Law Commons^™

Cyber Plungers: Colonial Pipeline And The Case For An Omnibus Cybersecurity Legislation, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The May 2021 ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline was a wake-up call for a federal administration slow to realize the dangers that cybersecurity threats pose to our critical national infrastructure. The attack forced hundreds of thousands of Americans along the east coast to stand in endless lines for gas, spiking both prices and public fears. These stressors on our economy and supply chains triggered emergency proclamations in four states, including Georgia. That a single cyberattack could lead to a national emergency of this magnitude was seen by many as proof of even more crippling threats to come. Executive Director of …

Climate Security Insights From The Covid-19 Response, Mark Nevitt

Indiana Law Journal

The climate change crisis and COVID-19 crisis are both complex collective action problems. Neither the coronavirus nor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions respect political borders. Both impose an opportunity cost that penalizes inaction. They are also increasingly understood as nontraditional, novel security threats. Indeed, COVID-19’s human cost is staggering, with American lives lost vastly exceeding those lost in recent armed conflicts. And climate change is both a threat accelerant and a catalyst for conflict—a characterization reinforced in several climate-security reports. To counter COVID-19, the President embraced martial language, stating that he will employ a “wartime footing” to “defeat the virus.” Perhaps …

Enforcing Interstate Compacts In Federal Systems, Michael Osborn

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

The central goal of a federal system is for local government units to retain degrees of independence, specifically over matters of importance to that local unit. A logical corollary to that independence is the ability for local units to negotiate and contract with other local units on matters of importance. Therefore, it is not surprising that almost every federal system allows, either implicitly or explicitly, member states to form binding compacts with other states, the union government, or municipalities.1 Some federal democracies even allow member states to compact with foreign governments. Furthermore, almost every federal constitution includes a provision outlining …

The Right To Privacy And Data Protection In Times Of Armed Conflict, Asaf Lubin, Russell Buchan

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Contemporary warfare yields a profound impact on the rights to privacy and data protection. Technological advances in the fields of electronic surveillance, predictive algorithms, big data analytics, user-generated evidence, artificial intelligence, cloud storage, facial recognition, and cryptography are redefining the scope, nature, and contours of military operations. Yet, international humanitarian law offers very few, if any, lex specialis rules for the lawful processing, analysis, dissemination, and retention of personal information. This edited anthology offers a pioneering account of the current and potential future application of digital rights in armed conflict.

In Part I Mary Ellen O’Connell, Tal Mimran and Yuval …

The Reasonable Intelligence Agency, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Article 57(2) of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions requires parties to an armed conflict to “do everything feasible to verify” their objects of attack and take “all precautions” to minimize civilian casualties and unintentional damage to civilian property. This obligation has been interpreted in international law to require state parties to set up an “effective intelligence gathering system” that would properly identify targets using all technical means at the disposal of the combating forces.

But existing law has failed to define what “effective intelligence” looks like. Quite the opposite. Modern history is filled with examples of intelligence …

Policing In A Democratic Constitution, Michael Wasco

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

Most constitutions contain provisions relating to or impacting policing. Separate from the armed forces and intelligence services, the police are the state’s internal security apparatus, and codifying issues related to policing within a constitution can ensure efficient service delivery and human rights protections.

Originating from the Libyan constitution making process, this paper provides a taxonomy of options for constitution drafters and scholars. More so than other issues, such as separation of powers or human rights protections generally, policing sections are very country specific. While not advocating for specific best practices, the work gives ample justifications for certain policing principles and …

The Changing Face Of Terrorism And The Designation Of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Patrick J. Keenan

Indiana Law Journal

In this Article, I take up one slice of what should be a broad re-examination of

U.S. law and policy. I argue that the new attacks have been undertaken by entities

that can and should be designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Doing this would

permit prosecutors to target those who support these entities with tools that are not

currently available. This Article is both a doctrinal argument that directly addresses

the many legal hurdles that make designating groups, such as foreign hackers and

troll farms, terrorist organizations a complicated endeavor, and a policy argument

about how U.S. law and policy …

The Liberty To Spy, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Many, if not most, international legal scholars share the ominous contention that espionage, as a legal field, is devoid of meaning. For them, any attempt to extrapolate the lex lata corpus of the International Law of Intelligence (ILI), let alone its lex scripta, would inevitably prove to be a failed attempt, as there is simply nothing to extrapolate. The notion that international law is moot as to the question of if, when, and how intelligence is to be collected, analyzed, and promulgated, has been repeated so many times that it has become the prevailing orthodoxy.

