This month the Securities and Exchange Commission announced two settlements that illustrate the agency’s largely unchecked power to shake down companies with astronomical penalties that far exceed statutory limits set by Congress. The broader scandal is that these cases are now routine rather than exceptional. The cases include the SEC’s $15 million settlement with UK-based…

The Supreme Court in late February granted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) request to review Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association of America, a constitutional challenge to CFPB’s funding structure. CFPB’s ability to continue functioning was placed in jeopardy by the Fifth Circuit’s decision in the case last October, so eventual Supreme Court review was…

In 2015, Nohemi Gonzalez—a 23-year-old American studying in Paris—was gunned down by Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists while dining at La Belle Equipe bistro. The U.S. Supreme Court will consider these wrenching facts of Gonzales v. Google on Feb. 21. Bound up with Nohemi’s fate is the fate of Section 230. That 1996 federal statute privileges Big Tech,…

In a few weeks I will begin my 24th year as a law professor at George Mason University. Last year I volunteered to teach in person, even though I’m in my 50s. Teaching law is my job and I owe my students my best. I also knew I could do it safely. During the spring…

Newly released documents show that the White House has played a major role in censoring Americans on social media. Email exchanges between Rob Flaherty, the White House’s director of digital media, and social-media executives prove the companies put Covid censorship policies in place in response to relentless, coercive pressure from the White House—not voluntarily. The…

On the second anniversary of the invasion of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, it’s worth considering how politics—and especially presidential elections—have increasingly become like warfare. A pair of developments—one legislative, one administrative—have raised the political stakes. In the 20th century, the Supreme Court simultaneously expanded Congress’s legislative powers and allowed them to be exercised…