4th Amendment
176 Articles

The Obama Administration Has Embraced Legal Theories Even Broader Than John Yoo’s
The Justice Department recently released another of the now-notorious Office of Legal Counsel memos written by John Yoo — memos that authorized torture, warrantless wiretapping,…

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…

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…

Justice Garland and National Security Accountability: What’s Missing from the Dueling Guantánamo Accounts
Not surprisingly, folks looking for interesting things to say about Chief Judge (and Supreme Court nominee) Merrick Garland’s jurisprudence during his 19-year tenure on the…

Reminder: You Should Care About Mass Surveillance, Even if You’ve Done Nothing Wrong
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…

Justice Scalia, Privacy, and Where We Go From Here
When you work in privacy and civil liberties, you get accustomed to having strange bedfellows. Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic socialist presidential candidate from Vermont,…

Law Enforcement Online: Innovative Doesn’t Mean Illegal
Even the Wild West needed a sheriff. And today’s law enforcement agents, to be effective, need more than a Colt .45 and a gold star. Criminal actors have an increasing ability…

Questions Congress Should Ask About Section 702
After passing a surveillance reform bill last year, Congress appears poised to turn to examine another controversial surveillance authority — Section 702 of FISA. Using Section…

Content Is Content, No Matter How Small
Recently, Orin Kerr and I had a brief conversation on Twitter regarding the Fourth Amendment and the content/non-content distinction. Specifically, Orin asked those of us who subscribe…

A Few Keystrokes Could Solve the Crime. Would You Press Enter?
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons Suppose a laptop were found at the apartment of one of the perpetrators of last year’s Paris attacks. It’s searched by the authorities pursuant…

Second Circuit Denies Rehearing En Banc in Turkmen; Is Supreme Court Next?
I’ve written before both here and at MSNBC about the Second Circuit’s immensely significant June 17 decision in Turkmen v. Hasty, which recognized a cause of action…

Remember Why We Have the Fourth Amendment
The Paris attacks have fueled a debate over surveillance on both sides of the Atlantic that, while not new, has reached a level of hysteria that I have not witnessed since the…