Category Archives: Human Rights

Layered Opacity: Criminal Legal Technology Exacerbates Disparate Impact Cycles and Prevents Trust

Predictive policing tools used widely by law enforcement agencies attempt to identify where crime will happen before it does. These analyses determine police deployment, and ultimately, arrest data. In this article, Ben Winters highlights how risk assessment tools use that data, combined with various other inputs, to determine detention, bail, sentencing, parole, and more which give rise to serious transparency and oversight concerns.

Particularly, Winters highlights the urgency of these paramount concerns given the tool’s operation in a system that severely disadvantages already marginalized communities. Winters argues that the relatedness of the tools is under-recognized and could be stronger reflected in advocacy efforts and regulatory efforts. This article explains the harm compounded by the tools and explores regulatory options both inside of traditional government levers, and the approaching regulation of data and data practices.

Lessons for the Next Twenty Years: What We’ve Learned in the Two Decades Since 9/11

LESSONS FOR THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS: WHAT WE’VE LEARNED IN THE TWO DECADES SINCE 9/11

A Note from Editor-in-Chief William C. Banks

By any measure the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 brought an immediate laser focus to the phenomenon of international terrorism.

Though hardly new to the United States and the world in 2001, the 9/11 attacks instantaneously elevated countering international terrorism to the dominant national security imperative at home and abroad.

Questions were legion: Should we have known the attacks were coming? What could we have done to prevent them? What lessons learned will help forestall the next attack? What are the best options for countering international terrorism?

Twenty years later many lessons have been learned, even as we continue to struggle with the ever changing dynamics of global terrorism. JNSLP is honored to publish this Special Edition, “Lessons Learned for the Next Twenty Years: What We’ve Learned in the Two Decades Since 9/11.”

Effective Oversight of Large-Scale Surveillance Activities: A Human Rights Perspective

Daragh Murray, Pete Fussey, Lorna McGregor, and Maurice Sunkin explore the international human rights law implications of state surveillance.

Today, state surveillance involves the large-scale collection and analysis of digital data—activities which allow for widespread monitoring of citizens. And while commentary on the legality of these bulk surveillance regimes has focused on whether this routine surveillance is permissible, the European Court of Human Rights has recently held that, subject to appropriate safeguards, surveillance of this type is legitimate, and sometimes necessary, for national security purposes in a democratic society.

In their analysis, the authors outline the types of oversight mechanisms needed to make large-scale surveillance human rights compliant. To do so, they break down state surveillance into its constituent stages—authorization, oversight, and ex post facto review—and focus their attention on the first two stages of the process.

First, they argue that effective oversight of authorizations requires increasing data access and ensuring independent judicial review. Second, they argue that effective oversight of ongoing surveillance requires improving technical expertise and providing for long term supervision. The authors conclude that a “court-plus” model of judicial officers and non-judicial staff would deliver enhanced judicial qualities to authorizations while also providing continuous engagement through ongoing review and supervision.