There was a rule, back when I was an education lawyer in Alabama, about visiting public schools: always go on a rainy day so you can see how badly the roofs leak.
For technology companies, information about what people do online is extremely valuable – it can be used to sell targeted advertising or sold to data clearinghouses.
The whole New Deal was in a sense just a series of public options, some more optional than others, that offered government as an alternative to the often-flawed private market.
When locational information is collected, people should be given advance notice and a chance to opt out. Data should be erased as soon as its main purpose is met.
Liberal judges tend to be expansive about things like equal protection, while conservatives read more into ones like ‘the right to bear arms.’
Supporters of tough voter ID laws are not afraid of vote fraud – they are afraid of democracy.
Congress needs to toughen the laws protecting elections and make clear that anyone interfering with democracy will pay a stiff price.
Conservative Justices have a history of not standing by their professed commitment to judicial restraint.
Ballot formats should be standardized nationally rather than left to the often bad judgment of local officials.
The public has a right to know what kind of monitoring the government is doing, and there should be a public discussion of the appropriate trade-offs between law enforcement and privacy rights.
Too often, animal-rights supporters seem to care about animals to the exclusion of people.
In a perfect world, we would have put users in control of their information when the Internet was first created.
Voter ID laws have a disproportionate impact on groups that lean democratic – including blacks, hispanics and students.
One of the great debates about the Internet is whether it is making people more or less free.
A federal Voters’ Bill of Rights could press the states to put non-partisan managers in charge of elections.
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