• U.S. Supreme Court Rules to Keep Title 42 for Now

    The court ordered the Biden administration to continue enforcing the policy while Texas and other states that want to keep the Trump-era rule in place prepare their legal arguments.

  • Protecting Democracy: Jan. 6 Panel’s Recommendations, Proposed Reforms

    On Thursday, 22 December, the House committee examining last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol issued its long-awaited final report. The final report also proposes eleven reforms aiming to ensure that Trump’s attempt to subvert the will of the voters and prevent the peaceful transition of power from one president to the next would not be repeated.

  • Congress Passes Legislation That Will Close Off Presidential Election Mischief and Help Avoid Another Jan. 6

    Presidential elections are complicated. But in a move aimed at warding off future crises like the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Senate and House have passed legislation to clarify ambiguous and trouble-prone aspects of the process.

  • Cryptocurrency Crashes Recall the Wild Days of “Free Banking”

    The U.S. used to have hundreds of unregulated private currencies backed by shaky assets. Sound familiar?

  • Washington’s Semiconductor Sanctions Won’t Slow China’s Military Build-Up

    Advanced semiconductors underpin everything from autonomous vehicles to hypersonic weapon systems. Chips are imperative to the defense industry and technologies of the future. By targeting this critical input, the Biden administration aims to freeze China’s semiconductor suite at 2022 levels and impede its military development. Despite the bleak short-term outlook, it is wrong to assume that US controls will hobble China for years.

  • The Right Time for Chip Export Controls

    On Oct. 7, the U.S.-China tech competition heated up dramatically when the Biden administration imposed wide-ranging semiconductor-related export controls on China. Martijn Rasser and Kevin Wolf write that “There is no crystal ball that can divine the outcome, given how unprecedented and wide ranging these actions are.” They add: “The Biden administration made the right call by acting now, particularly if it is successful at getting allied cooperation on the essence of the rules soon.”

  • Germany's Far-Right Populist AfD and the 'Reichsbürger' Movement

    After a raid on members of a plot to violently overthrow the German state, questions are being asked about the links between the “Reichsbürger” movement the plotters belonged to, and the far-right populist AfD.

  • Congress Aims to Close Off Presidential Election Mischief and Fraud with Simple and Bipartisan Solutions

    There are known weaknesses in these rules for how we administer presidential elections and tabulate results in Congress. That’s why a bipartisan group of congressional leaders now aims to pass reforms to the 1887 law governing this process, the Electoral Count Act, before the end of 2022.

  • Stanford’s David A. Sklansky on Oath Keepers’ Seditious Conspiracy Convictions

    “Seditious conspiracy is a very serious crime. It means, basically, plotting to use force against the government of the United States, says Professor David A. Sklansky, criminal justice expert at Stanford Law School. These convictions “represented the jury’s unanimous conclusion, beyond a reasonable doubt, that what happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, wasn’t an innocent protest, but a criminal attack on the authority of the United States government.”

  • Is Industrial Policy Making a Comeback?

    Industrial policy refers to government efforts to support particular industries that are considered strategically important, such as manufacturing. It has been employed in many countries, including the United States, though it fell out of favor in the 1980s. The Biden administration has pushed to support advanced manufacturing amid the COVID-19 pandemic, tumult in global supply chains, and the rise of China., in the process renewing the debate about the U.S. government’s role in shaping the economy.

  • Oath Keepers Members Found Guilty of Seditious Conspiracy

    Two leaders of the Oath Keepers were found guilty by a jury Tuesday, 29 November, of seditious conspiracy and other charges for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Their actions disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress that was in the process of ascertaining and counting the electoral votes related to the presidential election.

  • What Is Seditious Conspiracy?

    The conviction on Tuesday of militia leader Stewart Rhodes in connection with the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol marks the first time in more than two decades that the Justice Department has successfully used a criminal charge known as “seditious conspiracy.”

  • Oath Keepers Convictions Shed Light on the Limits of Free Speech – and the Threat Posed by Militias

    The conviction of two leaders of the Oath Keepers militia for seditious conspiracy – a rarely used, Civil War-era charge typically reserved in recent decades for terror plots – are the most significant yet relating to the violent storming of the Capitol, and have meaning that extends beyond those who were on trial. The Oath Keepers convictions illuminate two crucial issues facing the country: the limits of the American right to free speech and the future of the militia movement.

  • Brazil Court Rejects Jair Bolsonaro Election Challenge

    Three weeks after losing Brazil’s election by the narrowest margin seen in decades, outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro had filed a long-shot appeal claiming votes should be thrown out due to faulty voting machines.

  • EFF's Atlas of Surveillance Database Now Documents 10,000+ Police Tech Programs

    The EFF has created a searchable and mappable repository of which law enforcement agencies in the U.S. use surveillance technologies such as body-worn cameras, drones, automated license plate readers, and face recognition.