National Security Agency (NSA)
295 Articles

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…

The Legal Legacy of the NSA’s Section 215 Bulk Collection Program
Last week’s opinion in Klayman v. Obama by Judge Richard Leon dealt another, emphatic(!) blow to the constitutionality of the NSA’s bulk phone record surveillance program under…

Judge Leon’s Poignant, Yet Pointless, Injunction in Klayman
A long time 12 days ago, I wrote a post sharply criticizing the Second Circuit for deciding not to decide the Fourth Amendment question in ACLU v. Clapper, which arises from the…

Orin Kerr’s Unconvincing Defense of Yesterday’s Second Circuit (Non-)Ruling
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, my friend Orin Kerr has a thoughtful post up about yesterday’s Second Circuit decision in ACLU v. Clapper, which refused to enjoin the…

Section 215 and “Fruitless” (?!?) Constitutional Adjudication
This morning, the Second Circuit issued a follow-on ruling to its May decision in ACLU v. Clapper (which had held that the NSA’s bulk telephone records program was unlawful…

Too Much Posturing and Not Enough Substance on Encryption
Obama administration officials revealed late last week that will not force technology firms to weaken digital encryption to give government greater access to user data. This is…

Adding Some Nuance on the European Court’s Safe Harbor Decision
Yesterday, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued a decision about European data protection laws as they relate to data transfers to the US. While there have been a number…

Better Never Than Late? The D.C. Circuit’s Problematic Standing Holding in Klayman
This morning, nearly 10 months after it was argued, the D.C. Circuit finally handed down its decision in Obama v. Klayman—the government’s appeal of Judge Leon’s December…

The Declining Half-Life of Secrets
Image credit: US Government via Wikimedia Commons The following post is a preview of a new paper from New America’s Cybersecurity Initiative, where the author is a fellow.…

Has the CIA Asked the FISC to Restart Its Bulk Collection Program?
There’s a curious gap in the documents currently posted on the FISC’s public docket — one that suggests the NSA call records program isn’t the only type of bulk collection…

The FISC’s Newest Opinion: Proof of the Need for an Amicus
In the first public opinion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) since the USA Freedom Act became law, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV ruled that the law revived the…

The Need for a USA Freedom Technical Corrections Act
In a post on Thursday entitled “What Did the USA FREEDOM Act Actually Amend?,” Megan Graham of Just Security carefully described a huge problem with the USA FREEDOM Act, one…