Surveillance
680 Articles
Laura Donohue’s Comprehensive Case Against Bulk Metadata Collection
Our good friend and Georgetown Law Professor Laura Donohue has been kind enough to share with us an advance draft of her latest article, “Bulk Metadata Collection: Statutory…
Five Questions We Should All Be Asking About the NSA and the US Targeted Killing Program
The Washington Post’s latest piece on NSA surveillance, based on Edward Snowden’s leaked documents, provides a glimpse into the US government’s highly secretive process for…
We All Go Down Together: NSA Programs Overseas Violate Americans’ Privacy, Yet Escape FISC, Congressional Oversight
Ongoing revelations show that significant NSA surveillance activities take place outside of either Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) or congressional oversight, even…
The Government’s Initial Supreme Court Filing on the Section 215 “Telephony Records Program”
On Friday the government filed its brief in opposition to the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s mandamus petition to the Supreme Court, No. 13-58, in which EPIC is challenging…
Other Uses of the NSA Call Records Database—Fingerprinting Burners?
We’ve now heard in some detail about how the NSA made use of its vast database of call records to investigate links between terror suspects via “contact chaining”…
Government Shutdown Postpones Declassification Review of FISC Opinion
Today, the FISC granted the government’s motion to delay a declassification review of prior FISC opinions regarding the legality of Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Contrary…
“Relevance” at the Royale Inn
The NSA’s controversial call records program is predicated on the extraordinary premise that the phone logs of nearly all Americans are “relevant” to an intelligence…
New NSA Reform Proposal from Sen. Leahy and Rep. Sensenbrenner
While the continued government shutdown has sidelined an estimated 800,000 federal employees and resulted in the cancellation of President Obama’s trip to Asia this weekend,…
Recent Filings in Case Challenging NSA metadata program (ACLU v. Clapper)
Earlier this summer the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSA’s collection of telephony metadata under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. This is one…
NSA Bulk Collection, the “Corporate Store,” and the Forgotten ECPA Loophole
This weekend’s New York Times report on NSA aggregation of large databases to map the social networks of US citizens contains a reminder that the vast bulk phone records…
The Kris Paper, and the Problematic FISC Opinion on the Section 215 “Metadata” Collection Program [UPDATED Oct. 14]
If you haven’t done so already, you really ought to read David Kris’s very thoughtful and comprehensive paper on the Section 215 metadata collection program, a précis…
Intelligence Oversight and Surveillance Act — Language Now Available
Yesterday, I wrote about the proposed Intelligence Oversight and Surveillance Reform Act. The language of the proposed bill is not yet available on the Library of Congress’…