One of the central predicates of legal regulation of media ownership is that ownership consolidation reduces substantive viewpoint diversity. Appellate courts and, in turn, the Federal Communications Commission have increasingly demanded evidence for this convergence hypothesis, but extant empirical measures of viewpoint diversity sidestep the problem, ignoring diversity, viewpoints, or both. [...]

Federal prosecutors wield enormous power. They have the authority to make charging decisions, enter cooperation agreements, accept pleas, and often dictate sentences or sentencing ranges. There are currently no effective legal checks in place to police the manner in which prosecutors exercise their discretion. As a result, in the current era dominated by pleas instead of trials, federal prosecutors are not merely law enforcers. They are the final adjudicators in the 95% of cases that are not tried before a federal judge or jury. [...]