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

Palantir Contract Dispute Exposes NYPD’s Lack of Transparency
News that the New York Police Department (NYPD) is in a fight with Palantir Technologies over access to analytic data the company produced, raises a host of troubling questions.…

More Details on Trump, Russia, and the Mysterious Magnitsky Connection
As reported Monday by Rob Berschinski and Adam Nagy, the Magnitsky Act is back in the news in connection with media reporting on the June 2016 meeting between Russian lawyer Natalia…

Rinat Akhmetshin: Low-Hanging Fruit for Trump-Russia Investigators
Since last week’s revelation of Donald Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and several of her associates, much of the legal focus has…

The Office of Legal Counsel and Secret Law
In theory, it’s the province of the judiciary to say what the law is, but in practice this task often falls to the Office of Legal Counsel. This is because many important questions…

A Guide to this Week’s News Coverage of Trump Jr.’s Russia Meeting
The Russia-Trump story accelerated this week as it was revealed that Don Jr.’s now infamous June 9 meeting at Trump Tower had little to do with adoptions, as he first claimed.…

Norms Watch: Democracy, the Trump Administration, and Reactions to It (July 7-July 14)
Editor’s Note: Welcome to the latest installment of Norms Watch, our series tracking both the flouting of democratic norms by the Trump administration and the erosion of…

DNC Hack Victims Sue Trump Campaign and Roger Stone
On Wednesday, three victims of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) cybertheft and subsequent document release by WikiLeaks filed a federal lawsuit against Donald J. Trump for…

Just Security’s Reading List for Trump Jr.’s Meeting With the Russian Lawyer
Not Just a Personal Problem for Trump Jr.–Now Trouble for the Trump Campaign and Trump Sr. by Bob Bauer Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 12:11 PM The Media Is Not Asking the Right…

Hyping the Terrorist Threat: Trump Makes an Old Problem Worse
For the better part of two decades, American policymakers have struggled to explain the nature of the terrorist threat facing the United States. Mayors, governors, and members…

Cross-Border Access to Data: Google’s Senior VP Weighs In
This morning, Kent Walker, Senior Vice-President and General Counsel of Google, gave a speech to a packed audience at the Heritage Foundation, laying out the need for new laws…

Political Parties as Critical Infrastructure?
Former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson testified Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee as part of the House investigation into Russian interference in the…

The Making of a Russian Spy: A Roadmap for the FBI to Resolve Russia Gate
James Comey’s testimony has established that either President Donald Trump or the former FBI Director is lying, given the clear discrepancies in their versions of the conversations…