Lawless Surveillance

Policing agencies in the United States are engaging in mass collection of personal data, building a vast architecture of surveillance. This growing network of surveillance is almost entirely unregulated. It is, in short, lawless. In the face of growing concern over such surveillance, this Article argues there is a constitutional solution sitting in plain view.

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Inheritance in an Unequal Age

In the last three decades, state legislatures have eliminated the Rule against Perpetuities, and now dynasty trusts can make carefully controlled payments to a trust settlor’s descendants for hundreds of years. Trusts scholars have roundly criticized the Rule’s removal, and some have described it as charting a path to a new Gilded Age. This Article draws a theoretical lesson from the Rule’s demise.

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Publicizing our Projects

This Director’s Letter was originally published in the fall 2022 edition of The ALI Reporter. The American Law Institute is rightfully known for its deliberative process and the painstaking efforts and contributions of the Reporters, Advisers, Members Consultative Groups, Council, and members who generate our body of work and see our projects through to completion. But what happens next? After our projects are approved, where do they go?

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Natural Resource Property Customs

In an era of space exploration, e-commerce, and internet, the United States follows the same Civil War-era mining law, enacted prior to the invention of the lightbulb and automobile. This article examines the history of American natural resource customs in mining systems and how those customary property traditions ultimately led to our current mining laws.

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