Surveillance and the Future of Standing, and More from CRS
It may be easier for litigants to mount a constitutional challenge to intelligence surveillance programs that gather U.S. data such as telephone and internet metadata now that those programs have been documented through leaks of classified records. Or, says a new report from the Congressional Research Service, it may not be.
Unlike previous cases, “the litigants in these newly filed lawsuits would appear to have a stronger argument for how they have been injured [than prior litigants did, and they] have evidence that the government is actually using its authority to gather data that is pertinent to the plaintiffs,” the CRS report said.
“However, the plaintiffs in these lawsuits may still have significant difficulties in establishing standing, as they have arguably not alleged that they have been specifically targeted by the government or injured in any concrete and particularized way by the government’s conduct,” the CRS author speculates. See Foreign Surveillance and the Future of Standing to Sue Post-Clapper, July 10, 2013.
Other new or newly updated CRS reports include the following.
Cluster Munitions: Background and Issues for Congress, July 9, 2013
Points of Order in the Congressional Budget Process, July 11, 2013
Europe’s Energy Security: Options and Challenges to Natural Gas Supply Diversification, July 11, 2013
Kuwait: Security, Reform, and U.S. Policy, July 10, 2013
Wildland firefighters manage, suppress, and prescribe fires on our nation’s public lands, protecting all of us. Yet it is becoming ever clearer that we as a nation are failing to protect them.
Most patient safety challenges are not really captured and there are not enough tools to empower clinicians to improve. Here are four proposals for improving patient safety that are worthy of attention and action.
The Trump administration has often cited consolidation as a path to efficiency. But history shows that USDA reorganizations have weakened, not strengthened, the agency’s capacity.
Grace Wickerson, the Federation of American Scientists’ Senior Manager, Climate and Health, today accepted a national recognition, the “Grist 50” award, bestowed by the editorial board of Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization.