Utah Law Gives Parents Full Access to Teens' Social Media
Plus: Theatrics at the House hearing on TikTok, doomsday merger predictions haven't panned out, and more...
Civil Liberties
Federal Agencies Are Still Using Our Phones as Tracking Beacons
Our mobile devices constantly snitch on our whereabouts.
Parents of Oxford High School Shooter Can Be Prosecuted for Negligent Homicide,
based on their not securing the gun they gave him and other things, given the evidence they had of his mental state.
Charter School Principal "Forced to Resign" Allegedly Because 6th-Grade Students Were Shown Michelangelo's David
[UPDATE: I've added excerpts from a Slate interview with the school's Board Chair, who ended up commenting on the story after all; his view is that the firing stemmed only from the failure to alert parents to the upcoming material.]
Hospitals Are Still Reporting New Mothers for Neglect Based on Drug Tests Triggered by Poppy Seeds
Two New Jersey women who gave birth last fall suffered harrowing ordeals thanks to their breakfast choices.
Congress Asks Is TikTok Really 'An Extension of' the Chinese Communist Party?
TikTok's CEO served as little more than a punching bag for lawmakers with a dizzying array of big tech grievances.
Ohio Cops Sue Afroman for Using Video of Them Raiding His House in Music Videos
Seven sheriff's deputies say the rapper subjected them to "embarrassment, ridicule, emotional distress, humiliation, and loss of reputation" after a drug bust on his house came up empty.
Florida Decides To Extend LGBT School Censorship to All Grades After All
This was never about shielding just the youngest kids from sexual topics.
Maybe A.I. Will Be a Threat—To Governments
The designer of China's Great Firewall sees new A.I. tech as a concern for public authorities.
Law Enforcement Beat This Innocent Man to a Pulp. Will the Supreme Court Allow Him To Seek Recourse?
James King is once again asking the high court to rule that two officers should not receive immunity for choking him unconscious and temporarily disfiguring his face.
Lawsuit Challenges Ban on Physical Mail at California County Jail
Prisons and jails around the country have been banning physical mail and used book donations under the flimsy justification of stopping contraband.
No Temporary Restraining Order Against Critic of Israeli Muslim Institution,
who allegedly accused it of being an agent of the Israeli government and "refer[red] to individuals associated with the Academy as pigs and use[d] porcine imagery to insult those individuals."
A Thursday Bonus Reason Roundtable! Live From Reason Weekend in California
Plus: did the editors sing Happy Birthday to Adam Smith?
A Thursday Bonus Reason Roundtable! Live From Reason Weekend in California
Plus: did the editors sing Happy Birthday to Adam Smith?
TikTok Is Too Popular To Ban
Plus: Police sue Afroman for using footage from raid, California bill could ban popular junk foods, and more...
Law Restricting Pharmacist Speech About Ivermectin and Hydroxycholoroquine Likely Violates the First Amendment
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the law.
The DOJ Says Forbidding Pot Users To Own Guns Is Like Telling People Not To Carry Guns When They're Drunk
Defending a categorical ban on gun possession by cannabis consumers, the Biden administration cites inapt "historical analogues."
Correction re: ChatGPT-4 Erroneously Reporting Supposed Crimes and Misconduct, Complete with Made-Up Quotes?
My Friday post erroneously stated that I got the bogus results from ChatGPT-4; it turns out they were from ChatGPT-3.5—but ChatGPT-4 does also yield similarly made-up results.
The Crusade Against 'Malinformation' Explicitly Targets Inconvenient Truths
The legal challenge to censorship by proxy highlights covert government manipulation of online speech.
Filmmaker Tiller Russell Humanizes What Happened at Waco
A new Netflix documentary shows how the seeds of political polarization that roil our culture today were planted at Waco.
Ninth Circuit Strikes Down Ban on Landlords' Inquiring About Prospective Tenants' Criminal History, But …
upholds the ban on landlords' taking adverse action based on that information.
Joanna Schwartz's "Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable"
An important and compelling new book on qualified immunity and other obstacles to holding law enforcement officers accountable for rights violations.
Of Course, the Trump Indictment Is Political
Plus: A listener asks the editors if the nation is indeed unraveling or if she is just one of "The Olds" now.
Police Officers Charged With Murder in 'Smothering' of Virginia Man
"What I saw today was heartbreaking," said the victim's mother. "It was disturbing, it was traumatic. My son was tortured."
Biden Nominee to the First Circuit Faces Potential Democratic Opposition Over Abortion
A nominee's work defending a state parental-notification law in 2005 may be a stumbling block to his confirmation.
Justice Jackson Calls for Reining in the Use of Munsingwear Vacatur
The Court's newest justice questions whether her colleagues are too quick to vacate lower court decisions.
Federal Appeals Court Stops the 'Stop WOKE Act'
The 11th Circuit panel refused to lift an injunction against the law.
Britain's 'Lockdown Files' Reveal the Sordid Thinking Behind Pandemic Policy
Eye-opening insights into the messy motivations behind restrictive COVID-19 responses.
Do the 5th and 14th Amendments Impose Equivalent Due Process Limits on Court Jurisdiction?
U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Neomi Rao suggests the full court needs to consider this question en banc.
Who Owns Your Brain Data?
Nita A. Farahany's The Battle for Your Brain shows how neurotech can help, or hurt, human liberty.
Researchers Pressured Twitter To Treat COVID-19 Facts as 'Misinformation'
The latest Twitter Files shows a partnership between Stanford University researchers and government-funded organizations encouraged social media companies to police true information.
Large Libel Models: ChatGPT-3.5 Erroneously Reporting Supposed Felony Pleas, Complete with Made-Up Media Quotes?
[UPDATE: This article originally said this what ChatGPT-4 doing this, which was my error. But, as I note below in an UPDATE, ChatGPT-4 also erroneously reports supposed criminal convictions and sentences, complete with made-up quotes.]
An Oregon Man Was Wrongly Imprisoned for Almost a Year Because of an Error in a DMV Database
The Oregon DMV knew about the problem, but it "wasn't at a high enough level to understand the urgency" of the need to fix it.
International Criminal Court Issues War Crimes Arrest Warrant Against Vladimir Putin
The charge is the crime of illegal kidnapping and deportation of Ukrainian children.
Christopher Rufo Wants To Shut Down 'Activist' Academic Departments. Here's Why He's Wrong.
"Professors are not mouthpieces for the government," says FIRE's Joe Cohn. "For decades, the Supreme Court of the United States has defended professors' academic freedom from governmental intrusion."
America's Losing Its Free Speech Consensus
Americans shouldn't have to fight to the death to defend their foes' right to speak, but they should at least stop trying to censor, shame, shun and destroy each other.
In the Israeli Battle Over Judicial Review, Democracy Is the Problem, Not the Solution
Opponents of the reforms favored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition should acknowledge the threat posed by unconstrained majority rule.
Police Found a Blunt in Their Car. So They Seized Their Kids.
"Then my baby started crying so I reached for my son, and as I'm reaching, a man held me and told me, 'Don't touch him. He's getting taken away from you,'" said the children's mother.
James Madison's Decentralized Republic
The Constitution was intended to preserve state sovereignty, not create an all-powerful central government.