This paper offers a new …

Examining The Anomalies, Explaining The Value: Should The Usa Freedom Act’S Metadata Program Be Extended?, Susan Landau, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Edward Snowden’s disclosure of National Security Agency (“NSA”) bulk collection of communications metadata was a highly disturbing shock to the American public. The intelligence community was surprised by the response, as it had largely not anticipated a strong negative public reaction to this surveillance program. Controversy over the bulk metadata collection led to the 2015 passage of the USA FREEDOM Act. The law mandated that the intelligence community would collect the Call Detail Records (“CDR”) from telephone service providers in strictly limited ways, not in bulk, and only under order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The new program initially …

Hacking For Intelligence Collection In The Fight Against Terrorism: Israeli, Comparative, And International Perspectives, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

תקציר בעברית: הניסיון של המחוקק הישראלי להביא להסדרה מפורשת של סמכויות השב״כ במרחב הקיברנטי משקף מגמה רחבה יותר הניכרת בעולם לעיגון בחקיקה ראשית של הוראות בדבר פעולות פצחנות מצד גופי ביון ומודיעין ורשויות אכיפת חוק למטרות איסוף מודיעין לשם סיכול עבירות חמורות, ובייחוד עבירות טרור אם בעבר היו פעולות מסוג אלה כפופות לנהלים פנימיים ומסווגים, הרי שהדרישה לשקיפות בעידן שלאחר גילויי אדוארד סנודן מחד והשימוש הנרחב בתקיפות מחשב לביצוע פעולות חיפוש וחקירה לסיכול טרור מאידך, מציפים כעת את הדרישה להסמכה מפורשת. במאמר זה אבקש למפות הן את השדה הטכנולוגי והן את השדה המשפטי בכל האמור בתקיפות מחשבים למטרות ריגול ומעקב. …

Defining Critical Infrastructure For A Global Application, Colleen M. Newbill

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

A Google search for the phrase "critical infrastructure" turns up 189 million results in little more than a half second: ''global critical infrastructure" has 151 million results; and "definition of critical infrastructure" yields 71.5 million results. The list of what industries and sectors fall under the critical infrastructure designation expands as time progresses and technology develops. As the threat of cyberattacks increases and this frontier of terrorism continues to emerge, attacks on critical infrastructure are high on the list of concerns and the need for protective measures imperative. The focus on protecting critical infrastructure does not stop at the borders …

Original Nation Approaches To "Inter-National" Law (Onail): Decoupling Of The Nation And The State And The Search For New Legal Orders, Hiroshi Fukurai

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

To elucidate the basic tenet of ONAIL, this paper is structured in the following way.5 The first section defines the nation and the state, as the misuse of these terms and related concepts has gravely obscured, distorted, and misrepresented the identity, role of law, geography, history, and reasons and causes behind conflicts and wars, regional struggles, refugee flows, genocide, human rights violations, and rapidlydegrading condition of natural environment and ecosystems. Terms such as the state, nation, and nation-state have been used interchangeably, despite the fact that their origins, geographies, histories, and relations to the role of law are quite distinct. …

The Resilient Foundation Of Democracy: The Legal Deconstruction Of The Washington Posts's Condemnation Of Edward Snowden, Hanna Kim

Indiana Law Journal

On September 17, 2016, The Washington Post (“the Post”) made history by being the first paper to ever call for the criminal prosecution of its own source —Edward Snowden. Yet, two years prior to this editorial, the Post accepted the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for its “revelation of widespread secret surveillance by the National Security Agency”—an honor which would not have been bestowed had Snowden not leaked the documents through this news outlet. The other three major media outlets that received and published Snowden’s documents and findings—The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Intercept—all have taken the …

