The Danger Of American Apathy On NSA Surveillance

by Elizabeth Goitein.     Little by little, Americans are allowing their government to chip away at the fortress of legal protections that people in less-privileged societies – including multiple nations in the Arab world – are giving their lives to build. The director of National Intelligence today declassified and released documents describing the National     ... MORE

When Cops Don't Need A Warrant To Bust In Your Door

By J.D. Tucille.      The Fourth Amendment protects us from random invasions of our homes by police, right? We know we're secure in our "persons, houses, papers, and effects" unless the cops demonstrate probable cause to a judge and get a warrant. Except... Except when they don't. The fact of the matter is that police have a lot of leeway  ... MORE

VIDEO: Milton Friedman - Reflections On A Free Society

Andrew Napolitano: Liberty And Safety

The road to totalitarianism.       When Edward Snowden revealed that the federal government, in direct defiance of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, was unlawfully and unconstitutionally spying on all Americans who use telephones, text messaging or emails to communicate with other persons, he opened a Pandora's box of  ... MORE

A Guide To The World's Most Libertarian Countries

by Alasdair Baverstock.       As Uruguay, a country which has never criminalised cannabis for personal use, turns to legalising its cultivation and distribution, we look at other trailblazing, libertarian countries. In 2001, Portugal became the first European country to decriminalise possession of all drugs for personal use. The country introduced   ... MORE

VIDEO: Nanny Of The Month - July 2013


Busybodies minding YOUR own business. 

Cell Phones And The Expectation Of Privacy

by Jesse Wegman.      Ninety-one percent of American adults now own a cell phone, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. Among those 44 and younger, ownership rises to more than 95 percent. The cell phone is as ubiquitous a piece of consumer technology as we have ever had, and may be the most rapidly adopted in history.        ... MORE

Mark K. Matthews: TSA Misconduct Is On The Rise

Luggage theft. Drug use. Sleeping on the job.    These are just a handful of nearly 10,000 reports of misconduct involving employees at the Transportation Security Administration from 2010 to 2012, according to a new watchdog report.  As disturbing, wrote federal investigators, is that these allegations are on the rise: increasing from 2,691 reports  ... MORE

The Bradley Manning Verdict: What You Should Know

by Marcy Wheeler.    “I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within [the military’s own databases], it could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.” That is — according to a statement Bradley       ... MORE

Barry Farber: Obama's New Marxist Ploy

You can learn a lot from an Estonian.    A Southern law professor once instructed his class on how to defend Hell in court. “First you admit that the climate is not the most comfortable,” came the advice, “and then you admit your companions are far from the kind of people you’d choose to spend eternity with. Then,” the professor        ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Are We Rome Yet?

John Stossel: Are We Rome Yet?

Empires do crumble.      Unfortunately, the fall of Rome is a pattern repeated by empires throughout history ... including ours? A group of libertarians gathered in Las Vegas recently for an event called "FreedomFest." We debated whether America will soon fall, as Rome did. Historian Carl Richard said that today's America resembles      ... MORE

Would A Higher Minimum Wage Help McDonald's Workers?

by Art Carden.     In the recent fury over a proposed budget for low-wage workers circulated by McDonald’s, Forbes contributor Laura Shin asked “Will the McDonald’s Employee Budget help Get the Minimum Wage Raised?” I hope not, but not just for the sake of McDonald’s customers and shareholders. I hope not for the sake of      ... MORE

VIDEO: "Bootleggers And Baptists"


A lesson on regulation. 

Fed Workers Paid $155M To Work For Labor Unions

by Alissa Tabirian.       Federal employees were paid more than $155 million of taxpayer dollars in 2011 for spending more than 3.4 million hours of "official time" on labor union activities that fell outside their assigned government duties, according to a survey by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). "Voluntary membership in        ... MORE

Climate Depot: A Very Inconvenient Truth For Warmers

1,122 Record Cold Temps in the U.S. in one week!
Forecast shows new lows for much of north and west will likely continue. Where’s that global warming when we need it?   ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: The Tragedy Of Isolation

Inflicting a handicap on their own people.   In the 20th century, Western intellectuals' two most dominant explanations of disparities in economic, educational and other achievements were innate racial differences in ability (in the early decades) and racial discrimination (in the later decades). In neither era were the intelligentsia     ... MORE

U.S. Shale Bonanza Poses Danger To Saudi Oil Interests

by Alaj Makan and Abeer Allam.     Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the billionaire Saudi Arabian investor, has warned that his country’s oil-dependent economy is increasingly vulnerable to competition from the US shale revolution, setting him at odds with his country’s oil ministry and Opec officials. In an open letter addressed to Ali Naimi,   ... MORE

VIDEO: Government Using Parking Tickets To Raise Money

Jacob Sullum: The Cannabis Is Out Of The Bag

Prohibitionists might want to think carefully about this.  At the end of May, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed legislation aimed at taxing and regulating the commercial distribution of marijuana for recreational use. The legislative process had been haunted by the fear that the federal government would try to quash this  ... MORE

Americans More Concerned With Privacy Than Terrorism

A Pew Research study.     For the first time in almost a decade, the majority of Americans are more concerned about the government infringing on their civil liberties than about a potential terrorist attack, according to a new poll by Pew Research. US citizens have traditionally responded to similar polls by saying the government has not      ... MORE

