• DOJ Argues in Federal Court for Removal of Texas’ Floating Border Barrier

    In a court hearing over the barrier near Eagle Pass, the U.S. Justice Department argued it was installed without federal authorization, while lawyers for the state said it notified the proper authorities.

  • Is China Engaged in Biodiesel Fraud?

    European biofuel producers have come under significant price pressure as Chinese companies inundate the European second-generation biofuel market with their cheaper products. Shipping advanced biofuels from China to Europe should add about 20% to the price of the fuel, yet Chinese producers are selling it for half the price charged by European producers. The suspicion is that Chinese producers are using palm oil in the production of the fuel, even though palm oil, which will be phased out as a biofuel ingredient by 2030, is already tightly capped in Europe because it is linked to the destruction of rainforests in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia.

  • When Rumors Take Flight

    Misinformation pervades U.S. politics, with the outcome of the 2020 presidential election being the most pressing case in point as a result of the persistent, unrelenting Big Lie campaign by Donald Trump and some of his allies. Yet Trump’s lies and unfounded claims have gained wide traction among his followers. MIT professor Adam Berinsky’s new book examines the political misinformation that threatens the U.S. system of government.

  • Truth Decay and National Security

    The line between fact and opinion in public discourse has been eroding, and with it the public’s ability to have arguments and find common ground based in fact. We call this diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life “Truth Decay.” Two core drivers of Truth Decay are political polarization and the spread of misinformation—and these are particularly intertwined in the national security arena.

  • Do State Election Laws Affect Who Wins?

    Does requiring an ID to vote help Republicans win? What about allowing people with prior criminal convictions to cast ballots—does that favor Democrats? A new study finds that despite the rhetoric on both sides of the aisle, voting rules have very small effects in election outcomes.

  • Government Regulation Can Effectively Curb Social-Media Dangers

    Social media posts such as those that promote terrorism and hate; spread medical misinformation; encourage dangerous challenges that put teen lives at risk; or those that glamorize suicide, pose a significant threat to society. New EU rules require social media platforms to take down flagged posts within 24 hours – and modelling shows that’s fast enough to have a dramatic effect on the spread of harmful content.

  • Study Confirms Link Between Concealed Carry Weapons and Gun Homicide Rates

    Concealed guns significantly impact homicide rates and public safety, according to a Rutgers study that found an increase in homicides based on the number of concealed carry weapons licenses issued.

  • The Impending Privacy Threat of Self-Driving Cars

    With innovations often come unintended consequences—one of which is the massive collection of data required for an autonomous vehicle to function. The sheer amount of visual and other information collected by a fleet of cars traveling down public streets conjures the threat of the possibility for peoples’ movements to be tracked, aggregated, and retained by companies, law enforcement, or bad actors—including vendor employees.

  • Safeguarding U.S. Laws and Legal Information Against Cyberattacks and Malicious Actors

    NYU Tandon School of Engineering researchers will develop new technologies to secure the “digital legal supply chain” — the processes by which official laws and legal information are recorded, stored, updated and distributed electronically.

  • Immigration Polarizes the Right, and Climate Change Polarizes the Left: Study

    Older people, people with a high degree of educational attainment and income, and residents of large cities have the strongest negative feelings toward people who think differently. On average, those who identify themselves as left-leaning are more polarized than those who identify themselves as right-leaning.

  • Holding Trump Accountable Will Not Threaten American Democracy: Research

    New data from the Polarization Research Lab found that 97 percent of Americans — from both parties — oppose political violence. The research has found that despite rhetoric from Trump and his allies, the public do not see the indictment of a former president as a reason to abandon democratic principles or as a call to support violent retribution.

  • Many Once Democratic Countries Continue to Backslide, Becoming Less Free – but Their Leaders Continue to Enjoy Popular Support

    The last decade-and-a-half has witnessed what Freedom House describes as a global “democratic backsliding,” with 60 countries ceasing to be functioning, if at times flawed, democracies. In many of these non-democratic countries, however, the leadership which has put an end to the country’s democracy – for example, in Hungary and Turkey – remains popular.

  • Regulate National Security AI Like Covert Action

    Congress is trying to roll up its sleeves and get to work on artificial intelligence (AI) regulation. Ashley Deeks writes that only a few of these proposed provisions, however, implicate national security-related AI, and none create any kind of framework regulation for such tools. She proposes crafting a law similar to the War Powers Act to govern U.S. intelligence and military agencies use of AI tools.

  • The Fight to Save Israel’s Democracy

    Israeli philosopher and author Yuval Noah Harari says that to understand events in Israel, there is just one question to ask: What limits the power of the government? Robust democracies rely on a whole system of checks and balances. But Israel lacks a constitution, an upper house in the parliament, a federal structure, or any other check on government power except one — the Supreme Court. On Monday, the government took the first of several steps toward what legal scholars regard as hollowing out Israel’s democracy by substantially weakening judicial review of government actions.

  • DOJ Files Complaint Against Texas Over Placing Floating Buoy Barrier in the Rio Grande

    The Justice Department on Monday filed a civil complaint against the State of Texas because the state has built a floating barrier, consisting of buoys strung together, in the Rio Grande River without the federal authorization that is legally required under the Rivers and Harbors Act.