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Many commentators following the NSA scandals have been eagerly awaiting the recommendations of the US government task force on the matter, and the proposed reforms to be implemented by President Obama to bring the spy agency under control. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, you can watch the president’s recent speech and nod your head

We begin our analysis of the legal machinations of the NSA by looking at the secret court system which supposedly practices judicial oversight over the agency. This Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court or FISC) was created in 1978 as a result of recommendations of the Church Committee, composed after a series of intelligence

[ This article is part of a series. See “ Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Courts ” and “ FISA , the NSA, and America’s Secret Court System .”] We have seen how the NSA’s phony court system has acted as a substitute for genuine judicial review, allowing the NSA to build up precedents purporting to assist its constitutional claims. We have also

[image] This article is part of a series. See Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Courts , FISA, the NSA, and America’s Secret Court System , and How the NSA Made Your Legal Defense Illegal . We now look at the system of secret law that was developed behind a barrier of secrecy to give a legal veneer to the system of mass surveillance that has

Volume 13, Number 1 (Spring 2010) ABSTRACT: We examine the strict preference approach to the interpretation of human action and the assertion that a choice cannot be made between actions in which the actor is indifferent to the outcomes. We show that this view is incompatible with decision problems involving equally optimal actions and we examine

The Donald Sterling affair is the latest step in the eroding of any sense of personal privacy in American society.  The owner of the ‘Los Angeles Clippers’ NBA team was taped in an argument with an alleged mistress, expressing his distaste for her posting online photos of herself with black men, or bringing them to basketball games for his team —

[ This article is adapted from “ The Ethics of Whistleblowing “ which is Part I of a two-part analysis of ethical and legal questions pertaining to whistleblowers who expose government wrongdoing. The second part of the analysis is here . ] Whistleblowers and Confidentiality Obligations Whistleblowing involves the revelation of misconduct or