With the rise of modern technologies, the scope and scale of government surveillance has exploded. The use of digital communication has made communication more efficient, but also much more vulnerable. Governments, meanwhile, are increasing their capacity to exploit these vulnerabilities, and companies, their ability to thwart them. Both the PATRIOT act and the Snowden disclosures pushed the issue to the front of the national conversation. Today, the legal and policy debate—over what kind of surveillance tools are acceptable, against whom, and with with whose authorization—continues in full force.
Latest in Surveillance
On Sept. 4, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a tranche of documents regarding procedures governing foreign intelligence collection. We summarize those documents here.
Some commentators have suggested that then-FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce misled Congress in 2013 about the NSA’s metadata program. I am confident that Sean testified to the facts as he understood them—not because I know the facts, but because I know Sean.
An overview of the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Moalin.
An overlooked part of United States v. Moalin could have a major impact on surveillance law.
Our research reveals common traits that thwarted municipal efforts to establish local civilian control over law enforcement surveillance.
These procedures show promise as a complement to judicial oversight, but cities could do more to stop vendors from shielding surveillance tools from scrutiny.
We propose a solution to fix the perceived defects in U.S. surveillance law identified recently by the EU’s judicial branch.
The Ninth Circuit declined to rehear en banc a case concerning the application of the state secrets privilege. What were the various claims made in the case?
The judgment by the Court of Justice for the European Union has provoked a hostile reaction from U.S. national security and privacy experts. But it’s a wake-up call for how Americans should understand national security and surveillance in a world of global information networks.
Digital contact tracing once seemed like a beacon of hope for pandemic management. That optimism has long since faded.