VIDEO: Economic Freedom And Quality Of Life

Ron Paul: House Leadership Voted For ‘Police State’

by David Sherfinski.     Former Rep. Ron Paul says that even had an amendment to defund some of the surveillance programs of the National Security Agency (NSA) had passed last week in the U.S. House of Representatives, it would have been a “significant symbolic victory,” but possibly little more than that. “[W]e should be careful about     ... MORE

The Framers' Remedy For Presidential Lawlessness

Betsy McCaughey on defunding ObamaCare.     Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee voted to strip the scandal ridden Internal Revenue Service of nearly one quarter of its 2014 budget as punishment for its targeting of political groups and its costly boondoggles. Shockingly, Senate Democrats voted to      ... MORE

Barry Farber: Is Detroit A Foreshadow Of America?

A wake up call or the beginning of the end?      Be glad that symbolism is important. Be glad up to a point. Then quit! Symbolism can ennoble. Symbolism can also kill. Did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1941 to destroy the “symbolism” of this new American world power? I don’t think so. I was the twerpiest of all possible pre-juvenile    ... MORE

Getting A Search Warrant For Your Thoughts

by John Villasenor.       We don't have a mind reading machine. But what if we one day did? The technique of functional MRI (fMRI), which measures changes in localized brain activity over time, can now be used to infer information regarding who we are thinking about, what we have seen, and the memories we are recalling. As the technology    ... MORE

John Stossel - The Lawsuit Industry

Walter Olson: What's Scarier Than Asset Forfeiture?

Policing for profit.      District Attorney Jason Hicks, whose territory includes four Oklahoma counties, hired Guthrie-based Desert Snow LLC with a deal to pay it between 10 and 25 percent of seizure proceeds, depending on whether its “trainers” were present or only department officers. “Sometimes, no drugs were found and no one was    ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Black Self-Sabotage

Volunteering for the chains of the left.     If we put ourselves into the shoes of racists who seek to sabotage black upward mobility, we couldn't develop a more effective agenda than that followed by civil rights organizations, black politicians, academics, liberals and the news media. Let's look at it. First, weaken the black family, but don't blame it  ... MORE

VIDEO: Seven Surprising Truths About The World

Star Parker: We Need To Restore The Spirit Of Capitalism

Our president is hardwired to the socialist view.     President Barack Obama went to Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., this week to rearticulate his vision for the American economy and to reassure the American people that, yes, he knows what he is doing. The president's prodigious political skills are always on display, even in the most  ...  MORE

IRS: ObamaCare For Thee But Not For Me!

by David Catron.   Among the most offensive features of the ironically titled “Affordable Care Act” is its designation of the Internal Revenue Service as the main enforcer of the law’s many mandates, taxes, penalties, and reporting requirements. It exponentially increases the power of a group of bureaucrats notorious for repeatedly     ... MORE

What Did You Do During The War On Terror, Daddy?

by Nick Gillespie.     This is what bipartisanship looks like—and it looks pretty damn fresh. On July 24th, a bill co-sponsored by Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI) and John Conyers (D-MI) that would have brought NSA domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens into rough compliance with the Constitution nearly passed the House of Representatives in a    ... MORE

Byron Tau: Big Marijuana Lobby Fights Legalization Efforts

Putting profit over principle.    Pot legalization activists are running into an unexpected and ironic opponent in their efforts to make cannabis legal: Big Marijuana. Medical marijuana is a billion-dollar industry — legal in 18 states, including California, Nevada, Oregon and Maine — and like any entrenched business, it’s fighting to keep what it has and shut   ... MORE

VIDEO: To Serve, Protect And Terrorize

Is Tiger Woods Smarter Than Phil Mickelson?

by Thomas DiLorenzo.    Pro golfer Phil Mickelson, who just won the British Open, will reportedly pay a 61% tax on his earnings, including 13 1/2 percent to the state of California.  (Medieval serfs paid “only” 40 percent).  He’s ranked as the #2 golfer in the world.  The #1 golfer, Tiger Woods, who is also a native Californian, lives in zero-income-tax  ... MORE

Steve Chapman: Resisting The Surveillance State

Is it the will of the people to compromise privacy?   George W. Bush and Dick Cheney spent eight years choking personal privacy to within an inch of its life. After they were done, Barack Obama showed up, expressed heartfelt sympathy and stood on its throat. But despite their efforts, it isn't quite dead. Last week, it showed definite signs  ... MORE

VIDEO: What Is Overcriminalization?

Michael J. Hurd: Chris Christie Vs. The Constitution

Christie has unlimited faith in unlimited government.    New Jersey Governor Chris Christie condemns those who attack the National Security Agency (NSA) for gathering private phone and Internet data from Americans. His attack takes it for granted that such policies make Americans safer from terrorism than they otherwise would be.    ... MORE

Washington Times Editorial: The ObamaCare Canaries

Democratic Obamacare defectors hear the music.    Thirty-five House Democrats broke party ranks last week to vote for a Republican bill to delay the employer mandate in Obamacare. They’re the canaries in the coal mine, and everyone knows what President Obama thinks of coal. In an earnest act of self-preservation, 21 of those 35 Democrats    ... MORE