FreedomWorks recently announced the launch of the American Freedom Initiative (AFI), a collaboration headed by former acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker. This project aims to help relieve injustices committed against Americans under the criminal justice system and the regulatory state. As part of this project, we will shine a spotlight on some of the individuals the AFI has identified under its National Pardon Project as being particularly hard hit by unjustly harsh criminal sentences for non-violent crimes.

If DC traffic levels are any indication, it seems that a lot more people are taking the spread of the coronavirus seriously, which is undoubtedly good. In the media and online, though, the debate rages on whether the overall government response to the virus has been dangerously insufficient or unjustifiably draconian. The opposite poles of public opinion seem to range between demanding a complete, absolute national shelter-in-place shutdown for potentially months and a blasé, “virus? what virus?” approach that equally beggars the imagination.

This week Congress has tackled two important issues that may not seem related at first: reauthorizing an expiring portion of the USA PATRIOT Act and legislating for those affected by COVID-19. But there is one common thread between them - each will have had their passage through the legislature amply lubricated by a potent dose of fear. Decisions made hastily under such pressure are often nigh impossible to reverse after the fact.

As the number of occupations requiring a government-approved license to work has ballooned (one in three jobs require a license, by some estimates), these restrictions serve as a serious barrier to interstate mobility for many small business owners and employees. An encouraging proposal in Georgia seeks to add the Peach State to the list of states which recognize each other’s occupational licenses.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), a conservative caucus of which well over half of House Republicans are a member, has just released a memo outlining a bold, free-market plan for improving America’s health care. The plan, A Framework for Personalized, Affordable Care, is leadership in an important policy area that has been missing for some time. It’s extremely encouraging to see Republicans uniting around a plan that focuses on the ability of individuals to afford and keep their own health benefits.

Four years after the passage of the USA FREEDOM Act, Section 215 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and its related “lone wolf” and “roving wiretap” provisions are back up for reauthorization. Section 215 is best known for being the portion of law used to justify the dragnet, warrantless mass collection of tens of millions of Americans’ phone call data, as revealed in 2013 by Edward Snowden. Although the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015 did make some substantial advances in curbing warrantless mass surveillance of Americans, disclosures over the intervening four years have borne out concerns that it was an incomplete reform.

Capitol Hill Update, 14 March, 2016

Capitol Hill Update, 29 February, 2016