National Security Surveillance

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor

This course will introduce students to the architecture of national security surveillance in the United States, along with the leading contemporary debates about its legitimate scope. From bulk internet monitoring to ‘lawful hacking,’ many of these national security authorities remain controversial, poorly understood, and of hotly debated public value. This class aims to give students the tools to take part in those conversations on surveillance law and policy. The course will proceed in four thematic sequences. The first group of sessions will ground students in basic concepts that shape the debate on national security and civil liberties: the benefits and harms that can flow from surveillance, the constraints imposed by the Constitution, and the genealogy of modern intelligence powers. Part II will canvas the frameworks that govern surveillance today, introducing students to the most important sources of spying authority in American public law (both congressional and executive). In Part III, students will encounter the strategies that individuals and corporations use to limit the practical reach of those surveillance powers—encryption first and foremost among them. Finally, in Part IV, students will bring the analytical frameworks developed across the previous sequences to bear on two developing controversies in surveillance policy: government hacking and persistent surveillance in public. Students should come away from the course with an informed sense of the practical scope of surveillance in the United States, a more rigorous framework for considering the wisdom of any particular intelligence program, and a grasp of the most important open questions in this setting. Note: While this course will touch on legal concepts, no prior legal background is required.