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May 21, 2025
First Amendment Fundamentals for Lawmakers as Courts Block Efforts to Protect Minors on Social Media
Lawmakers considering bills to safeguard minors from ostensible harms linked to social media platforms should carefully review two recent federal court opinions declaring unconstitutional state laws imposing parental-consent, age-verification mandates. US District Judge Algenon Marbley’s April decision from Ohio in NetChoice v. Yost and US District Judge Timothy Brooks’ March ruling from Arkansas in NetChoice…
May 20, 2025
The Politicization of Intelligence
Last week, Tulsi Gabbard, appointed by President Trump as the Director of National Intelligence, fired the top two officials of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) after The Washington Post and the New York Times reported that the Trump Administration had ignored the findings of its NIC related to its deportation efforts. Today, I explain what is going on, setting the stage…
May 20, 2025
How Much Paperwork, How Little Privacy for the Innocent?
Justice Kavanaugh asked some important practical questions during oral argument in the birthright citizenship case in the Supreme Court last week. The executive order in dispute purports to deny citizenship to children born in the United States based on the noncitizenship of their parents. “What do hospitals do with a newborn, what do states do…
May 19, 2025
Ten Provocative Graphs
The figures and data below are all hot of the press and shared to help get your weekend off to an intellectually stimulating start. Enjoy! The Earth is Darkening In a new posting, climate scientist James Hansen calls our attention to a “BFD”: Earth’s albedo (or reflectivity) is the portion (percent) of incoming solar radiation that…
May 16, 2025
The FTC’s Case Against Meta Looks Like Politics, Not Antitrust
The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) antitrust case against Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is not really about protecting consumers or competition. It is an attempt to use regulatory power to dismantle a company based on political power, not law—a form of lawfare dressed in antitrust’s clothing. To make its case, the FTC first had to invent…
May 16, 2025
Congressional Crossfire: How Competing App Store Bills Create an Impossible Mandate
In Congress’s latest attempt to regulate Big Tech, two Republican lawmakers have created a policy paradox. In an effort to shape the future of app stores, each piece of proposed legislation undermines the other—yet both point out a critical blind spot in the conversation surrounding parental responsibility. Rep. Kat Cammack’s App Store Freedom Act would…
May 15, 2025
Should NEPA Apply to BEAD’s Broadband Grants?
A pivotal decision made by the Biden administration last year requires that broadband grants supported by the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program be reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). However, this decision lies in a murky area of the law that has since been overturned—calling into question the necessity…
May 14, 2025
The Future is Already Here Somewhere
One of the challenges, even for experts, in making sense of climate projections is that the scenarios underlying the projections are so complex as to be impenetrable without a lot of effort and expertise. Opaque assumptions make interpreting climate projections fraught with challenges and consequently, they are easily misinterpreted and misused. Today, I try to…
May 14, 2025
REAL ID Day After-Action Report: Stalemate
D-Day is more than just the glorious day that began the end of World War II. It is the general term for any major military operation, along with H-Hour and perhaps M-Minute in cyber war. Here’s my report from a curious move in our nation’s War on Terror: REAL ID Day. On May 7, 2025,…
May 14, 2025
Loosening an Ownership Cap and Tightening a News Rule: Can Carr’s FCC Reconcile Its Objectives?
Can the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) square its statutory authority to ensure that over-the-air television broadcasters provide local content that serves the public interest with potentially eliminating a federal rule that bans owners of broadcast stations from reaching more than 39 percent of all US TV households? Maybe, but before scrapping the cap, the Commission…