The Politics Of Legal Arrangements: The "Duty Of Care," Justifying, Extending, And Perpetuating The Public-In-The-Private Forms Of Protection, Anna Leander

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article explores the place of formal legal arrangements in the politics surrounding the hybrid, enmeshed public-in-the-private forms of authority this special issue focuses on. It does so by analyzing the significance of one specific legal arrangement, the Duty of Care, for the politics surrounding public-in-the-private forms of protection. I show that the Duty of Care does considerable political work. It contributes to decentering, commercializing, and depoliticizing protection. In so doing, the Duty of Care is justifying this specific form of protection, defining and extending its scope, and perpetuating it. The article makes this argument by drawing both on the …

Too-Big-To-Fail 2.0? Digital Service Providers, Nizan Geslevich Packin

Indiana Law Journal

The Article explains why addressing Too-Big-To-Fail 2.0 has not yet become a political and societal priority. First, digital service providers are technology companies, which, many believe, are shaped by market forces such that they fail and succeed in equal measure without producing negative ripple effects on the economy or society. Second, technology giants are not as carefully regulated as banks becauseunlike banks, they do not take insured deposits backed by the government. Third, even heavily regulated financial institutions have not been required until recently to focus on cybersecurity. Finally, some believe that there is no point in worrying about Too-Big-To-Fail …

Evading Constitutional Challenge: Dapa's Implications For Future Exercises Of Executive Enforcement Discretion, Lucy Chauvin

Indiana Law Journal

I. UNITED STATES V. TEXAS: DEFINING THE BOUNDARIES OF ENFORCEMENT DISCRETION

A. DAPA AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE

B. SCHOLARLY DEBATE: APPLICATION OF YOUNGSTOWN FRAMEWORK TO DAPA

II. TAKE CARE: CONFLICTING INTERPRETATIONS OF THE DUTY TO FAITHFULLY EXECUTE THE LAW

III. ENFORCEMENT DISCRETION: INTERACTION BETWEEN CONGRESS AND THE EXECUTIVE

A. HECKLER V. CHANEY: EARLY RECOGNITION OF EXECUTIVE ENFORCEMENT DISCRETION

B. ENFORCEMENT DISCRETION’S SPECIFIC APPLICATION TO IMMIGRATION LAW

C. THE MEANING OF “DEFERRED ACTION”

IV. THE HISTORICALLY LIMITED ROLE OF THE JUDICIARY

A. PRESUMPTIVE UNREVIEWABILITY

B. ADDITIONAL PROCEDURAL HURDLES

V. MOVING FORWARD: LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

A. FRAMING …

Typhoid Mario: Video Game Piracy As Viral Vector And National Security Threat, Andrew V. Moshirnia

Indiana Law Journal

Current academic and policy discussions regarding video game piracy focus on the economic losses inherent to copyright infringement. Unfortunately, this approach neglects the most significant implication of video game piracy: malware distribution. Copyright-motivated efforts to shut down file-sharing sites do little to reduce piracy and actually increase viral malware infection. Pirated video games are an ideal delivery device for malware, as users routinely launch unverified programs and forego virus detection. The illicit nature of the transaction forces users to rely almost entirely on the reputation of websites, uploaders, and other users to determine if a file is safe to download. …

Congressional Authorization Of The Campaign Against Isil, Tyler Salway

Indiana Law Journal

I. THE BIRTH OF ISIL

II. CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORIZATION

A. EXPRESS AUTHORIZATION

1. METHODS OF INCLUSION

2. ISIL’S INCLUSION UNDER THE 9/11 AUMF

B. IMPLICIT AUTHORIZATION

III. ISIL AND THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY

CONCLUSION

"We Only Spy On Foreigners": The Myth Of A Universal Right To Privacy And The Practice Of Foreign Mass Surveillance, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The digital age brought with it a new epoch in global political life, one neatly coined by Professor Philip Howard as the “pax technica.” In this new world order, government and industry are “tightly bound” in technological and security arrangements that serve to push forward an information and cyber revolution of unparalleled magnitude. While the rise of information technologies tells a miraculous story of triumph over the physical constraints that once shackled mankind, these very technologies are also the cause of grave concern. Intelligence agencies have been recently involved in the exercise of global indiscriminate surveillance, which purports to go …

