Opinion
When Your SEC Prosecutor Is Your Judge, Scandals Surely Follow
“Agencies that combine enforcement and adjudication—as many do—are unconstitutional. But convenient for the government,” law blogger Glenn Harlan Reynolds posted earlier this year. For those who follow SEC enforcement, particularly adjudication by in-house...
‘Peekaboo Prosecution’ Turns 20
Imagine a dystopian world where Congress empowers a private corporation to secretly investigate and punish members of a particular profession — say, auditors. Think of a private version of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but with evergreen funding that...
What Originalism Must Take From the Common Good
I. Introduction On May 29th, 1919, British researchers operating out of Principe and Sobral, Brazil, tested a simple proposition: whether, during that day’s total eclipse, the light of stars proximate to the sun would be deflected, thus distorting their observed...
Kamala Harris’ Free Speech Task Force
After the COVID ‘misinformation’ experience, will the vice president’s new plan for addressing online harassment go any better? For most of its existence, I had avoided social media and held particular disdain for Twitter, which I saw as intrinsically...
Unchecked by Courts, Government Censorship of Social Media Platforms Will Prove Fatal to Free Speech in Digital Age
The Biden administration’s increasingly aggressive efforts to combat so-called misinformation, along with the prospective acquisition of Twitter by free speech advocate Elon Musk, have sparked a national debate about what role, if any, the government should play in...
Bittersweet Victory for Doctor After Practice Unlawfully Suspended for Refusing Vaccine
After six months of suspension, Rhode Island, in its munificence, has permitted the “defiant” maxillofacial surgeon Dr. Stephen Skoly to reopen his medical practice. Of course, in the mind of the state, the suspension was always Skoly’s own fault. If only he had...
Under Biden, Government Forces Social Media Companies to Censor Americans
The Biden administration began a public, coordinated campaign last May to combat dissemination of “health misinformation” related to COVID-19, especially across social media platforms. Administration officials, including Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and President Joe...
The Federal Government Forces Social Media Companies to Censor Americans
In May of 2021, the Biden Administration began a public, coordinated campaign to combat the dissemination of “health misinformation” related to Covid, especially across social media platforms. Members of the Administration, including Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and...
Amici for Freedom and the Fate of Free Speech
What will be the fate of free speech in the United States? The answer is coming soon from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Netchoice v. Paxton. Last year, Texas protected free speech from Big Tech censorship by passing a statute finding that the...
State Court Docket Watch: Corman v. Acting Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health
On December 10, 2021, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously affirmed,[1] on expedited direct appeal, a state trial court opinion[2] nullifying the state Department of Health’s mask mandate for all public schools. The Supreme Court agreed with the en banc trial...