I’ve just finished reading Judge Richard Posner’s new book, Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency (Oxford, 2006). The book is a slender volume, with a remarkable feat for a law professor — absolutely no footnotes or endnotes or citations of any sort save a short bibliography at the end.
Category: National Security
Posts about National Security by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
Security Choices
In discussing security vs. civil liberties, I’ve argued that too little questioning of the security side of the balance is going on. The government engages in some elaborate and expensive program in the name of security, and instantly the debate shifts to whether we can deal with the sacrifices in civil liberties. The effectiveness of the security […]
Terrorism and Security Overreactions
Bruce Schneier has a thoughtful and provocative post about how our overreactions to terrorism are exactly what the terrorists want:
NSA Surveillance and the First Amendment
Earlier today, a federal district judge struck down the Bush Administration’s NSA surveillance program which involved intercepting international electronic communications without a warrant. The opinion is available here. I have not had time to read the opinion carefully yet, but I am especially intrigued by the court’s use of the First Amendment as one of the […]
NYC Subway Searches
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit recently upheld New York City’s program of random searches at subways. The case is McWade v. Kelly, No. 05 6754 CV (2d Cir. 2006). The program was initiated after the London subway bombing. Back in December, 2005, a federal district court upheld the searches, which are conducted […]
Massive Government Data Mining of Financial Records
Apparently, warrantless wiretapping and gathering of phone call records just aren’t enough to quench the Bush Administration’s thirst for data. Now we learn that the government has gathered massive quantities of financial records. The New York Times reports:
Template for News Stories on Government Data Gathering
NSA warrantless wiretaps. NSA collection of phone records. CIA gathering of financial records. The stories are endless. To help out reporters, I thought I’d just write a quick and easy template to make reporting a little bit easier. So here it is:
The Technicalities and Complexities of Electronic Surveillance Law
Currently, there’s a debate raging about whether the phone companies violated the law when they supplied phone call records to the NSA. Orin Kerr opines:
Electronic Surveillance Statistics for 2005
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has released its annual report on the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) orders, Wiretap Act orders, and National Security Letters issued in 2005. For FISA surveillance orders, 2072 applications were made to the FISA court; none were denied. Over the past few years, the number of orders has been steadily increasing:
Stuntz Responds: Further Thoughts on Privacy and Transparency
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post criticizing an essay by William Stuntz (law, Harvard) in The New Republic. Today, he has responded to my post in The New Republic Online. I’ll reply briefly here to a few of Stuntz’s points in response. Stuntz observes: