July 13, 2019

Is facial recognition the new fingerprinting—or something much worse?

fromHumanEvents: State DMVs are building a vast national digital identification database for federal law enforcement.

Government is Watching Every Move You Make

A complete list of alternatives to the Google search engine

fromCollectiveEvolution: Using Google as a search engine is no longer giving you access to unedited truth, as admitted by Google exec Jen Gennai. You will see what Google wants you to see.

Indoctrination and Censorship

Citizens now charged with a crime for repairing their own car in their own garage

fromFreeThoughtProject: Another kick in groin to private property rights. In Sacramento, California, residents can now be fined $500 for simply fixing a tire or changing their car's oil in their "own" driveway.

Individual Liberty: America's First Principle               Regulation Nation

Florida sheriff deputy arrested after planting drugs on innocent people

fromReason: Drug war incentives are perverse. Make no mistake, the war on drugs is a war on you.

Police State America                The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange 

Congress votes to block feds from enforcing marijuana laws In legal states

fromHumanEvents: At long last, the federal government is dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.

The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Judges appear set to rule against Obamacare individual mandate

fromHumanEvents: It didn't satisfy Obama's overlord mentality enough that government could confiscate a large percentage of your earnings already, he was hellbent on dictating what you must buy. 

Regulation Nation

April 12, 2019

Alexa is listening to everything you say

fromBloomberg:  Tens of millions of very foolish people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia

Government is Watching Every Move You Make

The best reason to not buy any new car

fromEricPetersAuto:  Free health care, free college tuition, free child care are the beacons for the liberal Left. Everything but the freedom to think for yourself.

Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

The miserable, squalid campaign to stifle Tucker Carlson

fromTheSpectator:  The Fox News host’s only real crime is daring to be provocative in a dull media world.

Media Bias on Parade

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson - The Shame of White Privilege and Other Leftist Crimes

fromLibertyPen/YouTube:  A look at the apologetic whining from Democratic presidential candidates for having been born white, advocating borders, failing to champion reparations to blacks and other high PC crimes.

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Police claim teen shot herself in the mouth with hands cuffed behind her back during traffic stop

fromFreeThoughtProject:  Sounds impossible, but the police investigated this themselves.

Police State America

November 24, 2017

Good Samaritans shutdown, ticketed for feeding homeless during Thanksgiving holiday

from TheFreeThoughtProject: Feeding the homeless is now illegal in Atlanta and you will be ticketed and extorted unless you pay the state for permission beforehand.
Regulation Nation

VIDEO: Libertarian Car Talk

from LibertyPen/YouTube: From the Tom Woods Show, Eric Peters on the latest libertarian car issues.
Regulation Nation

NSA Internet surveillance under Section 702 violates the First Amendment

from EFF: It’s not just our Fourth Amendment rights to privacy that are in the crosshairs, but also our First Amendment rights. These rights to anonymously speak, associate, access information, and engage in political activism are the bedrock of our democracy, and they’re endangered by the NSA’s pervasive surveillance.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

How Jeff Sessions plans to end medical marijuana before the year is over

from Newsweek: Sessions is known for being one of the nation's toughest critics of legal pot. He once said the KKK was "OK until I found out they smoked pot."
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai: Killing Net Neutrality will set the Internet free

from Reason: Promises that "we're going to see an explosion in the kinds of connectivity and the depth of that connectivity" like never before.
Regulation Nation

Pro–net neutrality graphic makes argument against net neutrality

from Reason: Do net neutrality advocates fear consumer choice?
Regulation Nation

Red Light Cams Linked To Rear-End Collisions In Chicago

by Dan Kedmey.   New study casts doubts on the claims that cameras improve road safety. A new Chicago-focused study links red light cameras to a coinciding rise in rear-end collisions, casting doubts on claims that the mounted cameras improve safety at intersections. The study’s findings, published by the Chicago Tribune Friday, found that while   ... MORE

Salim Furth: Government Regulators Have Added At Least An Extra $3,800 To The Price Of Producing A New Car

The high cost of savings-government style.  When Congress and the Obama administration passed and implemented extremely strict fuel economy regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claimed that it would save consumers a few thousand dollars on gas and add only $948 to the price of a new car. Three teams of independent     ... MORE

Daniel Gelernter: Liberals Want Your Car Keys

Can computerized cars drive better than we can?  The cover story of Time’s March 7 issue makes “the increasingly compelling case for why you shouldn’t be allowed to drive,” claiming that computerized cars are (or, it is hoped, will be) safer drivers than humans, and so the logical thing is to ban humans from driving altogether. The plan is    ... MORE

These 10 Photos Will Make You Rethink Your Trip To Cuba

by Wally Nowinski.   First off, the food stinks. I recently got back from a 10-day trip to Cuba. And during those days I gained some insight into what thousands of Americans are going to find when they leave their luxury hotels and lavish supermarkets and spend significant amounts of money to travel to an island hobbled by embargo and food   ... MORE

City Of Buffalo Is Raking In Big Bucks From Auto Drivers After Wildly Expanding Their Traffic Citation Industry

by Matthew Spina.    Throughout last year, Buffalo police pulled over more drivers and handed more tickets to each. But the flood began in July – after City Hall created its new “traffic violations agency” to grab more money than ever from traffic fines. The traffic agency flung open its doors July 1. From that day through December, police issued 30,000    ... MORE

VIDEO: Are Electric Cars Really Green?

Should Police Be Able To Take Control Of Self-Driving Cars?

by Karl Bode.     Technology's dark side. As Google, Tesla, Volvo, and other companies make great strides with their self-driving car technology, we've started moving past questions about whether the technology will work, and started digging into the ethics of how it should work. For example, we recently discussed whether or not cars should     ... MORE

California: Protect Your Driver's License Privacy

by Jeremy Gillula and Dave Maass.     The California Legislature wants the DMV to start issuing “Enhanced Driver Licenses” (EDL), similar to a REAL ID, that contain an RFID tag that could expose information about you from up to 30 feet away.  We need your help to bring S.B. 249 to a screeching halt by calling or emailing your state legislator today.  ... MORE

NYC Unveils Pilot Program To Track Driving Habits

Big Brother comes a knocking.   It’s a new city pilot program to track how you drive, when you drive, how fast your drive and how much gas you use. The Department of Transportation says it will help fix street problems. Others say its like Big Brother is watching you, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer reported Friday. It’s a tiny black box about the size of a   ... MORE

Scott Shackford: Self-Driving Cars Would Limit Human Error And Therefore Could Destroy Fine-Based City Government

So what's the downside?       One of the propelling concepts behind self-driving cars isn't just innovation for the sake of innovation, leading us to our sci-fi Jetsons future. If successfully implemented, it will make ground travel safer, particularly in higher population areas, increase transportation efficiency and ultimately human productivity.   ... MORE

Police State Plan To Deploy A Vehicle-Tracking Database

from National Motorists Association.      We predicted it would happen. A year after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) scuttled plans to build its own nationwide database of vehicle license plate data, the agency is seeking bids from private contractors to provide the agency access to the same information. DHS canceled last year’s plan ... MORE

Mike Masnick: GM Says That While You May Own Your Car, It Owns The Software In It, Thanks To Copyright Laws

You buy but you don't own it.  Last week, we noted that Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Jared Polis had introduced an important bill to fix a part of the DMCA's broken anti-circumvention laws found in Section 1201 of the DMCA. For whatever reason, some people still have trouble understanding why the law is so broken. So here's a story that  ... MORE

Dynamism and Durability Are Great Features Of Capitalism

by Ira Stoll.  A lesson in basic economics courtesy of an old Toyota. The odometer on my 1999 Toyota Camry hit 100,000 earlier this week. It triggered a small family celebration and some reflection on what might be learned from the achievement. One takeaway is that newer isn’t always better. You don’t have to be an adherent of Judaism (older    ... MORE

Montana Poised To Ban Government License Plate Cameras

by J.D. Tuccille.      Cops in Big Sky Country aren't happy about it, but Montana lawmakers look ready to ban the use of license plate cameras by government agencies to track motorists' movements. The legislative move comes after a stream of revelations of local, state, and federal tracking and databasing of Americans' movements by car, without cause  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: 'Drugged' Drivers Who Aren't

What if the risk ratio is statistically insignificant?   Last year, during a congressional hearing on the threat posed by stoned drivers, a representative of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was asked how many crash fatalities are caused by marijuana each year. "That's difficult to say," replied Jeff Michael, NHTSA's  ... MORE

VIDEO: Licensing and Cronyism

Justice Department Working On Car-Tracking Database

To combat drug trafficking, of course.     The Justice Department has acknowledged constructing a database to track the movements of millions of vehicles across the U.S. in real time. The program, whose existence was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is primarily overseen by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to combat    ... MORE