Cybersecurity And The New Era Of Space Activities, David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

An Unstoppable Force And An Immoveable Object? Eu Data Protection Law And National Security, Fred H. Cate, Christopher Kuner, Orla Lynskey, Christopher Millard, Nora Ni Loideain, Dan Jerker B. Svantesson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Global Cybersecurity, Surveillance, And Privacy: The Obama Administration's Conflicted Legacy, Peter Margulies

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

To analyze the Obama administration's cyber efforts, this Article proposes a paradigm of stewardship with both discursive and structural dimensions. Discursive stewardship refers to the Executive's openness to dialogue with other stakeholders. Structural stewardship refers to the domestic and transnational distribution of decisional authority, including checks and balances that guard against the excesses of unilateral action. The Article concludes that the Obama administration made substantial progress in each of these realms. However, the outsized role of law enforcement agendas and dearth of clearly articulated checks on transnational surveillance drove headwinds that limited forward movement.

Behavioral Public Choice, U.S. National Security Interests, And Transnational Security Decision Making, David G. Delaney

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Transnational law both shapes and is shaped by policy decisions of public officials addressing global terrorist threats. These and other interrelated security and human rights concerns challenge executive officials in national governments and international organizations to simultaneously advance the rule of law and pursue other important welfare interests. This Article explores opportunities for transnational executives to improve their work and transnational legal frameworks. It proposes that behavioral insights into decision making and public policy making provide essential lessons for those efforts. The U.S. experience developing new policies to interrogate suspected terrorists following the Al Qaeda attacks of September 2001 provides …

Security Council Resolution 2178 (2014): An Ineffective Response To The Foreign Terrorist Fighter Phenomenon, Cory Kopitzke

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Thousands of foreign terrorist fighters poured into the Middle East from almost every country across the globe. Radicalized by professionally edited videos and propaganda disseminated through the Internet, people from all walks of life were captivated by the Islamic State's rhetoric, and nations were struggling to figure out how to stop them. One solution came in the form of a United Nations Security Council Resolution- Resolution 2178 (2014). This resolution is directed specifically at foreign terrorist fighters and calls upon all Member States to act with haste to address this new phenomenon. Critics were quick to call into question the …

Data Protection And Humanitarian Emergencies, Fred H. Cate, Christopher Kuner, Dan Jerker B. Svantesson, Orla Lynskey, Christopher Millard

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The U.S. Election Hacks, Cybersecurity, And International Law, David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Transforming Election Cybersecurity, David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Lawyers' War: Counterterrorism From Bush To Obama To Trump, Dawn E. Johnsen

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Espionage As A Sovereign Right Under International Law And Its Limits, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The literature surrounding the international legality of peacetime espionage has so far centered around one single question: whether there exist within treaty or customary international law prohibitive rules against the collection of foreign intelligence in times of peace. Lacking such rules, argue the permissivists, espionage functions within a lotus vacuum, one in which States may spy on each other and on each other's nationals with no restrictions, justifying their behavior through the argumentum ad hominem of "tu quoque." . . .

The Two Faces Of The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Emily Berman

Indiana Law Journal

When former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked a massive trove of information about secret intelligence-collection programs implemented under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in the summer of 2013, U.S. surveillance activities were thrust to the forefront of public debate. This debate included the question of whether and how to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“FISA Court”), the statutorily created secret court that reviews government applications to conduct surveillance in the United States. This discussion, however, has underemphasized a critical feature of the way the FISA Court works. As this Article will show, since the terrorist attacks of …