9,901 articles
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935), the Great Dissenter, US Supreme Court associate justice 1902–1932, Civil War veteran, author of The Common Law, founder of legal realism, and advocate of judicial restraint and free-speech doctrine.
Olmstead v. United States
Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), Taft Court decision holding warrantless wiretapping without physical trespass was not a Fourth Amendment search; 5-4 ruling with influential Brandeis dissent, overruled by Katz v. United States in 1967.
Omaima Nelson
Omaima Aree Nelson (born 1968), Egyptian-born American convicted of the 1991 second-degree murder and dismemberment of her husband William Nelson in Costa Mesa, California; sentenced in 1993 and denied parole repeatedly since 2006.
Omar A. Williams
Omar A. Williams, also known as Omar Antonio Williams, is an American jurist serving as a United States district judge for the District of Connecticut since 2021, appointed by President Biden.
Omar Khadr
Omar Khadr, Canadian captured at 15 in Afghanistan in 2002, held at Guantanamo, convicted by US military commission in 2010, repatriated 2012, received Canadian apology and $10.5M settlement in 2017.
Ombudsman
An ombudsman is a public official, appointed by a legislature, who investigates complaints from individuals against government administrative acts; the office originated in Sweden in 1809.
Omega (prison gang)
Omega is a monoethnic Malay Muslim prison gang formed in Singapore prisons in the late 1980s, the most significant Malay secret society in post-independence Singapore, which evolved from a prison protection group into a transnational drug-trafficking enterprise.
Omertà
Omertà, also called the law of silence, is the code of silence of the southern Italian mafia, forbidding any cooperation with state authorities and punishing breach by death.
Omission (law)
Omission (law): a failure to act that can supply the actus reus of a crime only where a legal duty exists, from statute, contract, relationship, assumption of care, or created risk; no general duty to rescue.
Omurtag of Bulgaria
Khan Omurtag (Омуртаг), also spelled Omortag, was khan of Bulgaria from 814 or 815 to 831, known as "the Builder" for rebuilding his capital Pliska in stone.
One Big Beautiful Bill Act
One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Public Law 119-21, H.R. 1 of 2025: US reconciliation law signed July 4, 2025 making TCJA tax cuts permanent, adding tip, overtime, and senior deductions, and cutting Medicaid, ACA, and SNAP.
One Canadian Economy Act
One Canadian Economy Act (S.C. 2025, c. 2), Bill C-5, is a Canadian statute assented to June 26, 2025, enacting the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act and the Building Canada Act to remove federal internal trade barriers and fast-track national interest projects.
Ongoing and stalled modern treaty negotiations in Canada
Ongoing and stalled modern treaty negotiations in Canada are unfinished land claim and self-government talks between Indigenous nations, the federal government, and provinces, with about 100 tables open.
Onion Futures Act
Onion Futures Act, Public Law 85-839 (7 U.S.C. 13-1), the 1958 U.S. law signed by Eisenhower banning onion futures trading on any U.S. board of trade; the only such statutory commodity futures ban, prompted by the Kosuga-Siegel market corner.
Online age verification laws by country
Online age verification laws by country: statutes requiring age checks for social media, adult content, and app stores. Covers the UK Online Safety Act, Australia's under-16 ban, the EU blueprint, and US state laws, with adoption, enforcement, and privacy criticism.
Online predator
Online predator: an adult who uses chat, social media, and messaging to groom children for sexual exploitation, also called online grooming or cybergrooming; prevalence 8-19%, staged manipulative tactics, ML detection, and grooming-specific criminal laws.
Online Rape Academy (CNN investigation)
Online Rape Academy: name for the ecosystem exposed in CNN's 26 March 2026 As Equals investigation ("Exposing a global 'online rape academy'"), covering Telegram group Zzz, Motherless.com, and the misreported 62 million visits figure.
Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024
The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 is an Australian federal law establishing a minimum-age framework for accounts on specified social media services. It amended the Online Safety Act.
Ontario Municipal Board
The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), originally the Ontario Railway and Municipal Board, was Ontario's quasi-judicial tribunal for municipal planning appeals until its 2018 replacement by the LPAT, later merged into the Ontario Land Tribunal.
Ōoka Tadasuke
Ōoka Tadasuke (大岡忠相, 1677–1751), known as Ōoka Echizen no kami, was an Edo-period Japanese official who served as Edo's south town magistrate under shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune and led the Kyōhō reforms' municipal work.
Open adoption
Open adoption is an arrangement in which biological parents have some contact with the child and the adoptive parents, now the most widespread form in the United States.
Open carry in the United States
Open carry in the United States is the practice of carrying a visible firearm in public, legal without a permit in 27 states as of 2024.
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy was U.S. Secretary of State John Hay's 1899-1900 notes to the great powers calling for equal trading opportunity in China and respect for China's territorial and administrative integrity, the basis of U.S. Far East policy into the mid-20th century.
Open prison
Open prison (minimum security prison): a penal institution where prisoners serve sentences without being locked up, focused on resettlement. Category D in England and Wales; widely used in Norway; lower cost and generally lower recidivism than closed prisons.
Operation Car Wash
Operation Car Wash (Operação Lava Jato), Brazil's 2014–2021 Federal Police corruption investigation into the Petrobras kickback scheme, named for a Curitiba car wash, produced 278 convictions before Supreme Court annulments gutted most of its legacy.
Operation Deny Flight
Operation Deny Flight was a NATO air operation from 1993 to 1995 that enforced a UN no-fly zone over Bosnia and provided close air support to UN peacekeepers.
Operation Midas
Operation Midas (Ukrainian: Операція "Мідас") is a NABU–SAPO anti-corruption investigation announced November 10, 2025, into a $100 million kickback and laundering scheme at Energoatom, unlike unrelated Australian, British, and African police operations of the same name.
Operation Restore Hope
Operation Restore Hope was the United States-led humanitarian intervention in Somalia from December 1992 to May 1993, deploying about 37,000 troops to secure famine relief.
Operation Snow White
Operation Snow White: 1970s Church of Scientology Guardian's Office conspiracy to purge government files on Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard; exposed by 1977 FBI raids; eleven convictions including Mary Sue Hubbard.
Operation Spanner
Operation Spanner: 1987 UK Metropolitan Police investigation into gay consensual sadomasochism, leading to the Spanner trials, R v Brown, and Laskey v UK.