Law enforcement
440 Articles
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…
Police Militarization in the Trump Era
Since his swearing in, President Donald Trump has issued a flurry of controversial Executive Orders. One frequently overlooked yet dramatically important issue that has yet to…
Looking back at 2016, A Status Check on Government Hacking
Last year, the ongoing encryption debate took a backseat to a steady drip of stories and developments related to government hackings. This set the stage for a set of policy and…
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 Counterterrorism Program in Los Angeles: Suspicious Thought Reporting?
The FBI is teaming up with local police in Los Angeles to roll out a new approach to prevent domestic terrorism, called RENEW for “Recognizing Extremist Network Early Warnings.”…
Investigating Surveillance Around Standing Rock
An anonymous Facebook plea recently went viral, asking people to check in to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation to thwart police surveillance of the Dakota Access pipeline protesters.…
Surveillance and Anti-Press Sentiment Heightens Concerns for Journalists Closer to Home
In 1999, Amartya Sen argued that the health of a country could be determined by examining the health of its press. One metric of the fitness of a country’s press is the safety…
Is Throwing a Rock Through a Window “Terrorism”? Some Federal Prosecutors Think So
Image by Tomas Castelazo— Wikimedia Did you know that throwing a rock through the window of a Whole Foods could be punished as a federal crime of terrorism? An Assistant United…
A Broken Playbook: The NYPD Targeted Muslims in Over 95-Percent of Investigations That Broke Surveillance Rules
The NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau consistently broke court-imposed rules governing investigations involving political activity, according to a recent report by the NYPD Inspector…
Fighting Human Trafficking in Conflict: Ideas for the UN Security Council
Slavery – is it making a comeback? There is a growing awareness that as many as 45.8 million people may be enslaved around the world today, and that supply-chains for basic commodities…
Judicial Enforcement of a Senate Subpoena of Backpage.com
Last week, the DC Circuit temporarily stayed an order enforcing a US Senate subpoena for records from the classified advertising site, Backpage.com, which has come under scrutiny…
The Government Response to Turkey’s Coup Is an Affront to Democracy
The word “coup” in French literally means “blow” or “shock.” The latter meaning aptly describes the reaction of the world to the events in Turkey on the night of July…