Law Enforcement
720 Articles
The 702 Reform Debate Is Just Heating Up
This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories from the previous week or looks…
Are US Courts Going Dark?
Now that the cell phones in San Bernardino and Brooklyn have been unlocked (no thanks to Apple), FBI warnings about “going dark” in the face of advancing digital encryption…
Feinstein-Burr: The Bill That Bans Your Browser
Last week, I criticized the confused rhetorical framework that the Feinstein-Burr encryption backdoor proposal tries to impose on the ongoing Crypto Wars 2.0 debate. In this…
The FBI’s Warrantless Surveillance Back Door Just Opened a Little Wider
On Tuesday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a redacted version of an opinion by Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance…
Here’s What the Burr-Feinstein Anti-Crypto Bill Gets Wrong
The latest Crypto War is being fought on multiple fronts: behind closed doors, in the courts, and now in Congress. On April 13, Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.),…
A New Lawsuit from Microsoft: No More Gag Orders!
Microsoft is once again making headlines via litigation over government’s use of the Stored Communications Act. For the past two years, it was Microsoft’s lawsuit challenging…
The Human Rights Risks of Countering Violent Extremism Programs
With national and international institutions scrambling to adopt Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs, the UN Special Rapporteur for counterterrorism and human rights, Ben…
ODNI Response on Increased Intelligence Sharing Still Leaves Questions and Concerns
In late February, The New York Times reported that the administration was preparing to expand sharing of the mass signals intelligence collected by NSA pursuant to Executive Order…
Bye-Bye Birdie: reddit’s Warrant Canary Disappears
Sometimes, saying nothing says quite a lot. At the end of January 2015, the online bulletin board reddit issued a “transparency report” that informed its users, and the broader…
Four Takeaways From State v. Andrews
On Wednesday, an appellate court in Maryland handed down a major loss to the government, one that will send police and prosecutors back to the drawing board (or at least back to…

The New Intelligence Sharing Procedures Are Not About Law Enforcement
[Editor’s Note: The author composed this analytic essay while serving as General Counsel for the Director of National Intelligence.] There has been a lot of speculation about…
We Need to Know More About When the FBI Can Access One of the NSA’s Biggest Databases
Americans have learned quite a bit about electronic surveillance since Edward Snowden leaked a massive trove of classified documents almost three years ago. And while we still…