by Jo Ellen Nott
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), backed by new legislation passed in July 2025 called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is engaging in a never-before-seen expansion of mass surveillance technology. This technology was originally intended to seek and find undocumented immigrants but now is …
by Jo Ellen Nott
The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) is facing scrutiny over its unauthorized practice of harvesting DNA from nearly 2,000 U.S. citizens, including children, and submitting their genetic profiles to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (“CODIS”), as reported by Wired. This large-scale expansion, which …
by Jo Ellen Nott
A Manhattan judge vacated the convictions of Brian Boles and Charles Collins for a 1994 Harlem murder, the Innocence Project reported. Judge Ruth Pickholz ended the nearly three-decade ordeal, which stemmed from a coerced and factually impossible confession from Brian Boles, who was just …
by Jo Ellen Nott
Police adoption of drone-as-first-responder (“DFR”) programs is increasing and now integrating with automated license plate reader (“ALPR”) technology to create a potent new form of surveillance, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”) reports. Companies like Flock Safety are marketing their drones, specifically the Aerodome, as …
A question posed by a child in a Curious Kids column in The Conversation, a nonprofit news website written by academics, led a biomedical engineer to a discovery that could aid forensic analysis at crime scenes involving water exposure.
Guy German, a biomedical engineer at Binghamton University in …
A groundbreaking adaptation of perovskite technology is poised to transform forensic analysis of gunshot residue (“GSR”), offering unprecedented speed and sensitivity. “Perovskite” refers to a class of materials with a specific crystal structure, named after the mineral calcium titanate, discovered by Russian mineralogist Lev Perovski. Traditional GSR analysis, which …
The integrity of Los Angeles County’s justice system is under fire following the news that potentially defective DNA test kits were used for months in thousands of criminal cases.
Despite being notified in August 2024 that its kits were “prone to intermittently poor performance,” the Los Angeles County …
by Jo Ellen Nott
Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed a suite of reform bills into law on April 22, 2025, marking a victory for incarcerated individuals, the formerly incarcerated, and advocates who have worked tirelessly for these changes for years.
The newly enacted legislation addresses critical issues …
Illinois maintains a digital public shaming website called the Murderer and Violent Offender Against Youth Database, which is mandated under the provisions of Illinois Compiled Statutes 730 ILCS 154/85 (a) and (b). Supporters of the registry often claim that it enhances public safety, but not everybody agrees that it …
In a positive step advancing fair-chance policy for formerly incarcerated individuals, Virginia and Utah both signed policies into law in March 2025 that will help dismantle barriers faced by people with criminal records as they reenter the world of work.
The National Council of State Legislatures (“NCSL”) has …
