The Supreme Court has concluded that federal courts cannot yet rule on the legality of President Trump’s plan to exclude undocumented people from the census count used to distribute congressional seats to each state. The Court’s decision in Trump v. New York allows President Trump to try to implement his plan by lifting lower court rulings that previously blocked it. This latest development sets the stage for more litigation over Trump’s attempts to evade the long-standing constitutional rule that everyone counts, regardless of their citizenship status, and casts an ominous cloud over the upcoming apportionment, write Madiba Dennie and Thomas Wolf. // Read More

The federal government’s cybersecurity agency called the 2020 election the “most secure in American history.” It’s good news, but it does not mean the work to protect our elections is done. “2020 offers important lessons for how to protect future elections from cyberattacks and technical failures,” write Andrea Córdova McCadney, Lawrence Norden, and Derek Tisler. They detail these lessons, including the importance of election security for voter access and the necessity of backup paper ballots, in this expert brief. // Read More

President-Elect Biden says he opposes capital punishment and is ready to do something about it. He will have the power to empty federal death row, direct the Justice Department to instruct every U.S. attorney not to pursue capital charges for federal crimes, and order the completion of a death penalty study left unfinished during the Obama administration. “The central question is whether he has the political will and moral strength to exercise the power,” says Brennan Center Fellow Andrew Cohen. // Read More

Connected devices such as doorbell cameras, smart thermostats, and digital assistants add eyes and ears around our homes, inside our cars, and on our bodies. Police have already come calling for information generated by this so-called internet of things, with significant privacy implications for Americans. “In a world where people are subjected to ongoing surveillance by public and private actors, there is an urgent need to update regulatory frameworks and rethink privacy protections to account for the inescapable role of technology companies in everyday life,” writes Ángel Díaz. // Read More

In a disturbing example of predictive policing taken to extremes, a county police department has created a secret list of kids it thinks could “fall into a life of crime.” According to documents revealed by the Tampa Bay Times, students can be labeled as “at-risk youth who are destined to a life of crime” if they get a D in a class, have three absences in a quarter, get a single discipline referral, or have experienced childhood trauma. “If a list like this existed when I was a teacher in East Baltimore, the vast majority of my students would have been placed on it ... because the combined forces of concentrated poverty, institutionalized racism, and decades-long disinvestment make hitting at least one of these indicators almost unavoidable,” writes Priyam Madhukar. // Read More

• Michael German on white supremacists in law enforcement // Foreign Affairs
• Rachel Levinson-Waldman on cell phone surveillance tools // The Intercept
• Michael Li on redistricting battles in Texas // KERA
• Sean Morales-Doyle on automatic voter registration in New York // WNYC
• Joseph Nunn on martial law // Politifact
• Myrna Pérez on how Americans were failed in the 2020 election // The Hill
• Yurij Rudensky on partisanship and redistricting // Bloomberg
• Thomas Wolf on SCOTUS’s census decision // Forbes