The U.S. Constitution

WATCH: Rex Heuermann Pleads Guilty to Killing 8 Women

Rex Heuermann admitted in court that he killed eight women as he changed his plea to guilty on April 9, 2026, in the Gilgo Beach murders case in New York. For many people following a case like this, a guilty plea can feel like the end of the story. In reality, it is more like a hinge in the...

FISA 702 and Warrants for Americans’ Data

Every few years, Congress faces the same uncomfortable question: how much surveillance power should the federal government have in the name of foreign intelligence, and what protections do Americans get when their messages get caught in the net? That question is back because Section 702 of the...

Congressional Review Act Explained

Most federal regulations do not die dramatic deaths. They fade out in committee hearings, get revised in the Federal Register, or get whittled down in court. The Congressional Review Act , or CRA, is different. It is a statutory trapdoor. If Congress and the President agree, they can wipe out a...

Bivens Actions Explained

You can sue state and local officials for constitutional violations under a statute most lawyers know by heart: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 . But what if the person who violated your rights works for the federal government? That is where people often hear the phrase “Bivens action” , usually said with a...

The USA PATRIOT Act and the Constitution

“The PATRIOT Act” has become shorthand for a single idea: the government can listen to your calls, read your messages, and raid your bank account because Congress moved quickly in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The reality is more bureaucratic, more specific, and in a way, more...

FISA and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court

You can tell how confusing FISA is by the way people talk about it. Some treat a “FISA warrant” like a cheat code that lets the government spy without rules. Others treat it like a normal warrant with a different label. Neither is quite right. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978...

Section 1983 Lawsuits Explained

When people say they are “suing the police for violating my rights,” they are usually talking about one statute: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 , commonly called Section 1983 . It is not a constitutional amendment. It is a Reconstruction-era law that creates a civil lawsuit when a state or local official...

The Public Charge Rule Explained

In American immigration law, few phrases cause more confusion than “public charge.” People hear it and assume it means: if you ever used a public benefit, you can be deported. Or: if you are poor, you cannot immigrate. Or: if you apply for a green card, you have to prove you will never need...

The Espionage Act Explained

You can think of the Espionage Act as a law built for wartime, then left on the books for peacetime. It was born in World War I, designed to protect military operations and national defense information. A century later, it is still one of the government’s main tools for prosecuting the...

Alien Tort Statute Explained

The Alien Tort Statute is one of the strangest power tools in American law. It is a single sentence written in 1789, largely dormant for almost two centuries, then suddenly revived as a way for foreign plaintiffs to bring human rights cases in U.S. federal courts. And then the Supreme Court spent...

Military Commissions and the Constitution

When Americans picture “a trial,” they picture a federal judge in a black robe, a jury box, and a courtroom where the Constitution is the rulebook and the referee is independent of the political branches. Military commissions are what happens when the government argues that picture does not fit...

State Secrets Privilege Explained

Some lawsuits die without a jury ever hearing the central facts, not because the plaintiff lacks evidence, but because the government says the evidence is too dangerous to discuss. That is the basic tension behind the state secrets privilege , a judge-made, federal common-law doctrine that can...

Federal Tort Claims Act Explained

You cannot sue the federal government just because it harmed you. That is the baseline rule, and it has a name: sovereign immunity . In plain terms, the United States does not get hauled into court unless it has agreed to be. (And it has agreed in more than one way, depending on what you are suing...

The Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket

Most people picture Supreme Court decisions arriving the same way: months of briefs, a packed courtroom, oral argument, and a long opinion signed in June. That is the Court’s merits docket , and it is the version of the judiciary we teach in civics class. But some of the Court’s most...

House Rules Committee Explained

The House of Representatives looks like a freewheeling arena on C-SPAN, but most of what you see on the floor has already been negotiated and engineered off the floor. One of the main committees that makes that possible is the House Rules Committee. For most major bills, it proposes how the House...

The Senate Parliamentarian Explained

When a headline says “the parliamentarian ruled,” it can sound like a judge has spoken. In reality, the Senate parliamentarian is not a justice, not an elected official, and not the final word on what the Senate can do. The parliamentarian is closer to an in-house rules librarian with a...

Inspectors General Explained

When a scandal hits Washington, you will hear the same three letters invoked like a spell: IG. An Inspector General is not a prosecutor. Not a legislator. Not a judge. An IG is a statutory watchdog placed inside an executive branch agency to uncover waste, fraud, abuse, and serious misconduct, then...

What the U.S. Attorney General Does

The Attorney General is often introduced in headlines as “the nation’s top law enforcement officer.” That phrase is helpful, but it is also incomplete. The U.S. Attorney General is a cabinet-level official who runs the Department of Justice, oversees federal litigation and prosecution...

Provisional Ballots

You show up to vote. Your name is not in the poll book. The worker looks at you like you just wandered into the wrong wedding reception. Then comes the phrase that triggers panic headlines every election cycle: provisional ballot . To many voters, “provisional” sounds like “maybe your vote...

National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

Americans argue about the Electoral College the way they argue about the weather. Everyone has an opinion, most people think they understand it, and the part that actually controls the outcome tends to be the part nobody sees coming. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, usually shortened...