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April 23, 2025
What Would a US Tariff on Chips Look Like?
The US government will be “taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN”, President Donald Trump recently declared. Given his repeated promises to impose a tariff on imported chips, we must assume some action is coming. But what type, and to what end? According to trade data, the US imports around $30bn…
April 23, 2025
The Digital Markets Act: A Security Risk for Encrypted Communications
A recent controversy involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth presents a sobering, real-world example of the security risks posed by messaging platforms. Hegseth and other senior Trump administration officials discussed sensitive military plans over the unsecured Signal app—violating government security protocols. When The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently added to this group chat, sensitive operational…
April 23, 2025
The FCC’s Misguided Efforts to Police News Trump Disdains
Much is disturbing about the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. For starters, he was deported to an El Salvador prison due to what one Republican US Senator recently called “a screw-up” by the Trump administration and what the federal government confessed in a March 31 court filing was “an administrative error.” More troubling, of course,…
April 22, 2025
Which is in Collapse? Administrative Law or REAL ID?
If you’ve ever raised children, you’re familiar with defenses like: “I didn’t hit my brother. My bat did!” We keep kids in whiffle ball until they understand culpability a little better. The upcoming deadline for compliance with our national ID law, REAL ID, has a children’s logic to it. The deadline will not change, we…
April 22, 2025
America’s AI Future Needs Faster Permitting
The United States leads the world in artificial intelligence, but it’s not guaranteed to stay there. The bottleneck isn’t talent, ideas, or capital—it’s electricity. Electricity is the binding constraint for building and using hyperscale data centers, essential for training today’s advanced AI models. The Department of Energy projects that data center electricity demand will nearly…
April 21, 2025
Silicon Valley’s Consumer Eugenics
The orchid was once an expensive, highly cultivated symbol of refinement; now, cheaper cultivars can be found in almost any grocery store. Perhaps that makes it a fitting image for a new fertility company, Orchid Health, that seeks to encourage parents to breed better children. Orchid Health is one of several Silicon Valley start-ups that…
April 18, 2025
The Dangerous Road to a “Master File”—Why Linking Government Databases Is a Terrible Idea
A concerning development from the Trump administration has privacy advocates sounding alarm bells nationwide: a plan to consolidate data from dozens of government agencies into what would amount to a comprehensive “master file” on all American citizens. While proponents claim this massive data integration effort will help eliminate waste and fraud, the potential consequences for…
April 17, 2025
The Rigidity Cycle and the Pacing Problem
I was listening to Tyler Cowen’s Conversations With Tyler podcast with Jennifer Pahlka, rich and full of detail relevant to my previous post on the pacing problem. In addition to recommending this good conversation, I echo Tyler’s recommendation of Jen’s book Recoding America: Why Government is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better….
April 17, 2025
Judge McFadden’s First Amendment Ruling Against the White House: Infusing Modern Speech Doctrines with History and Tradition
I recently addressed today’s debate over the Press Clause’s meaning 234 years after the First Amendment’s ratification. The rift involves whether the clause is “a technology-specific provision” that safeguards “everyone’s right to use a particular type of mass communication technology and its modern analogs,” or whether it protects the press as an institution that receives…
April 16, 2025
Bastiat and What is Not Seen in Tech Policy
Over at The Dispatch, AEI Senior Fellow Jonah Goldberg recently praised Frédéric Bastiat’s classic essay, “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen.” Goldberg cited the piece to critique the Trump administration’s seemingly-attractive-but-deeply-flawed approach to trade. I’ve found that this short 1850 treatise is equally illuminating when assessing 21st century tech policy. As…