Today, Orin Kerr follows a Supreme Court case that tests the outer limits of Fourth Amendment protection. Elizabeth Elder writes of the corrosive, anti-democratic power of single-industry towns—and what that means for American civic participation. And John Cochrane argues that strict firing rules and severance requirements weaken the labor markets they are meant to protect.
Revitalizing American Institutions
Hoover’s resident Fourth Amendment expert, Senior Fellow Orin Kerr, is closely watching a case being heard by the Supreme Court this week. In Chatrie v. United States, police in Virginia located a bank robbery suspect by cross-referencing surveillance video footage of him using a cell phone near the scene of the crime with a “geofenced” request that Google identify all subscribers providing their location in the vicinity. “This was a little bit of an investigative lottery ticket when they had no other way of finding a suspect," Kerr told NPR on Monday. The case asks whether government requests for geofenced location data are subject to Fourth Amendment protection, and if a citizen’s decision to have their location data stored by a tech firm constitutes waiving a right to privacy.
Find out how many “geofenced” requests are made by law enforcement each year.
Company towns in coal-mining regions of the Eastern United States offer a stark example of the corrosive power of single industries, writes scholar and Hoover fellow Elizabeth Mitchell Elder. In any town dominated by a single industry, jobs and tax revenue are on the line. Government feels great pressure to respond to the industry’s desires and citizens lose hope that their voices are heard, she writes. The broad implication for American democracy is that citizens must feel their local institutions are sound in order for them to feel that their country responds to them, she writes. Seen in that light, anti-government sentiment is not just “cheap talk,” she insists: “Any serious effort at civic renewal in these communities must start by acknowledging this history.”
Learn how single-industry towns affect civic participation.
Revitalizing History
Sir Niall Ferguson, the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the 2026 recipient of the George F. Will Award for the Advancement of Liberty and the Free Society. The Liberty Fund announced that Ferguson, the author of 16 books, including a multivolume biography of Henry Kissinger, received the award because of his “significant contributions to our understanding of the free society, individual liberty, and the human condition.” Ferguson received the award April 13 from the Liberty Fund at a ceremony in Washington, DC, from George F. Will and Liberty Fund senior adviser Mitch Daniels, a former governor of Indiana. “It is an immense honor and a privilege to receive an award named after a man who has become one of the great institutions of American journalism, and who has consistently upheld the principles of liberty on which this nation was founded,” Ferguson said.
See Ferguson’s conversation at the award ceremony and learn who else at Hoover has won this prestigious honor.
Artificial Intelligence
The Department of War wanted to deploy Anthropic’s Claude for “all lawful use.” But what began as a policy dispute over the use of AI between a tech company and the Pentagon quietly unfolded into something far more unsettling. Listen as Dean Ball and EconTalk host Russ Roberts trace the collision between Anthropic and the federal government over Claude’s use in classified military operations, exploring thorny questions about autonomous weapons, domestic mass surveillance, and whether a private company can demand contractual red lines when it comes to national security. The conversation spirals outward through the erosion of constitutional norms, the decay of institutional trust, the blurred line between public and private power, and the frightening possibility that AI's most powerful capabilities may arrive just as the Republic is least equipped to govern it.
Learn about Dean Ball’s concerns about the Pentagon’s dispute with Anthropic.
The Economy
In this week’s Grumpy Economist Weekly Rant for Freedom Frequency, Senior Fellow John Cochrane examines how strict firing rules can weaken the very labor markets they are meant to protect. Drawing on examples from Europe, he explains how mandatory severance requirements, social selection tests, and limits on dismissals raise the cost of hiring by making employment decisions harder to reverse. Cochrane argues that the broader economic cost is not only higher unemployment but also weaker innovation. When firms cannot easily experiment, fail, and reallocate workers to new ventures, they become less willing to take risks. The result is a labor market that may protect existing jobs but discourages new firms, new technologies, and the dynamism that makes workers better off over time.
See how hiring rules limit innovation and market flexibility.
How can Congress turn years of bipartisan talk into real reform and fix outdated high-skilled-immigration pathways? By enforcing H-1B domestic recruitment requirements, creating targeted pathways for critical technology experts, and closing unfair payroll tax loopholes. Lawmakers can use these tools to deliver meaningful reform that both ensures a fair labor market for US workers and allows America to maintain its competitive edge as a technological powerhouse. Senior Fellow Paola Sapienza discusses these efforts and more in a new video featuring Amy Nice of the Institute for Progress and Cornell Law School.
See how Congress could easily reform the H-1B system to make it fairer for everyone.
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