Secrecy

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55 Articles
The pages of a redacted court filing from the Special Council Robert Mueller in the Paul Manafort case are spread out on a flat surface.

How Should FOIA Be Reformed to Prevent Further Abuse of Redactions?

To ensure the FOIA is not weaponized and used as an instrument of secrecy, Congress should reform the statute to mirror how the deliberative process privilege is treated in the…
A redacted email from Elaine McCuster on August 27, 2019 at 12:02am to Eric Chewning and cc-ed David Norquist and John Rood with the subject line, “RE: [Non-DoD Source] Ukraine (USAI funding).” The text of the email is redacted but there is an attachment listed with the name, “smime.p7s”

Did the Trump Administration Abuse the Redactions Process?

The so-called deliberative process privilege allows federal agencies to redact internal policy debates, but it is often abused.
US Department of Justice building at night.

Selective Disclosure of OLC legal Opinions Isn’t Enough

The ad hoc release of OLC opinions raises more fundamental questions about the role of the OLC and the public’s right to know how the executive branch interprets the law.
An electronic version of the Mueller Report with redactions regarding the Internet Research Agency is seen on a cellphone outside the White House April 18, 2019, in Washington, DC.

How Secrecy Undermines Mueller and the Defense of Democracy

Official secrecy can diminish democratic discourse, limit debate, and blind the Congress and the public to the nature of the most imminent threats to democracy, all in the name…

Does Pervasive Secrecy Impede Intelligence Collection?: How Intelligence Agencies Could Use Crowdsourcing to Foil WMD Attacks

For decades, the edifice of the U.S. intelligence community (IC) has been built on a single principle: that intelligence is best when it is secret. Within the IC, this principle…

Condolence Payments for Civilian Casualties: Lessons for Applying the New NDAA

The new National Defense Authorization Act can help improve the way the U.S. responds to civilian casualties. FOIA requests and interviews with DoD officials, U.S. soldiers, judge…

Trump’s Year of Secrecy

In a representative democracy, the people are supposed to supervise the government’s activities and hold political leaders accountable for their decisions. That oversight…
Department of Justice sign on the face of building.

The Office of Legal Counsel and Secret Law

In theory, it’s the province of the judiciary to say what the law is, but in practice this task often falls to the Office of Legal Counsel.  This is because many important questions…

Hidden from the Public: The United Kingdom’s Drone Warfare

The use of armed drones by the United States, both within the conflict zones of Iraq and Syria, and further afield in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, continues to be characterized…

The Newly Released National Security Framework Report: An Important Step Forward

On Tuesday, President Obama made the case in his final national security speech that staying true to American values is not a weakness, but the country’s greatest strength…

The Bobbitt Version

Beginning in 2002 with the publication of The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History and continuing through Terror and Consent: the Wars for the Twenty First…

Philip Bobbitt’s War Without Tears

In times of war, it’s sometimes said, the laws fall silent—but the laws, and the human rights lawyers who would enforce them, are still faintly murmuring, and these faint murmurs…
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