FISA Reform
54 Articles

Surveillance Law Backers’ ‘Willie Horton’ Tactics
In the aftermath of the renewal of a major U.S. surveillance law last month, anyone concerned about civil rights should be taking stock of both the government’s extensive surveillance…

Facts on FISA: Correcting the Record on the Section 702 House Floor Debate
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) speak at a news conference about their proposed FISA reforms at the Russell Senate Office Building on…

Deep State Dissonance
U.S. National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers delivers remarks arguing for the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on October 13, 2017 in…

Episode 50 of the National Security Law Podcast: The Big Chill
Are your other podcasts letting you down by taking a holiday break? Never fear, National Security Law Podcast is here! With two hosts who would much rather be podcasting than…

The “Backdoor Search Loophole” Isn’t Our Only Problem: The Dangers of Global Information Sharing
The upcoming expiration of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has launched a fresh wave of debate on how the statute’s “backdoor search loophole”…

The USA Liberty Act — aka Don’t Let the Constitutional be the Enemy of the Unconstitutional
The House Judiciary Committee has completed its markup of a major surveillance reform bill intended to better protect Americans’ privacy and enhance transparency. Responding…

What Did the USA Freedom Act Actually Amend?
There has been a lot of ink spilled here and elsewhere about the USA Freedom Act over the last several weeks. Its privacy protections. Its alterations to the government’s surveillance…

Rand Paul and Surveillance Reform, Part II
My post from yesterday about how Rand Paul hijacked the surveillance reform debate provoked a series of interesting responses both via e-mail and on Twitter, including a note from…

Reforming the FISA Court
There has been much discussion, on the pages of this blog and elsewhere (here, here, and here to name just a few), about the procedural shortcomings of the FISA Court — the lack…

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: Is Reform Needed?
With the advent of the Edward Snowden leaks commencing in June 2013, much has been written about Snowden and the United States intelligence community. This short blog post examines…

Michael Hayden: “We Kill People Based on Metadata”
[Editor’s note: See the video clip from the debate where General Hayden said “We kill people based on metadata” here.] I have a New York Review of Books blog up today on…

How to Evaluate Whether the NSA’s Telephony Metadata Program Makes Us Safer (and What Proponents and Opponents Get Wrong)
[Editor’s Note: Just Security is holding a “mini forum” on the Report by the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. Others in the…