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Since the Revolutionary War, America's military and political leaders have recognized that U.S. national security depends upon the collection of intelligence. Absent information about foreign threats, the thinking went, the country and its citizens stood in great peril. To address this, the Courts and Congress have historically given the President broad leeway to obtain foreign intelligence. But in order to find information about an individual in the United States, the executive branch had to demonstrate that the person was an agent of a foreign power. Today, that barrier no longer exists. The intelligence community now collects massive amounts of data and then looks for potential threats to the United States. As renowned national security law scholar Laura K. Donohue explains in The Future of Foreign Intelligence, global communications systems and digital technologies have changed our lives in countless ways. But they have also contributed to a worrying transformation. Together with statutory alterations instituted in the wake of 9/11, and secret legal interpretations that have only recently become public, new and emerging technologies have radically expanded the amount and type of information that the government collects about U.S. citizens. Traditionally, for national security, the Courts have allowed weaker Fourth Amendment standards for search and seizure than those that mark criminal law. Information that is being collected for foreign intelligence purposes, though, is now being used for criminal prosecution. The expansion in the government's acquisition of private information, and the convergence between national security and criminal law threaten individual liberty. Donohue traces the evolution of U.S. foreign intelligence law and pairs it with the progress of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. She argues that the bulk collection programs instituted by the National Security Agency amount to a general warrant, the prevention of which was the reason the Founders introduced the Fourth Amendment. The expansion of foreign intelligence surveillanceleant momentum by advances in technology, the Global War on Terror, and the emphasis on securing the homelandnow threatens to consume protections essential to privacy, which is a necessary component of a healthy democracy. Donohue offers a road map for reining in the national security state's expansive reach, arguing for a judicial re-evaluation of third party doctrine and statutory reform that will force the executive branch to take privacy seriously, even as Congress provides for the collection of intelligence central to U.S. national security. Alarming and penetrating, this is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of foreign intelligence and privacy in the United States.

