The privacy Americans should enjoy over their financial information has been in steady decline for more than 50 years. Regulatory frameworks, such as the Bank Secrecy Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Consolidated Audit Trail, grant government access to Americans’ financial transactions. As financial services have become increasingly digitized, the volume of financial records to which the government has easy—and often unfettered—access has grown exponentially. And proposals for a central bank digital currency, which involve the government becoming more intimately involved in Americans’ use of money, have the potential to further erode the ability to transact without government surveillance.

As policymakers are confronted with questions about evolving technologies, the question of financial privacy must not be shunted to the side. It is time to rethink financial privacy. Does financial convenience have to come at the cost of financial privacy? Does the Constitution provide the protections needed to limit government access to financial information? Can decentralization provide privacy-protecting solutions? Join us for an outstanding program featuring leading policymakers and experts discussing financial privacy at Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives annual conference.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The privacy Americans should enjoy over their financial information has been in steady decline for more than 50 years. Regulatory frameworks, such as the Bank Secrecy Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Consolidated Audit Trail, grant government access to Americans’ financial transactions. As financial services have become increasingly digitized, the volume of financial records to which the government has easy—and often unfettered—access has grown exponentially. And proposals for a central bank digital currency, which involve the government becoming more intimately involved in Americans’ use of money, have the potential to further erode the ability to transact without government surveillance.

As policymakers are confronted with questions about evolving technologies, the question of financial privacy must not be shunted to the side. It is time to rethink financial privacy. Does financial convenience have to come at the cost of financial privacy? Does the Constitution provide the protections needed to limit government access to financial information? Can decentralization provide privacy-protecting solutions? Join us for an outstanding program featuring leading policymakers and experts discussing financial privacy at Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives annual conference.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The privacy Americans should enjoy over their financial information has been in steady decline for more than 50 years. Regulatory frameworks, such as the Bank Secrecy Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Consolidated Audit Trail, grant government access to Americans’ financial transactions. As financial services have become increasingly digitized, the volume of financial records to which the government has easy—and often unfettered—access has grown exponentially. And proposals for a central bank digital currency, which involve the government becoming more intimately involved in Americans’ use of money, have the potential to further erode the ability to transact without government surveillance.

As policymakers are confronted with questions about evolving technologies, the question of financial privacy must not be shunted to the side. It is time to rethink financial privacy. Does financial convenience have to come at the cost of financial privacy? Does the Constitution provide the protections needed to limit government access to financial information? Can decentralization provide privacy-protecting solutions? Join us for an outstanding program featuring leading policymakers and experts discussing financial privacy at Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives annual conference.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Modern presidents have an extraordinary amount of power that they primarily wield through issuing executive orders and other directives with the force of law. Successive Congresses have gradually delegated much of their power to the president or stood idly by as presidents have usurped more power that is legislative in nature and effect. The president’s power is now so massive that that alone justifies focusing on the office’s means of exercising it. In response to this lamentable trend, the Cato Institute published the Cato Handbook on Executive Orders and Presidential Directives to recommend revoking or amending several executive orders, proclamations, and other directives to move public policy in a more libertarian direction.

In the handbook, Cato scholars identify specific executive orders and other presidential directives that violate the Constitution and that conflict with the principles of individual liberty, free markets, limited government, and peace. The handbook suggests revocations and amendments to those executive orders that would affect the federal government’s operations and cover various policy issues like health care, immigration, foreign policy, trade, defense, and others. This handbook is not a comprehensive list of such executive orders but merely the lowest-hanging fruit and best places to begin the long journey back toward a constitutionally limited government.

Join several Cato scholars as we discuss specific executive orders and directives that the incoming Trump administration should revoke or amend that affect energy policy, environmental policy, health care, the federal workforce, foreign policy, defense, and other social policies.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past two years, much of the conversation around technology has been focused on artificial intelligence (AI). While AI may have increased in popularity and already been used in a wide array of products, we are still only just discovering many of its beneficial applications.

AI is much more than popular products like ChatGPT and is truly saving and changing lives in fields like medicine and disaster response. But as we’ve seen in Europe, the wrong policy approach could prevent the development or deployment of many of these beneficial products.

Among the questions to be addressed are: How has policy supported or hindered US innovators and consumers in developing and accessing AI? What lessons might we learn from the policy approaches to past general-purpose technologies? Where does AI and AI policy go next?

This policy forum will start with a fireside chat with Rep. Jay Obernolte (R‑CA), a leading voice on AI policy and co-chair of the House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence.

Following that conversation, a panel of policy experts will discuss the future of AI, the potential impact of policy on this innovation, and more.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For much of the 21st century, public health officials and policymakers have blamed doctors for overprescribing opioids and causing the overdose crisis. In response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued pain management guidelines aimed at reducing opioid prescriptions. Most states have codified them into law.

Federal and local drug task forces have arrested doctors whom they accuse of overprescribing opioids. This has led to a situation where many physicians either undertreat pain or choose to abandon their long-term pain patients. As a result, opioid prescribing has dropped below 1992 levels, while overdose deaths among nonmedical users have skyrocketed.

This crackdown has also created a population of “pain refugees”—chronic pain patients who have lost or were abandoned by their doctor and are left searching for a doctor willing to treat them. Many, out of desperation, turn to the black market for relief, while others resort to suicide.

Join us to discuss the pain refugee crisis, its causes, and potential solutions. Our panel includes a physician who treats and advocates for pain patients, an attorney who defends these doctors, a civil rights attorney who is also a patient advocate, and a pain refugee.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) software for a range of applications has sparked intense debate over its implications for privacy and surveillance in multiple contexts. At the same time, police organizations argue that AI could help revolutionize and speed up police investigations by allowing for faster identification of crime suspects or missing or kidnapped persons.

What are the kinds of dangers posed by the use of AI by law enforcement agencies? Are there types of crimes where the application of AI might be beneficial? How well or poorly are legislative bodies dealing with this new technology? What is the state of the law at the federal, state, and local levels regarding AI use by law enforcement organizations? Our panel will tackle all these topics.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett has played an integral role in the rise of originalism—the movement to identify, restore, and defend the original meaning of the Constitution. But Barnett’s path to becoming an influential professor of constitutional law was not an easy one. Starting from a working-class childhood in Calumet City, Illinois, Barnett’s unusual resume has included stints as an ice cream truck driver, newspaper ad salesman, prosecutor, libertarian theorist, contract law professor, and Supreme Court advocate. In his new autobiography, A Life for Liberty, Barnett tells the complete story of his personal and professional journey.

Barnett’s life story is a model for how libertarians can put their ideas into practice and help change the world. As a young Harvard law student, Barnett had living room debates with Murray Rothbard and served on the board of a libertarian institution with Leonard Liggio and other notable thinkers. Barnett’s focus on individual rights prepared him for the turning point in his career, when he was the only person on a high-profile panel willing to argue that the Ninth Amendment protects “unenumerated rights” from government infringement.

After establishing himself as “Mr. Ninth Amendment,” Barnett eventually pivoted his career to constitutional law. His mission to restore “the lost Constitution” took him from the schoolhouse to the courthouse, where he argued the medical marijuana case Gonzales v. Raich in the Supreme Court—a case now taught to every law student. Later, he devised and spearheaded the constitutional challenge to Obamacare. Today, thanks in part to his efforts, a majority of sitting Supreme Court justices self-identify as originalists.

In this book forum, Professor Barnett will discuss his life story, the lessons he’s learned, and the ways in which his thinking continues to evolve. Professor Jonathan Turley of the George Washington University Law School will offer commentary on the book, drawing from his own perspective as a fellow legal academic.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.