Intelligence activities
177 Articles
Overseas Surveillance in an Interconnected World
Outside the pages of Just Security and a handful of other places, it’s hard to find much debate over the NSA’s overseas surveillance activities. The same lawmakers and pundits…
Security and the Internet of Things
On Tuesday, the Obama administration announced a program to better secure the “Internet of Things” and also highlighted the opportunities networked devices provide for the…
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…
Why We Need to Reevaluate How We Share Intelligence Data With Allies
Last week, Canadians learned that their foreign signals intelligence agency, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), had improperly shared information with their American,…
Congress Squawks as Surveillance Chickens Come Home to Roost
A year that has alternated between major surveillance reforms and calls for new spying laws in the wake of ISIS attacks is set to close with a pendulum swing back against NSA surveillance…
Bulk Collection Under Section 215 Has Ended… What’s Next?
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…
A World at War With Daesh
They say we are at war. What does war look like? Our enemy is violent Islamic extremism. He is Daesh. He is al-Qaeda. The enemy consists of all groups and adherents of violent…
Politicization of Intelligence: Lessons From a Long, Dishonorable History
The Daily Beast and the New York Times have reported allegations that senior (but thus far unidentified) Defense Department and United States Central Command (CENTCOM) officials…
The Symbolic Sunset & What’s Next for the USA Freedom Act
Because the gods of traffic metrics are stern taskmasters, you’ll likely read a lot of headlines today about “the expiration of the Patriot Act,” possibly paired…
Candidates, Senators, and Surveillance: The Stakes
In the wake of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling that the Patriot Act’s Section 215 metadata program is illegal, former Senator (and now presidential candidate)…
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…
The Torture Convention & Appendix M of the Army Field Manual on Interrogations
We are on the eve of the release of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation program. Although this report will…