The Goodson Blogson

Last week, the talk of the Internet was an essay called "The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger." The Cut's financial-advice columnist Charlotte Cowles details the elaborate telephone scam that led her to withdraw five figures of savings and surrender the cash to someone she believed to be an undercover CIA agent. Social media chatter debated whether Cowles's predicament was the relatable reaction of a frazzled mom who had been targeted by experienced con artists, or the public admission of a surprising lapse in common sense. However one may feel about Cowles's particular experience, one thing is certain: she is hardly alone in falling for a scam. Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission estimated that American consumers lost more than $10 billion to fraud in 2023 . While almost half of these losses came from investment fraud, imposter scams (like the one Cowles faced) represented nearly $3 billion of this figure. The FTC news r...

Most legal researchers are familiar with the federal government's treaty powers (for an overview, check out the Constitution Annotated discussion of Article II, section 2, clause 2 or the three-part 2023 Congressional Research Service report series on International Agreements ). Likely less familiar to many are state -level commitments with foreign governments. After all, the Constitution expressly prohibits states from entering into their own treaties, and requires congressional consent for states to enter into agreements or compacts with foreign governments. However, individual U.S. states can and do enter into memoranda of understanding and other commitments with foreign entities. Due to their more ad hoc nature as compared to the highly formal federal process, locating the text or information about these state-level commitments can be difficult.  A new library within the HeinOnline research database called U.S. State Commitments with Foreign Governments , now available to t...