In light of recent news that the U.S. shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon, Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf explains the differences between spying by ballon and spying by satellite and explores some of the murky legal areas with respect to sovereign airspace, outer space, and military uses of both. Professor Dorf points out that modern satellites can capture remarkably clear images of Earthbound sites, but a comparably equipped surveillance balloon, in virtue of being ten or more times closer to the Earth’s surface, can necessarily capture even greater detail.

Criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Jon May describes the similarities and differences between the possession of classified documents by former President Trump and President Biden. Mr. May argues that neither is likely to lead to charges based on federal criminal statutes, but for vastly different reasons.

Attorney Jon May predicts that within the next six months, former President Donald Trump will be indicted for violating the Espionage Act arising from his possession of classified documents after he left the White House. Mr. May describes some of the challenges that potentially classified evidence poses for both Trump’s defense and for the prosecution.

Sixty-five years after the deaths of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Touro Law Center professor Rodger Citron reviews Howard Blum’s In the Enemy’s House: The Secret Saga of the FBI Agent and the Code Breaker Who Caught the Russian Spies (HarperCollins 2018). Citron describes how Blum’s telling of the story adds to the story of the Rosenbergs by focusing on Bob Lamphere and Meredith Gardner—two men who pursued Soviet spies for years—and explains how the story of the Rosenbergs has continued relevance today.