Professional Commentary

Around the world, algorithms are increasingly being asked to do something once reserved for human judgment: help decide who should remain free and who should be deprived of liberty. In recent years, algorithmic risk assessment tools have grown more deeply embedded in criminal justice systems worldwide. From bail decisions to sentencing recommendations, predictive technologies promise [...]

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An estimated 89,000 lives lost; 30,000 arbitrary detentions; 3.4 million people displaced. In the five years since the February 2021 coup, these ever-rising figures have come to define Myanmar. From a legal standpoint, the military, operating as the State Administration Council (SAC), asserts de facto control through territorial occupation and administrative force. On the other [...]

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In the first week of February 2026, the geography of human intelligence officially detached from the Earth. With a landmark filing to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on February 4, SpaceX proposed a network of one million solar-powered satellites designed not for communication, but for computation. This “Orbital Data Center” system, bolstered by the recent SpaceX-xAI [...]

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On the night of June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers stepped out of his Oldsmobile parked in the driveway of his Jackson, Mississippi home, carrying t-shirts that read, “Jim Crow Must Go.” He had returned from a civil rights meeting where he’d discussed voter registration strategies. A bullet struck him moments later, fired by a white [...]

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The recent unveiling of Russia’s Selena project, a nuclear power plant slated for the lunar surface by 2035 under the joint Russo-Chinese International Lunar Research Station program, has been hailed as an unprecedented ambition of engineering. But beneath the proposed cooling towers lies a volatile reality. We are about to place the highest-stakes technologies of [...]

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On November 10, right-wing Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir proposed a bill that would use the death penalty to punish Palestinian terrorists convicted of killing Israeli citizens. Some Knesset members have argued that such a law would prevent future prisoner release swaps, as there would be little value for a dead prisoner in such an exchange. [...]

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On November 5, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections Inc., two consolidated cases challenging President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs imposed on China, Mexico, Canada and other countries. The plaintiffs argue, and the lower courts agreed, that the president’s use of the International [...]

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A recent article in the Washington Post concerning widespread internet shutdowns in Russia for alleged wartime defense purposes got me thinking: How hard would it be for this to happen in the US? It took me about a minute of online research to answer my own question: not hard at all. Express Presidential Powers over [...]

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