Happy 4th of July! We will likely have reduced coverage today.
As many readers know, this week the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) released a major report concerning the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance program under section 702 of the Foreign Act Surveillance Act. Jennifer Granick asked eight basic but important questions the public needs to know about section 702 surveillance back in February, and she revisited those questions to see if the PCLOB answered them in their new report. Amie Stepanovich, Senior Policy Counsel at Access, guest posted on the report and gave us “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” Julian Sanchez goes through a “Fourth Amendment Thought Experiment” to reveal and interrogate our intuitions about surveillance.
Additionally, you probably don’t want to miss the great exchange this past week between Major General (Ret.) Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. and the Hoover Institution’s Marshall Erwin on the role of national security lawyers and the intelligence community in the public surveillance debate.
We look forward to resuming our regular flow of Just Security commentary and coverage after we get some Independence Day celebrating out of our system.