What’s Coming: Doctrine on Tuesdays, Docket on Thursdays

The regular schedule starts this week. Here’s how it works, so you know what you’re subscribing to.

Two posts a week, on a fixed rhythm:

Doctrine — Tuesdays. This is the build. Each Tuesday I take one section of the model act — the digital-property statute I’m drafting in public — and work on it. Over the year, the twelve sections cycle through four passes: first a plain-English explanation of what the section is for, then the actual statutory language I’d propose, then the hardest case that tests it, then a look at how other systems (FISA, the states, Europe) handle the same problem. By next summer there’s a finished draft act on the table.

Docket — Thursdays. This is the reality check. Every Thursday I take something real from the week — a decision, a bill, a seizure, a records fight — and run it against the section it stress-tests. This is where the FISA fights, the crypto forfeitures, the Fourth Amendment cases, and the FBI records questions live. When the doctrine I proposed on Tuesday collides with what actually happened on Thursday, that collision is the most useful thing on the blog.

If you only have time for one, take the Thursday post — it’s the news. If you want to actually understand why the news keeps going the way it does, the Tuesday post is the reason.

A standing promise: every time I argue the government’s authority should be narrower, I’ll also write the strongest version of the objection. If you can beat my draft, I want to hear it, and I’ll say so in public when you do.

First post lands Tuesday. It’s the definitions section — which sounds boring and is secretly where half of all digital-evidence fights are actually won or lost.

Subscribe if you want it in your inbox. Bring a colleague who argues with you. This is more fun with an audience that pushes back. See you Tuesday.