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Tech, Media and Democracy
Section 702 Explained: Foreign Intelligence, American Emails and the Warrant Fight How the surveillance program known as Section 702 collects foreign communications, why Americans' messages end up in the database, and why a warrant rule lost in the House on a tie in 2024. Carpenter v. United States and the Trail of Data Every Phone Leaves What the Supreme Court decided in 2018 about cell-site location records, what it deliberately left open, and how the ruling bears on geofences, data brokers and the rest of your digital trail. Google Lost Its Search Monopoly Case, and the Remedy Still Left Chrome in Place A federal judge found in 2024 that Google illegally kept its search monopoly, then in 2025 declined to break it up. What the remedy requires, what it rejected, and why it matters. Katz v. United States and the Phone Booth That Made Privacy Constitutional How a gambler's calls from a Los Angeles phone booth led the Supreme Court in 1967 to rule that the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places, and why that idea now governs phones and data. Lina Khan's Amazon Paper and the Revival of Anti-Monopoly Thinking How a 2017 law student's note on Amazon challenged forty years of antitrust orthodoxy, carried its author to the head of the FTC, and changed what both parties say about monopoly. Red Lion, the Fairness Doctrine and the Rule Broadcasters Fought for Decades A 1964 radio attack on a small-town Pennsylvania station led to a unanimous 1969 ruling, a 1987 repeal and a debate about fairness on the air that never ended. Section 230, the 1996 Liability Shield, and the Fight to Rewrite It A 1995 libel ruling against Prodigy pushed Congress to write Section 230. Here is what the law protects, what it never covered, and how the fight to change it splits both parties. The 2024 Dockworkers' Strike and the Fight Over Automated Ports Why a three-day port strike in October 2024 turned into a national argument about robots, and why a union contract did more to shape automation than any technology policy did. The Ad Tech Ruling Against Google and the Money Behind Free News Websites A 2025 ruling found Google illegally monopolized key ad tech markets. How the split-second auctions behind every news page work, and why they decide what publishers earn. The Breakup of Ma Bell and What Antitrust Can Do When It Means It The 1982 AT&T settlement split the largest company on earth into pieces and unleashed competition in phones and networks. What structural remedies can teach today's tech fights. The Communications Act of 1934 and the Idea That the Airwaves Belong to the Public How a 1934 law made broadcasters trustees of public airwaves, why the public-interest standard faded, and what the old bargain still offers a democracy. The Luddites Were Not Against Machines. They Were Against Being Discarded The frame-breakers of 1811 targeted the bosses who used machines to cut wages, and Parliament answered with the gallows. Their real question, who shares the gains, is the AI question too.