Podcast
Attorney and criminal justice researcher Matthew Cavedon joins Terms of Engagement hosts Archon Fung and Stephen Richer to discuss the democratic and legal implications of Flock cameras.
Criminal justice researcher Matthew Cavedon joins Terms of Engagement hosts Archon Fung and Stephen Richer to discuss democratic and legal implications of Flock cameras. The company’s roughly 120,000 license-plate reading cameras in the U.S. are now able to log time, location, and vehicle details on a scale that makes comprehensive movement-tracking possible without a warrant. The episode explores documented cases of misuse—including officers using the system to track romantic partners and at least one wrongful detention traced to a system error—the constitutional implications of aggregated, long-term surveillance of ordinary activity, and what control ordinary citizens have over the growth of mass surveillance in America. They also discuss what meaningful oversight would require and why Cavedon sees the stakes as reaching beyond law enforcement into the health of democratic self-governance itself.
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Matthew Cavedon is the Director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice. His work concerns the rights of the accused and jurors, government accountability, and the Second Amendment. His scholarship has appeared in the Arizona State Law Journal, Cato Supreme Court Review, and Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy. His commentary has been published by The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, JURIST, and MSNOW. He is a member of the Council on Criminal Justice. A former Georgia public defender and fellow at the Institute for Justice, Cavedon has also has taught law school courses on criminal law and procedure, as well as the First Amendment. He clerked for Chief Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia and Presiding Justice Nels S. D. Peterson of the Georgia Supreme Court. Cavedon, who is based in South Carolina, earned his BA in religious studies at Harvard College and his master’s in theology and JD at Emory University.
Archon Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance with a focus on public participation, deliberation, and transparency. He has authored five books, four edited collections, and over fifty articles appearing in professional journals. He received two S.B.s — in philosophy and physics — and his Ph.D. in political science from MIT.
Stephen Richer is the former elected Maricopa County Recorder, responsible for voter registration, early voting administration, and public recordings in Maricopa County, Arizona, the fourth largest county in the United States. Prior to being an elected official, Stephen worked at several public policy think tanks and as a business transactions attorney. Stephen received his J.D. and M.A. from The University of Chicago and his B.A. from Tulane University. Stephen has been broadly recognized for his work in elections and American Democracy. In 2021, the Arizona Republic named Stephen “Arizonan of the Year.” In 2022, the Maricopa Bar Association awarded Stephen “Public Law Attorney of the Year.” In 2023, Stephen won “Leader of the Year” from the Arizona Capitol Times. And in 2024, Time Magazine named Stephen a “Defender of Democracy.”
The views expressed on this show are those of the hosts alone and do not necessarily represent the positions of the Ash Center or its affiliates.
Coming soon!
Podcast
Amanda Carpenter of Protect Democracy joins hosts Archon Fung and Stephen Richer to examine how today’s alarmingly-high levels of political corruption undermine democratic institutions and public trust, distort policymaking, and make citizens increasingly cynical about the democratic process.
Article
A new article in the American Journal of Political Science, co-authored by Yanilda María González, Ford Foundation Associate Professor of Public Policy and Ash Center affiliate, examines public attitudes toward police violence in Brazil. The authors find that while police discourse can increase public endorsement of violence, counternarratives from marginalized victims can be effective in reducing citizen support for repressive policing.
Article
In a recent American Journal of Public Health essay, Ash Center Director Archon Fung, Democracy Visiting Fellow Aditya S. Pawar, former Non-resident Fellow Jon Alexander, and their co-authors examine how public deliberation and civic engagement can produce more efficient and reliable public health policy.
