For quite a while it has been the case that properly implemented encryption will defeat efforts to crack it (at least using current technology). Yet it has been the case for an equally long time that ver...

The United States today appealed an adverse ruling in the capital military commission case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The Guantanamo detainee stands accused, among other things, of orchestrating th...

I was at the National Security Agency yesterday giving a Constitution Day speech and I learned details of a shocking collection program: The government is bulk collecting all traffic on Twitter. Under a ...

I have spent a lot of time over the past several years---as have many Americans---marveling at the horribleness of the United States Congress.

This afternoon, President Obama finally nominated a new State Department Legal Adviser -- Brian Egan, who currently serves as Deputy Counsel to the President and NSC Legal Adviser.  Here is Brian's bio: ...

From yesterday’s Senate Arms Services Committee Hearing (at about the 2:23 mark): Senator UDALL (NM):  And my question to you has to do with – and this is all public information, but everybody's well awa...

Via  Steve Aftergood, I learned that the CIA “has posted hundreds of declassified and unclassified articles from its in-house journal Studies in Intelligence.”  The articles are 

Earlier this week, the FBI announced the completion of its "next generation" facial recognition program.  The system, now "fully operational" will house more than 52 million faces, which (assuming no dup...

The two most promising Islamic State AUMFs I have seen are the one sponsored by Representative Schiff and the one sponsored by Senator Kaine.  Both drafts, in different ways, purport to limit the authori...

Over the past week there has been much talk about the President's invocation of the 2001 AUMF in connection with ISIS. Many (including me) expressed considerable surprise, and doubt, about the merits of ...

To "jump the shark" is a symbol for when a phenomenon (usually a TV show) reaches its apex and begin declining in quality.  It's named after a famous "Happy Days" episode where Fonzie gets on a water ski...

This week's hearing in the military commission case of United States v. Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi turned out to be a quick one.  Monday afternoon was evidently sufficient time for court and counsel to debate ...

Military judge J. Kirk Waits begins Monday's session in the military commission case against Hadi with some housekeeping matters: the detailing of a new member of the defense team, Lt. Col. Thomas Jasper...

We are pleased to share our recently published article on law and autonomous weapons, on which we teamed up with our good friend Daniel Reisner (formerly head of the Israel Defense Forces International L...