Intelligence activities
161 Articles
U.S. Libel Case Over Russian Poisoning Takes Aim at Kremlin Propaganda
A lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan alleges defamation by two Kremlin-controlled television stations widely available in the United States concerning the infamous poisoning…
Did the U.S. Fail Its “Duty to Warn” Jamal Khashoggi? How U.S. Directive 191 Applies to Kidnapping Threats
A US executive branch order would have required US intelligence agencies to warn Khashoggi of the threat to kidnap or kill him.
New U.K. Law Fails European Court Standards on Mass Interception Disclosed by Snowden
The U.K. government trots out its new surveillance legislation as curing the ills identified by the European Court of Human Rights. That's not the case. The Court’s judgment…
“License to Kill” in Salisbury: State-sponsored assassinations and the jus ad bellum
Above: U.K. Ambassador to the U.N. Jonathan Allen speaks at an urgent meeting of the Security Council on the recent nerve agent attack in Salisbury, U.K. on March 14, 2018. (Spencer…
Salisbury Response Option: Take Putin to Int’l Criminal Court
What legal options are open to the United Kingdom in its response to the alleged Russian assassination attempt in Salisbury? A separate piece at Just Security will discuss whether…
Let’s Leave “Crisis” and “Emergency” For the Real Thing
Samantha Vinograd, who served on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council and as deputy U.S. Treasury attaché to Iraq during the Bush Administration, has recently…
Congress is Facing Decisions on Torture, and Needs to Treat Them As Such
On October 17, the Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing on Christopher Sharpley’s nomination to become the next CIA inspector general. He has been the agency’s acting…
What the White House Needs to Disclose about its Process for Revealing Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities
At a series of events earlier in October, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Rob Joyce announced that he is preparing to release more information about the Vulnerabilities Equities…
Don’t Be So Quick to Call Those Disclosures “Legal”
Following multiple reports that President Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russian officials at a private meeting, various legal experts have asserted that Trump…
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…
A Response to “The Tech”: Continuing the Vulnerability Equities Process Debate
In my recent Just Security piece, I argued that Aitel and Tait’s suggestions in Lawfare to focus the Vulnerability Equities Process (VEP) more narrowly on strategic intelligence…
The Democratic National Committee Hack: Information as Interference
Earlier this month, WikiLeaks released nearly 20,000 e-mails belonging to Democratic National Committee’s top officials, where Senator Bernie Sanders was humiliated and criticized.…