Professor Justin Walker presents at American Constitution Society national conference

Brandeis School of Law Professor Justin Walker's latest research argues that an independent FBI would be a threat to civil liberties.

He had the opportunity to discuss his work at the American Constitution Society's National Convention, June 7-9, 2018.

Walker discussed research from his article, "FBI Independence as a Threat to Civil Liberties: An Analogy to Civilian Control of the Military," at the convention's Safeguarding the Rule of Law panel. 

Walker's article, published in the George Washington Law Review, "argues that calls for an independent FBI are misguided and dangerous. It analogizes presidential control of the FBI to civilian control of the military by demonstrating that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the FBI and the military share the same purpose. It then explores in depth how the FBI has often infringed on civil liberties in the same way that the framers worried an out-of-control military might do so. And it explains why the independence that the FBI often enjoyed was a cause of those civil-liberty violations," according to the abstract.

Walker's research on this subject is supported by the Dean's Faculty Development Fund.