Abigail Spanberger
How did an unredacted copy of a security clearance application for a former CIA officer-turned Democratic candidate land in the hands of a GOP super PAC?
What Happened at the Court: The Hasbajrami Oral Argument on Section 702 of FISA and the Fourth Amendment
On August 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard argument in United States v. Hasbajrami, a case that raises several challenges to the constitutionality of…