Foreign Surveillance
145 Articles

Broad Warrantless Surveillance Threatens to Undermine the Criminal Justice System
Congressional debates about the renewal of one of the United States’ most sweeping intelligence surveillance laws are heating up. Helping to shape the discussion are several…

Reforming Surveillance In the Age of Donald Trump
Above: An NSA site in Germany. On Wednesday, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes (R-CA), gave a press conference in which he reported that Trump…

Incidental Collection Is Extremely Troubling, Regardless of Legality
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…

Drawing a Line on Mass Surveillance: How Congress Must Reform Section 702
RAF Menwith Hill in the United Kingdom, host to U.S. National Security Agency facilities. On Monday, members of the House Intelligence Committee held an open hearing into Russian…

It Ain’t Easy Getting a FISA Warrant: I Was an FBI Agent and Should Know
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…

Just Security Event: Surveillance and the Trump Administration
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…

The CIA’s New Guidelines for Handling Americans’ Information
In acknowledgment of the mass scale of modern electronic intelligence collection, the Central Intelligence Agency today released newly updated guidelines governing how it treats…

The Ninth Circuit’s Constitutional Detour in Mohamud
The Ninth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Mohamud continues a trend of disappointing decisions by lower courts on the constitutionality of FISA Section 702 surveillance.…

Ninth Circuit Upholds 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, But Leaves Open Future Challenges
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit released its opinion in United States v. Mohamud – a case I described back in January 2015 as a “top national security” case to watch in the…

Rule 41 Has Been Updated: What’s Needed Next
On December, 1, the revised version of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 went into effect. The Department of Justice, which first proposed an earlier (and more expansive) version…

New UN Report Highlights Freedom of Expression Violations Across the Globe
UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, yesterday issued his fourth report, a comprehensive survey…

Correcting the Record on Section 702: A Prerequisite for Meaningful Surveillance Reform, Part III
In our previous posts, we’ve argued that the NSA is collecting massive amounts of data about US citizens under conditions that have nothing to do with terrorism or national…