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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. The 1917 Cloture Rule and Wilson's Little Group of Willful Men How a filibuster against arming merchant ships in March 1917 gave the Senate its first cloture rule, and why that two-thirds bar still shapes what a Democratic majority can pass. The 1996 Laws That Built Today's Deportation System Two 1996 laws widened the crimes that trigger deportation, mandated detention and stripped judges of discretion. How they work and why they outlasted reform. The Budapest Memorandum and the Nuclear Arsenal Ukraine Gave Up What Ukraine got in 1994 for giving up the third-largest nuclear arsenal, why it got assurances, not guarantees, and what that teaches about nonproliferation. The Case for Cameras at Supreme Court Arguments Since May 2020 anyone can hear Supreme Court arguments live. Here is the case for taking the next step to video, and a fair look at the justices' reasons for refusing. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and the Chicago Neighbors Who Won It How a West Side Chicago homemaker and a coalition of block clubs forced Congress to make banks disclose where they lend, then lend where they take deposits. The Grain Belt Express and the Fifteen-Year Fight to Build One Power Line The story of a Kansas-to-Indiana power line proposed around 2010, the landowners and states that fought over it, and what its canceled federal loan guarantee says about building anything. The Housing Act of 1949 and Its Promise of a Decent Home for Every Family Truman signed the Housing Act of 1949 promising a decent home for every American family. Here is how its public housing goals were cut, delayed and steered by local politics. The Jane Collective and Chicago's Underground Abortion Service How a group of Chicago women ran an underground abortion service before Roe, what happened when police arrested seven of them in May 1972, and what their story teaches organizers now. The Long Argument Over Whether the War on Poverty Worked Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in 1964, and Americans have argued about the outcome ever since. Much of the dispute turns on a ruler that never counted the help it was meant to measure. When Bernie Sanders and John McCain Wrote a Veterans Bill Together After the 2014 Phoenix VA wait-list scandal, a democratic socialist from Vermont and a Republican war hero from Arizona wrote a reform law together. How they did it, and what came after. Why Prosecutors Hold the Most Power in American Criminal Justice A forged check worth less than a hundred dollars became a life sentence in 1978. That case explains how charging and plea bargaining put prosecutors at the center of the system.