Too often, national security and personal liberties are portrayed as inversely related. This is simplistic, and also clearly wrong. After all, in the absence of security, it would be impossible to enjoy our freedoms at all. Nevertheless, some of the hardest national security choices are inevitably those that involve tradeoffs with civil liberties. The need to gather information on our enemies rubs up against expectations of privacy. The eroding line between war and law enforcement endangers principles of due process. And the need to keep secrets increasingly leads to tension with a robust free press.
Latest in Civil Liberties and Constitutional Rights
On Monday, the New York Police Department agreed to a revised class action settlement that it hopes will put to rest litigation surrounding the Department’s surveillance of Muslims.
The Department of Justice has released the Office of Legal Counsel memo assessing the legality of President Trump's executive order banning entry into the United States by refugees and immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries.
A roundup of Just Security's recent coverage of Trump's executive order on immigration.
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates has announced in a letter to Department of Justice staff that the Department will not be enforcing President Trump's executive order excluding immigrants and refugees from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from the United States.
A roundup of the documents in ongoing litigation related to Trump's executive order banning entry into the United States by immigrants and refugees from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen is facing legal challenges in a number of federal jurisdictions.
A summary of Donald Trump's executive order instituting a suspension of entry to the U.S. and issuances of visas for people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen (earlier designated as “areas of concern” under the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act).
Two Iraqi refugees detained at JFK International Airport have filed a habeas petition challenging President Trump's executive order restricting refugee and immigrant entry into the United States as unconstitutional in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
My recent post on the top-side briefing in Hernandez v. Mesa, the Fourth Amendment cross-border shooting case pending at the Supreme Court, struck a nerve with my friend Steve Vladeck, who is one of the able attorneys representing the parents of the deceased teenager Hernandez.
As my friend Andrew Kent notes in his characteristically interesting post on the top-side briefing in Hernández v. Mesa (the cross-border shooting case in which the Supreme Court will hear oral argument on February 18), I'
Hernandez v. Mesa has the potential to generate a very important decision by the Supreme Court, impacting foreign intelligence surveillance, drone strikes, and many other U.S. government activities abroad.