The NSA Report

President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, The

Published: 2014-03-31

Total Pages: 287


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The official report that has shaped the international debate about NSA surveillance "We cannot discount the risk, in light of the lessons of our own history, that at some point in the future, high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking. Americans must never make the mistake of wholly 'trusting' our public officials."—The NSA Report This is the official report that is helping shape the international debate about the unprecedented surveillance activities of the National Security Agency. Commissioned by President Obama following disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden, and written by a preeminent group of intelligence and legal experts, the report examines the extent of NSA programs and calls for dozens of urgent and practical reforms. The result is a blueprint showing how the government can reaffirm its commitment to privacy and civil liberties—without compromising national security.
Explores the varied ways in which threats to national security have affected civil liberties throughout American history. Has the government’s response to such threats led to a gradual loss of freedoms once taken for granted, or has the nation learned how to restore civil liberties after threats subside and how to put protections in place for the future? The authors focus on periods of national emergency in the twentieth century—from World War I through the Vietnam War—to explore how past episodes might bear upon today’s dilemma. They show that civil liberties are a not an immutable right, but the historically shifting result of a continuous struggle that has extended over two centuries. From publisher description.
A timely and balanced debate by leading experts on the trade-offs between national security and civil liberties.
National Security and Civil Liberty takes the reader on a unique journey through American history from the colonial era to the present day. Suitable for a history, criminal justice, or law class, no other book on the market examines two centuries of American history from the perspective of balancing national security and individual civil liberty interests. Where other books may focus on a particular liberty issue or security issue - such as government spying on political groups or distrust of aliens - this book reviews history by examining events occurring during significant decades in America's history (e.g.: The Colonial Era, Civil War Era, the Cold War Era). This approach enables the reader to better appreciate how two centuries of war, acts of terror, distrust of aliens, innovations in technology, and presidential intrigue have shaped the federal government's present response to perceived threats to our national security. Sadly, government action (spying, censorship, mass internment) in the face of a perceived crisis (the threat of communism, violent groups, terrorists) has usually led to the temporary lessening of traditional civil liberties, followed by cooling-off periods of decreased federal action where civil liberties are restored. However, our history has shown that once initiated, government encroachment upon individual liberty and freedom is never completely halted. The net effect of decades of steady, incremental advances in technology and military capabilities, coupled with the acceptance of ever-lessening liberties since the 9/11 attacks, means that we may now be living in a "police state" in America. After reading the book, students will have a solid foundation of historical information upon which to draw as they examine the issue of the trading of cherished liberties in the hope it will lead to increased security.
Tracing the history of government intrusions on Constitutional rights in response to threats from abroad, Cole and Dempsey warn that a society in which civil liberties are sacrificed in the name of national security is in fact less secure than one in which they are upheld. A new chapter includes a discussion of domestic spying, preventive detention, the many court challenges to post-9/11 abuses, implementation of the Patriot Act, and efforts to reestablish the checks and balances left behind in the rush to strengthen governmental powers.
A Brookings Institution Press and the Computer Ethics Institute publication Can we safeguard our nation's security without weakening cherished liberties? And how does technology affect the potential conflict between these fundamental goals? These questions acquired renewed urgency in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. They also spurred heated debates over such controversial measures as Total Information Awareness and the USA PATRIOT Act. In this volume, leading figures from the worlds of government, public policy, and business analyze the critical issues underlying these debates. The first set of essays examines the relationship between liberty and security and explores where the public stands on how best to balance the two. In the second section, the authors focus on information technology's role in combating terrorism, as well as tools, policies, and procedures that can strengthen both security and liberty at the same time. Finally, the third part of the book takes on a series of key legal issues concerning the restrictions that should be placed on the government's power to exploit these powerful new technologies. Contributors include Zoë Baird (Markle Foundation), James Barksdale (Barksdale Group), Bruce Berkowitz (Hoover Institution), Jerry Berman (Center for Democracy and Technology), Beryl A. Howell (Stroz Friedberg), Jon Kyl (U.S. Senate), Gilman Louie (In-Q-Tel), David Luban (Georgetown University), Richard A. Posner (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit), Marc Rotenberg (Electronic Privacy Information Center), James Steinberg (Brookings), Larry Thompson (Brookings), Gayle von Eckartsberg (In-Q-Tel), and Alan F. Westin (Columbia University).
All aspire to liberty and security in their lives but few people truly enjoy them. This book explains why this is so. In what Conor Gearty calls our 'neo-democratic' world, the proclamation of universal liberty and security is mocked by facts on the ground: the vast inequalities in supposedly free societies, the authoritarian regimes with regular elections, and the terrible socio-economic deprivation camouflaged by cynically proclaimed commitments to human rights. Gearty's book offers an explanation of how this has come about, providing also a criticism of the present age which tolerates it. He then goes on to set out a manifesto for a better future, a place where liberty and security can be rich platforms for everyone's life. The book identifies neo-democracies as those places which play at democracy so as to disguise the injustice at their core. But it is not just the new 'democracies' that have turned 'neo', the so-called established democracies are also hurtling in the same direction, as is the United Nations. A new vision of universal freedom is urgently required. Drawing on scholarship in law, human rights and political science this book argues for just such a vision, one in which the great achievements of our democratic past are not jettisoned as easily as were the socialist ideals of the original democracy-makers.
Tracing the history of government intrusions on Constitutional rights in response to threats from abroad, Cole and Dempsey warn that a society in which civil liberties are sacrificed in the name of national security is in fact less secure than one in which they are upheld. A new chapter includes a discussion of domestic spying, preventive detention, the many court challenges to post-9/11 abuses, implementation of the PATRIOT ACT, and efforts to reestablish the checks and balances left behind in the rush to strengthen governmental powers.
In each generation, for different reasons, America witnesses a tug of war between the instinct to suppress and the instinct for openness. Today, with the perception of a mortal threat from terrorists, the instinct to suppress is in the ascendancy. Part of the reason for this is the trauma that our country experienced on September 11, 2001, and part of the reason is that the people who are in charge of our government are inclined to use the suppression of information as a management strategy. Rather than waiting ten or fifteen years to point out what's wrong with the current rush to limit civil liberties in the name of "national security," these essays by top thinkers, scholars, journalists, and historians lift the veil on what is happening and why the implications are dangerous and disturbing and ultimately destructive of American values and ideals. Without our even being aware, the judiciary is being undermined, the press is being intimidated, racial profiling is rampant, and our privacy is being invaded. The "war on our freedoms " is just as real as the "war on terror " -- and, in the end, just as dangerous.