• Epidemic of Firearm Injury Spurs New Wave of Research

    Fifty-five years ago, America’s death toll from automobile crashes was sky-high. Nearly 50,000 people died every year from motor vehicle crashes, at a time when the nation’s population was much smaller than today. But with help from data generated by legions of researchers, the country’s policymakers and industry made changes that brought the number killed and injured down dramatically. Experts welcome new federal funding for more injury prevention research to reduce the toll of a leading cause of death while respecting Second Amendment rights.

  • Biden Announces Actions on Gun Violence

    U.S. President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke Thursday about a set of new measures meant to address gun violence in the United States. Ahead of their remarks, the White House released details of some of the initiatives, calling gun violence a “public health epidemic.”

  • U.S. Immigration Courts Brace for Flood of Asylum Claims

    U.S. immigration courts, already swamped with a backlog of 1.3 million cases, are ill-prepared to handle a crush of new asylum claims filed by a rising number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, especially children traveling alone, current and former immigration judges told VOA.

  • The Last Time the Justice Department Prosecuted a Seditious Conspiracy Case

    Lenawee County, Michigan, had an apocalyptic Christian nationalist militia problem about a decade ago. The group called itself the Hutaree, a name that members said meant “Christian Warriors,” though the FBI said it didn’t mean anything at all. The FBI had an informer inside the group, and nine of its members were charged with conspiracy, sedition, and various weapon charges. Judge Victoria Roberts acquitted the Hutaree members of the serious charges of conspiracy and sedition. Why should anyone care about the Hutaree now? Jacob Schulz writes that we should, “because one of those serious charges was seditious conspiracy under 18 U.S.C.§ 2384. It was the last time the Justice Department would use the statute until the present day.” It’s looking more and more like prosecutors might dust off the statute in response to the insurrection of Jan. 6. “The trial judge’s decision in the Hutaree case isn’t binding precedent. But the Hutaree are worth a second look.”

  • Less Gun Violence among Children in States with More Gun Laws

    Gun violence among children is lower in states with more gun laws, according to a new study. The study examined youth gun and weapon carrying data from 2005 and 2017 across several states.

  • China’s Abuse of the Uighurs: Does the Genocide Label Fit?

    On his last full day in office, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo determined that the Chinese government is committing genocide against the Uighurs and other minority groups in the Xinjiang region. The Biden administration is reviewing the decision. But what does the genocide label mean, and what would using it entail for U.S. foreign policy?

  • Why the Pro-Trump QAnon Movement Is Finding Followers in Japan

    After emerging among conspiracy theorists in the United States, the far-right QAnon movement is expanding to include a small but dedicated band of adherents in Japan. Julian Ryall reports from Tokyo.

  • Is Impeaching President Trump “Pointless Revenge”? Not If It Sends a Message to Future Presidents

    If Congress chooses to impeach President Trump, it is because there is a need to mark out, through a definitive statement, what no president ought to do. It will also set the moral limits of the presidency – and, thereby, send a message to future presidents who might be tempted to follow in President Trump’s footsteps.

  • Israel, Cyberattacks and International Law

    Recently, several cyberattacks have hit Israeli companies. While Israel has not yet publicly attributed the attacks to any foreign state, media outlets report that Israeli cybersecurity experts have tied the operations of the main hacker groups behind these attacks—BlackShadow and Pay2Kitten—to Iran. Tal Mimran and Yuval Shany write that in response, Israel seems to be increasingly turning toward international law to guide its approach to hostile activities in cyberspace

  • Election security It’s Official: The Election Was Secure

    Election officials and election security experts have long been clear: voter fraud is extraordinarily rare and the U.S. system has strong checks in place to protect the integrity of our voting process. “These are the facts,” says the Brennan Center for Justice. “But the facts have not stopped bad actors from trotting out baseless claims of ‘systemic voter fraud’ to suppress votes and undermine trust in our democracy for political gain.” Government officials, judges, and elected leaders, overwhelmingly Republican —and, in the executive branch and the judiciary, mostly Trump appointees — have publicly acknowledged confidence in the November election.

  • Invoking Martial Law to Reverse the 2020 Election Could be Criminal Sedition

    In his increasingly desperate bid to hang on to the White House, President Trump is reportedly contemplating invoking martial law to force the invalidation of the results of the election in four swing states, apparently inspired by remarks of the former and recently-pardoned National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Law professors Claire O. Finkelstein and Richard W Painter write that “While we deem the chances that Trump will actually follow through with the attempt to spark a military coup between now and January 20th extremely low, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen should be prepared for such a contingency and play out the legal and enforcement implications in advance. Shocking and unprecedented though it would be, Rosen should be ready to go so far as to order federal law enforcement officers to arrest anyone, including, if necessary, the president, who has conspired to carry out this illegal plan.”

  • Pandemic Consequences: The Acceleration of Confrontational Politics

    Soon after the coronavirus began spreading widely around the world, a dominant narrative emerged about its likely effect on global politics: the pandemic would reinforce autocratic governance. Thomas Carothers and Benjamin Press write in Just Security that, indeed, dozens of authoritarian or authoritarian-leaning leaders, from Cambodia to Hungary, quickly seized the moment to amass more power, undercut institutional checks and balances, and restrict citizen freedoms in ways that exceeded public-health necessity. But “almost a year in, another critical trend has become apparent: contrary to the hopes of some observers, the pandemic is also fueling the longer-term ascendancy of confrontational politics,” they write.

  • U.S. Supreme Court Allows 3 Muslim Men to Sue FBI Agents in “No Fly” Case

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that three Muslim men who were put on the U.S. government’s no-fly list for allegedly refusing to serve as FBI informants could sue FBI agents for monetary damages.

  • Coronavirus: Five Ways Some States Have Used the Pandemic to Curtail Human Rights and Democracy

    In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, at least 95 countries declared a national emergency, empowering governments to act in ways they would not normally to protect citizens. Such exceptional periods pose major risks for democracy and human rights, providing opportunities for leaders and states to consolidate power.

  • Barr: DOJ Has Found Nothing that Could Impact Election Result

    Attorney General Bill Barr has thrown cold water on the president’s false claims of massive voter fraud and a “stolen election.” Despite Department of Justice investigations turning up no evidence, and despite the fact that the president and his legal team have lost practically every legal challenge they filed — Trump and his allies are 1-39 in post-election litigation — Trump continues to spread falsehoods about the election, and continues to raise money — $170 million so far — based on these untrue claims.