National Security & Surveillance

Electronic information is ubiquitous and is, unsurprisingly, an increasingly common feature in criminal investigations and proceedings. While law enforcement at both the federal and state levels must search for and make use of such information to investigate and prosecute crimes government investigations must be consistent with the Fourth Amendment and its state equivalents. The United States Supreme Court has had several opportunities to opine on the applicability of the Fourth Amendment to electronic information. This luncheon presentation will explore what the Supreme Court has done and what issues it might be presented with in the near future.

Future nuclear arms-control agreements are likely to place numerical limits on the total number of warheads in the arsenals of the weapon states. Verifying these agreements would face at least two fundamentally new challenges. First, inspectors would have to confirm that the number of declared items does not exceed the agreed limit; and, second, inspectors would also have to confirm the authenticity of nuclear warheads prior to dismantlement. Both tasks may involve procedures that put at risk classified or otherwise sensitive information. A viable verification regime needs to protect this information or, even better, use procedures and technologies that do not acquire the sensitive information in the first place. This presentation reviews the emerging challenges for nuclear verification and proposes elements of verification approaches that build in information security from the outset.