I. Foreign Policy

• Michael Posner, Tillerson’s Degradation of Human Rights Mustn’t–and Can’t Yet–be Executive Branch Policy (Monday, May 22)
• Sydney Blumenthal, What Lincoln Thought of “America First” (Monday, May 22)

II.  Trump and Russia

• Morton Halperin, Trump’s Disclosure Did Not Break the Law (Tuesday, May 23)
• Alex Whiting, The Drip, Drip of Obstruction News (Tuesday, May 23)
• Alex Whiting, Can Flynn Assert a Fifth Amendment Privilege to Withhold Documents?

President Trump’s decision to summarily dismiss now-former FBI Director James Comey has sparked grave concerns in many quarters.  The move has been described as a profoundly dangerous example of the President’s authoritarian instincts.  It has led to warnings of a potential constitutional crisis, speculation whether the president is guilty of obstruction of justice, and skepticism that the President’s proffered reasons for the termination actually underlie his decision.…   continue »

During summer of the 2016 presidential campaign, the FBI obtained a warrant from a secret court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, to monitor a Donald Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page due to Page’s communications with Russian agents, according to the Washington Post.…   continue »

This week has shed light on the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to executive privilege, but it has also cast doubt over President Donald Trump’s ability to assert it successfully over the longer term. We watched this play out when the Justice Department warned former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates that she needed White House clearance to testify before the House intelligence committee due to issues of executive privilege.…   continue »

A lot of ink has been spilled over statements by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes that President Trump’s communications were incidentally collected pursuant to a surveillance order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This has a lot of Americans scratching their heads and asking what incidental collection is, so now seemed like a good time to explain.…   continue »

A Defense Department slide showing the development of aerial surveillance systems.

The following is an abbreviated version of “Preventing an Air Panopticon: A Proposal for Reasonable Legal Restrictions on Aerial Surveillance,” published in the Volume 51 Spring Edition of the University of Richmond Law Review.  …   continue »

Surely without a hint of irony, just a day after WikiLeaks dumped a vault-load of documents detailing the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of hacking tools and software exploits, FBI Director James Comey told an audience at a Boston College conference on cybersecurity that “[t]here is no such thing as absolute privacy in America.” Comey’s elevator pitch in support of his claim was that “there is no place outside of judicial reach,” citing the fact that even time-tested testimonial privileges of the spousal, clergy–penitent, and attorney–client sort can be pierced by judges in “appropriate” circumstances.…   continue »

In his latest round of twiplash, President Trump on Saturday leveled a very serious accusation: that President Obama had personally ordered the “tapping” of telephone lines in Trump Tower in the months leading up to the November 2016 election. His tweets (scarily) reveal more about what he believes the office of the President is capable of than the reality of what the law allows.…   continue »

Join Just Security for a fireside chat on U.S. surveillance and a celebration of Jennifer Granick‘s new book, American Spies: Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, And What to Do About It. Opening remarks by Senator Ron Wyden, followed by a discussion between Granick and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Washington Correspondent Charlie Savage on U.S.…   continue »

Men walk to Friday Prayer at the Omar Mosque in Paterson, N.J. in 2012 after revelations that the NYPD had crossed into New Jersey to conduct surveillance on Newark and area muslims.

Over the last five years, the Obama administration struggled to develop and carry out a program to prevent violent extremism through community engagement and developing counter-narratives to extremist messages.…   continue »