Domestic Surveillance
291 Articles

Senator McConnell’s Modest Proposal to Reform Section 215: Don’t!
With only 14 legislative days remaining (in the House, anyway) before Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act (which the government argues, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance…

Just Security’s Guide to the 2016 Presidential Candidates and National Security
The 2016 presidential election is more than 18 months away, but the races are already heating up with Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Hillary Clinton in the running so far.…

Rethinking How We Wage the Forever War
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…

Appointing Democratic Judges to the FISA Court Won’t Solve Its Structural Flaws
Chief Justice Roberts recently named two new judges to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) — Judge James P. Jones from the Western District of Virginia and Judge…

The Patriot Act’s Sunset is the Perfect Chance to Make the FISA Court More Like a Real Court
In the coming weeks, Congress must decide whether to renew the Patriot Act, which the National Security Agency (NSA) uses to collect Americans’ telephone records in bulk, regardless…

The Investigation into 12333 Begins
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) voted 4–1 yesterday to conduct reviews of how Executive Order 12333 is used in counterterrorism investigations by the…

Talking About Section 215: A Readers’ Guide
Media coverage of John Oliver’s critique about the lack of discussion surrounding government surveillance programs seems to prove his point. Much, if not most, of the attention…

Wikimedia v. NSA: Standing and the Fight for Free Speech and Privacy
On March 10, 2015, represented by the ACLU, the Wikimedia Foundation and eight co-plaintiffs filed suit against the NSA, the Justice Department, and others, over the mass search…

Whither the Section 215 Reauthorization Debate?
Remember section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act — and the bulk telephone records metadata program the government conducted pursuant a controversial interpretation of that authority?…

Deep Dive: The White House’s New Memo on Drones and Privacy
Last month, President Obama released a presidential memorandum on the domestic use of drones by federal agencies. The memorandum addresses the implications for privacy, civil rights,…

Why Wikipedia is Suing the NSA
This week, the Wikimedia Foundation, sued the NSA over surveillance efforts taking place on US soil, specifically the “upstream” collection of Internet data in an effort to…

Wikimedia Sues the NSA
This morning, the organization behind Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, sued the NSA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Justice Department, and their…