Made2Measure

  For more than a decade, we have witnessed an erosion of political freedoms and civil liberties across the world amidst a democratic backsliding toward autocracy, a system of government in which a single person (the autocrat) possesses absolute power to weaken institutions such as an independent judiciary that sustain the democratic system. At the same time, a surveillance-based economy, and anti-democratic threats this poses have thrived.   This quote is from the abstract of an article on illiberalism I wrote that was published   August 10, 2020.   In the article I highlight China, where the mass surveillance of its citizenry is the most aggressive and invasive in the world. For example, using a range of personal data accessed by the government, citizens and businesses are supervised, judged, and rated as part of a “social credit system” that gives them “trustworthy” scores. Low scores ban them from any number of activities, including accessing financial marke...

   This is the 15 th   in a series of blog posts beginning on February 4, 2020 focused on justice systems’ responses to Covid-19 coronavirus  (SARS-CoV-2 is its technical name)  justice systems’ active participation in what is known as a   whole-of-society-approach   (WOSA) to national security and safety threats such as Covid-19. The information in this post was drawn from recent reports in the  Economist , the  Guardian, Time, the Wall Street Journal , the Washington Pos t, the New York Times, and other news outlets. Views and opinions expressed are the author’s own. Last updated May 27, 2020. (An expanded version of both parts of this post is published in the INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COURT ADMINISTRATION, Volume 11, Issue 2 (Summer 2020)). Autocratization and Illiberalism: The New Normal? Autocratization is democratic backsliding, a trend toward autocracy, a system of government in which a single person (t...

This is the 14 th   in a series of blog posts beginning on February 4, 2020 focused on justice systems’ responses to Covid-19 coronavirus  (SARS-CoV-2 is its technical name)  justice systems’ active participation in what is known as a   whole-of-society-approach   (WOSA) to national security and safety threats such as Covid-19. The information in this post was drawn from recent reports in the  Economist , the  Wall Street Journal ,  the Washington Pos t,  Time , and other news outlets. Views and opinions expressed are the author’s own. Last updated May 22, 2020.  (An expanded version of both parts of this post is published in the  INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COURT ADMINISTRATION, Volume 11, Issue 2 (Summer 2020)). In a  Wall Street Journal  essay at the end of April 2020, Joseph A. Ladapo, an associate professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, wrote that the coronavirus pandemic has set the stage ...

This is the 13th in a series of blog posts beginning on February 4, 2020 focused on justice systems’ responses to the coronavirus pandemic -- SARS-CoV-2 is its technical name and Covid-19 is the disease it causes --and the justice systems’ active participation in a whole-of-society-approach (WOSA) to national security and safety threats such as Covid-19. Wall Street Journal’s columnist Peggy Noonan reflected on the question in the title above in her  April 11-12 Declarations column: As a nation we’ve learned that as a corporate entity of 330 million diverse souls we could quickly absorb, adapt and adjust to widespread disruption. I’m not sure we knew that. Crazy cowboy nation cooperated with the authorities. American comported itself as exactly what you thought it was or hoped it was but weren’t sure: compassionate, empathetic, committed, hard-working, creative and, as a friend said, funny as hell. Under great and immediate stress there’s been broad peacefulness and civil...

This is the 12 th     in a series of blog posts beginning on February 4, 2020 focused on justice systems’ responses to the coronavirus pandemic -- SARS-CoV-2 is its technical name and Covid-19 is the disease it causes --and the justice systems’ active participation in a whole-of-society-approach (WOSA) to national security and safety threats such as Covid-19. Updated April 4. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “missing in action” literally as “missing and unable to be confirmed as captured or killed following military action.” The term is used figuratively, as I use it in the title of this post, for “someone or something notably or unexpectedly missing, absent, or inactive.” The titles of two blogs written here over the last two weeks tell the story:   Absence of the U.S. Military in the Fight to Mitigate the Covid-19 Pandemic (March 23)   Other Countries Are Mobilizing Militaries Against the Coronavirus Epidemic: The United States Is Not (March 26) ...