civilliberties
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that people whom the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would like to levy civil penalties against for alleged fraud violations are entitled to a trial by jury. That decision, though consequential in isolation, will likely have effects that extend far beyond that one agency. At the heart of the ruling is George Jarkesy Jr., a hedge fund manager who oversaw the investment advising firm Patriot28, LLC. The SEC accused him and the company of "misrepresenting the investment strategies that Jarkesy and Patriot28 employed," "lying about the identity of the fund...
Reason
On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the hiring of 10 artificial intelligence experts as the first members of its new "AI Corps," which will eventually become a 50-member advisory group. The new hires "will help DHS responsibly leverage new technology and mitigate risks across the homeland security enterprise," a press release explained. AI shows promise for "strategic mission areas," DHS says, such as "countering fentanyl trafficking, combatting online child sexual exploitation and abuse, delivering immigration services, fortifying critical infrastructure, and enhan...
Reason
The Supreme Court today ruled that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may not impose civil penalties for fraud without filing suit in federal court. Because "the SEC's antifraud provisions replicate common law fraud," Chief Justice John Roberts writes for the majority in SEC v. Jarkesy, alleged violators are entitled to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment. The decision rejects a perverse system in which the SEC, instead of seeking adjudication by an Article III court, can investigate, charge, prosecute, and penalize people for violating securities laws, with only limited judicia...
Reason
In June 2022, the Supreme Court clarified the constitutional test for gun control laws, saying they must be "consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation." To illustrate the public safety implications of that ruling, Bloomberg Law reported last year that the decision had "forced the Justice Department to abandon a firearms charge against an Iranian American drug user with suspected ties to foreign terrorism." As reporters Ben Penn and Seamus Hughes told it, "The firearm charge against Ali Hemani, 26, appears to have served the same purpose as when it's often brought...
Reason
Last Friday, activist Shannon Watts took to social media to respond to the Supreme Court's 8–1 ruling in U.S. v. Rahimi, in which the justices ruled it is legal for the government to temporarily disarm someone whom a court has found poses a safety threat to others. "The Rahimi case should never have been taken up by SCOTUS," she said in a now-deleted post on X, formerly Twitter. "To even question whether domestic abusers should have access to guns shows just how extreme this court has become." It was an odd thing to say, for a few reasons. For one, the decision, by pretty much all accounts, wa...
Reason
When someone claims to have been arrested in retaliation for constitutionally protected speech, what sort of evidence is necessary to make that case? Five years ago in Nieves v. Bartlett, the Supreme Court held that an arrest can violate the First Amendment even if it was based on probable cause, provided the claimant can present "objective evidence that he was arrested when otherwise similarly situated individuals not engaged in the same sort of protected speech had not been." Today in Gonzalez v. Trevino, the Court said that showing does not require "very specific comparator evidence" indica...
Reason
Though still on the books, Arizona's near-total ban on abortion was buried deep in the state's history—until recently. An April decision from the state's Supreme Court breathed new life into this long-dormant law. The ban in question—first passed by the territory of Arizona in 1864 and later codified into Arizona state law—mandated two to five years' prison time for intentionally acting "to procure the miscarriage" of a pregnant woman "unless it is necessary to save her life." This law became unenforceable in 1973 when Roe v. Wade recognized a federal right to an abortion. Since then, the stat...
Reason
A Florida man has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit three years after a Marion County sheriff's deputy arrested him for filming officers from a public sidewalk. In 2021, Marion County Sheriff's Deputy Neil Rosaci arrested George Nathansen and charged him with obstruction of justice for refusing to follow his orders to leave the scene of an investigation. However, body camera footage showed Nathansen standing at least 30 feet away on a public sidewalk before Rosaci walked over and handcuffed him. In Nathansen's lawsuit, filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of ...
Reason
With the stroke of his pen, President Joe Biden could take a stand against authoritarian restrictions on free speech by issuing a posthumous pardon to D.M. Bennett, the freethought publisher convicted of violating the Comstock Act in 1879. Over the past year, judges have revived the long-dead Comstock Act to justify restrictions on speech and abortion drugs. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas even approvingly cited the moribund law in recent arguments. For these reasons, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has submitted a petition to the president se...
Reason
In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman pore over recent Supreme Court decisions regarding the abortion pill mifepristone and the Trump administration's ban on gun bump stocks. 02:01—Supreme Court rulings on abortion pill and bump stocks 16:45—Secret recording of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito 27:45—Weekly Listener Question 37:11—Hunter Biden's conviction 44:30—This week's cultural recommendations Mentioned in this podcast: "Unanimous Supreme Court Rejects Abortion Pill Challenge," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown "The Igno...
Reason
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