National Security Law Commons^™

Telegraph, Telephone And The Internet: The Making Of The Symbiotic Model Of Surveillance States, Dongsheng Zang

Articles

In the early 2000s, shortly before the September 11 attacks, Daniel J. Solove noted that computer databases in the United States were controlled by public as well as private bureaucracies. In that sense, Solove argued, the "Big Brother" metaphor "fails to capture the most important dimension of the database problem." In his 2008 Lockhart lecture, constitutional law scholar Jack M. Balkin argued that the United States has gradually transformed from a welfare and national security state to a National Surveillance State: "a new form of governance that features the collection, collation, and analysis of information about populations both in the …

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 …

Production And Global Dissemination Of Chinese Legal Ideology: Implications For The Study Of Illiberalism, Samuli Seppänen

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

This Article discusses the production and global dissemination of Chinese legal ideology and considers its implications for the study of illiberalism. The leaders and ideologues of the Chinese Communist Party profess an interest in increasing the impact of its social sciences and governance ideology in foreign countries. On its face, this project amounts to an ambitious, even radical, ideological challenge against liberal legal thought. Nevertheless, these attempts can also be seen to highlight various challenges that illiberal regimes face in ideological production and advocacy. First, the domestic priorities of illiberal ideological speech may not support ideological advocacy efforts in foreign …

Learning From Guantanamo: Avoiding Legal Black Holes In Outer Space, Mia Bonardi

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

"Legal black holes" are spaces beyond the reach of enforceable law and thus inflict people within their pull with "rightlessness." The term "legal black hole" arose originally around the Guantinamo Bay detention center, but it has since been used in other contexts, such as migrant drownings. There is a new frontier for legal black holes in the space beyond Earth. This topic is timely and pertinent to modern application because if places or spaces exist where fundamental laws cannot be applied or enforced, then such legal black holes undermine the rule of law.

This Article argues that outer space is, …

U.S. Government Information Resources For Accountability On U.S. Assistance To Ukraine, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides detailed coverage of U.S. Government information resources documenting accountability for U.S. civilian and military assistance to Ukraine. Includes U.S. laws, agencies involved in U.S. arms export policy, Defense Department resources and data, Defense Dept. Inspector General reports, Government Accountability Office reports, congressional committee hearings, a letter from a congressional committee to the Secretaries of Defense and State and U.S. Agency for International Development administrator, congressional debate, and congressional recorded votes.

Was The Colonial Cyberattack The First Act Of Cyberwar Against The U.S.? Finding The Threshold Of War For Ransomware Attacks, Liam P. Bradley

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

On May 7, 2021, “DarkSide,” a foreign hacker group, conducted a ransomware attack against the Colonial Pipeline (“Colonial”). That morning, Colonial discovered a “ransom note demanding cryptocurrency.” The attack forced the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, stopping the daily delivery of 2.5 million barrels (MMBbls) of “gasoline, jet fuel and diesel” to the East Coast. The shutdown created fuel shortages, impacted financial markets, and panicked the public. The resulting fuel shortages and economic impacts “triggered a comprehensive federal response” on May 11, 2021. On May 12, CEO Joseph Blount paid a ransom of nearly $5 million in bitcoin to …

Daoism And Design: Mapping The Conflict In Syria, Ned Beechinor Marsh, Heather S. Gregg

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

In contemporary military operations, some problems are so complex they do not give way to linear solutions but require problem management instead. Combining the fundamentals of Dao De Jing philosophy with the US military design process offers a new perspective to analyze complex security problems, devise management strategies, and plan military operations. Applying this new approach to the complex security environment in Syria allows for a nonlinear mapping of long-term goals and a new perspective on relationships between key actors, environmental factors that restrict changes in the security environment, and where planners should focus their attention.

One Treaty To Apply Them All? Defining Maritime Terrorism By Cross-References And Reservations: The Asean Region Example, Arron N. Honniball

International Law Studies

Defining terms will shape a State’s treaty obligations, the domestic legislation necessary, the availability of cooperative mechanisms, and norm diffusion. Maritime terrorism is an umbrella term referring to the piecemeal approach of treaties creating offenses for identified acts at sea. Further treaties cross-reference the offenses in a selection of global instruments to create related offenses. This includes financing of terrorism (Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (ICSFT)) and regional maritime terrorism (ASEAN Convention on Counter Terrorism (ACCT)). All cross-referenced instruments shall apply to define ICFST or ACCT offenses unless a State excludes, by reservation, a cross-referenced instrument …

Surveillance, State Secrets, And The Future Of Constitutional Rights, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Federal Bureau of Investigation v. Fazaga heralds a worrying trend. Over the past 15 years, as more information about how the government wields its foreign intelligence collection authorities on U.S. soil has become available, it has become clear that the government has repeatedly acted outside its constitutional and statutory limits, and at times, in flagrant disregard for judicial orders. As a result, dozens of cases challenging surveillance have been making their way through the courts. Unlike in prior eras, in certain cases it has become easier for litigants to establish an injury-in-fact in light …

Measuring Corruption As A Threat To International Security: An Emerging Indicator For Enhancement Of Global Corruption Governance, Sungyong Kang

Michigan Journal of International Law

The conceptual changes to international security after the end of the Cold War, and particularly those following the al-Qaeda attacks of 2001, clarified the symbiotic relationship between corruption and international security: Corruption destroys the social political environment required to create human security and to ensure safety from terrorist attacks, and national borders increasingly fail to restrain its negative consequences.

