Episode 62 of the National Security Law Podcast: Wait–We Have to Talk About...
It’s not every week on this show that we get to talk about the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade! And if that’s not an appealing hook to get you to listen, we...
View ArticleThe Intel Community’s Annual Transparency Report Raises More Questions Than...
In the waning hours of the day on Friday, May 4 – four days later than was statutorily required – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released its annual transparency report. This...
View ArticleReports: Carter Page Was Subject to FISA Warrant in 2013/2014
If the FBI had already convinced a federal court to issue a warrant to surveil Carter Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 2013 or 2014, it could add an important data point...
View ArticleAmericans’ Privacy at Stake as Second Circuit Hears Hasbajrami FISA Case
When Congress reauthorized Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in January, it ratified the warrantless collection of potentially millions of Americans’ phone calls and...
View ArticleWhat Happened at the Court: The Hasbajrami Oral Argument on Section 702 of...
On August 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard argument in United States v. Hasbajrami, a case that raises several challenges to the constitutionality of surveillance under...
View ArticleTrump Declassifying Page, Ohr Records Will Have Broader Effects
President Donald Trump plans to declassify documents as early as this week about the FBI’s surveillance of campaign advisor Carter Page pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), as...
View ArticleRevisiting Carter Page
With Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian electoral interference finally complete—even though the public is still waiting to learn what it says—many Republicans are declaring it’s time to pivot back to...
View ArticleThe FISA Court’s 702 Opinions, Part I: A History of Non-Compliance Repeats...
Last week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released three redacted opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (also known as the FISA Court) and the FISA Court of...
View ArticleThe FISA Court’s Section 702 Opinions, Part II: Improper Queries and Echoes...
Part I of this post discussed the troubled history of the Section 702 program and the first two issues addressed in the FISA Court’s October 2018 opinion: whether a particular form of downstream...
View ArticleHow to Address Newly Revealed Abuses of Section 702 Surveillance
Newly declassified judicial opinions, released last week, revealed that the government has again violated the rules for access to vast databases containing Americans’ private communications—and that...
View ArticleThe Crossfire Hurricane Report’s Inconvenient Findings
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s long-awaited report on the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation is finally out, and notwithstanding furious efforts from all quarters to...
View ArticleVideo of Expert Panel: Reforming the FISA Process — Proposals for the Future
Last week, on January 16, 2020, Just Security and NYU School of Law’s Reiss Center on Law and Security convened a public panel to discuss reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA),...
View ArticlePumping the Brakes a Bit on FISA “Reform”
Earlier this month, the Reiss Center on Law and Security sponsored a program titled “Reforming the FISA Process: Proposals for the Future.” It was a panel discussion and, as is often the case when it...
View ArticleDeciphering the FISC’s Order on the Carter Page FISA Application
In early January, we gained further insight into what went wrong with the FBI’s application to wiretap former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and what the Justice Department will do about it. On...
View ArticleCongress Is Ready for FISA Reform — Will the House Judiciary Committee Rise...
Something quite unusual happened last fall. After an internal Justice Department watchdog reported that the government had submitted flawed documents to get court approval for surveillance of former...
View ArticleImprove FISA on Civil Liberties by Strengthening Amici
Authorization for the National Security Agency’s (NSA) now-halted program of collecting records of phone call details is slated to expire on March 15, unless renewed by Congress, prompting a flurry of...
View ArticleA Response to “End the FISA”: Why It’s a Good Law and Sound Policy
Since the public release of a redacted version of a Report on Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation (the “Horowitz Report”), the Foreign Intelligence...
View ArticleODNI’s 2019 Statistical Transparency Report: The FBI Violates FISA…Again
Every year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) releases a statistical transparency report on the use of national security authorities. The report, which began as a voluntary...
View ArticleWhat Comes Next: The Aftermath of European Court’s Blow to Transatlantic Data...
On Thursday, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) dealt a blow to the free flow of data across borders in the name of protecting privacy — with global implications. The case, known as Schrems II, is...
View ArticleThe Future of U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Over the last two decades, in the name of national security, the U.S. government has engaged in mass surveillance of private communications and data on an unimaginable scale. Although the government...
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