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.
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The government’s best defense of a warrantless system of digital surveillance would rely on the “special needs” exception to the Fourth Amendment.
Policymakers have paid scant consideration to the national security implications of unfettered, largely unregulated data brokering. That may be changing.
On April 26, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a redacted Nov. 18, 2020 ruling issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). The decision, written by Judge James E. Boasberg, grants the U.S. government’s request for approval to continue collecting information on non-U.S. persons in order to acquire foreign intelligence information.
Stakeholders are increasingly advocating for a multilateral accord on government surveillance.
The petitioners argue that the First Amendment gives the public the right to access FISC decisions and that redactions should only serve legitimate national security interests.
Highlights from an overview of the NSA’s new document explaining the rules that govern the collection of signals intelligence.
A new report shows the widespread use by law enforcement of tools that circumvent encryption barriers.
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.