To achieve human security though policy intervention in domestic affairs, global corruption governance relies on numerical indicators that measure corruption. By evaluating states through public comparison, indicators pressure states to improve their domestic institutions and structures to align them with the …

Brief For Respondents, Twitter, Inc. V. Taamneh, 143 S.Ct. 1206 (2023) (No. 21.1496), Eric Schnapper, Keith L. Altman, Robert J. Tolchin

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

From Well-Side Meetings To Pelican Strategy: A Context-Based Approach To Combat Corruption, Lili Yan

Pace International Law Review

This article takes up the question of what strategy is to be used among different communities to eradicate corruption across borders. The debate between two legal scholars, Steven Salbu and Philip Nichols, over the viability of extraterritorial application of anti-bribery laws remains thought-provoking when we look at the effectiveness of the OECD Anti-bribery Convention or FCPA in curbing corruption. Empirical research shows that firms from countries with extraterritorial legal restrictions do not necessarily refrain themselves from paying bribes in foreign transactions. This article ties the Salbu-Nichols’ debate, ISCT, mediating institutions theory, and Pelican Gambits strategy together to structure a context …

National Space Law, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

This chapter addresses national space law. While often slightly different terms such as national space legislation or national space regulation are used, the term national space law initially should be interpreted in the broadest possible sense. National law would thus refer to the totality of all relevant legal documents at the national level, whether entitled law, statute, act, decree, directive, or regulation, plus customary law, implementation by way of government authorization and jurisprudence, as relevant further explained through the writings of recognized experts.

Then, as space law encompasses “every legal or regulatory regime having …

Letter Form The Editor, Wayne Rash, Iii

American University National Security Law Brief

In our last issue of The National Security Law Brief, Vol. 13, No. 1, we highlighted the dynamism that makes National Security Law such an exciting field. In this issue, No. 2, we continue with the dynamism theme. National security law is a field in constant change that often leaves us questioning how these changes will shape the law.

The Need For An Australian Regulatory Code For The Use Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai) In Military Application, Sascha-Dominik Dov Bachmann, Richard V. Grant

American University National Security Law Brief

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is enabling rapid technological innovation and is ever more pervasive, in a global technological eco-system lacking suitable governance and absence of regulation over AI-enabled technologies. Australia is committed to being a global leader in trusted secure and responsible AI and has escalated the development of its own sovereign AI capabilities. Military and Defence organisations have similarly embraced AI, harnessing advantages for applications supporting battlefield autonomy, intelligence analysis, capability planning, operations, training, and autonomous weapons systems. While no regulation exists covering AI-enabled military systems and autonomous weapons, these platforms must comply with International Humanitarian Law, the Law of …

Hostility Is In The Eye Of The Beholder: Why Congress Should Decriminalize Hostile Work Environment Sexual Harassment In The Military, Adam J. Crane

Criminal Law Practitioner

In 2022, for the first time in American history, Congress enacted legislation criminalizing hostile work environment sexual harassment. More serious types of sexual harassment have long been criminal under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but hostile work environment harassment is a civil wrong, not a crime, and should not have been made into one. Section 539D of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (now listed under Article 134, UCMJ (Sexual Harassment), is both unconstitutional and counterproductive. It violates the Fifth Amendment for vagueness by failing to provide fair notice of what is prohibited, and the First …

Stars, Stripes, And Surveillance: The United States' Failure To Regulate Data Privacy, Sam Begland

American University Law Review

In the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s devastating decision to strip Americans of their constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, data privacy is more salient than ever. Without adequate data regulations, state governments and anti-abortion activists alike can harass and prosecute pregnant people attempting to exercise their bodily autonomy. This comment argues that the United States has violated its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Article 17 by failing to protect against interference with the use and collection of reproductive health data. Further, this comment analyzes interpretations of …

When Congress Passes The Buck: How Russia’S Invasion Of Ukraine Exposed Flaws In Granting The President Sanctioning Powers, Artem M. Joukov, Samantha M. Caspar

Seattle University Law Review

The United States (U.S.) Constitution provides few limitations on endowing the Executive Branch with powers to govern foreign trade, which was initially granted to the Legislature. In a world where global trade dominates, the power over foreign trade can be more important than the power over domestic matters. Leaving unrestrained trade authority to the Executive Branch may cause hazards for Americans and foreigners alike. Russia’s war in Ukraine demonstrates the flaws in permitting the Executive Branch to unilaterally sanction foreign states. This Article demonstrates how reactive Executive Branch policies infringed on the welfare and safety of American citizens and foreigners …

Pedaling Backwards: Examining The King County Board Of Health’S Choice To Repeal Its Bicycle Helmet Law, Schuyler M. Peters

Seattle University Law Review

In Part I, this Comment will explain the Helmet Law itself and the timeline that ultimately led to its repeal. Part II will focus on the positive impact of the Helmet Law, the dangers associated with the repeal, why the repeal should not have occurred in the manner it did, and what societal costs stem from the BOH’s decision. Part III will address the actions that must be taken to revoke this repeal and the reasons behind these alternative pathways, including an Equity Impact Review study specifically on the consequences of repeal, a collaborative outreach program to bring helmets to …

Hanging In The Balance: An Assessment Of European Versus American Data Privacy Laws And Threats To U.S. National Security, Dara Paleski

American University National Security Law Brief

Social media has quickly become an integral part of modern-day life, keeping the world connected to friends, family and current events. Social media, and the data collected from it, also play a crucial role in intelligence gathering and the safeguarding of national security. It is estimated that about 80-95% of information that is collected for intelligence missions is found freely throughout the internet or other publicly available sources. This type of information has been dubbed SOCMINT (Social Media Intelligence) and it has become a crucial tool within the intelligence community. After the Edward Snowden leaks in 2013 revealed a global …