September 25, 2018

Why we shouldn't "just enforce the law"

fromLawFare: The case of a woman who may be prosecuted for sheltering animals during Hurricane Florence highlights some reasons why it is often wrong to enforce the law.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Gov. Brown signs stupid straw bill

fromLawFare: Goofy governor insures California maintains its status as the gold standard for nitwittery.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery       Regulation Nation

Quick Notes on the Rosenstein Revelations

fromLawFare: There is a lot to chew over in the blockbuster New York Times story about Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s erratic behavior in his first few weeks on the job.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

WATCH: Assange’s last interview before blackout released—”this is the last free generation”

fromFreeThoughtProject: In his last interview before going dark, Julian Assange had some rather grim views to express to the world.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle     Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Why these five states would be better independent countries

fromTheDailyBell: The federal two-party system ensures a perpetually unhappy populace. Each tries to force their will on the other when it is “their turn.” And the rest of us, who aren’t on one side or the other, constantly lose.
The Government is Not Us

VIDEO: Steve Silverman: 5 rules for recording police

fromFlexYourRights/YouTube: Citizens always have right to record the police in public. Steve Silverman (Flex Your Rights) discusses police body cameras and recording misconduct.
Police State America      Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

June 5, 2016

Badge of impunity

fromARSTecnica: Government courts do not hold other government agents accountable.
Police State America

The government’s cure for the opioid epidemic may be worse than the disease

fromReason: When the government's cure for the "epidemic" proves worse than the disease, it's time to try something new.  
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

White privilege has become a religion, complete with church ladies

fromTheFederalist: How enlightened these faithful must be to voluntarily enjoy having their sins denounced!  
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

SWAT team burns baby with flash distraction device while on drug hunt

fromARSTecnica: Cops send 2-year-old to hospital during quest to incarcerate nonviolent drug offenders.  
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Police use of Amazon’s face-recognition service draws privacy warnings

fromARSTecnica: “From a law enforcement or intelligence perspective, smart appliances are very valuable tools that can let us monitor or listen to individuals,” says a former FBI executive assistant director.  
Police State America     Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Civil asset forfeiture: highway robbery marketed as a drug enforcement tool

fromARSTecnica: The morality of theft doesn't change because it has been legalized. And, what citizens had this authority in order to delegate it to government?  
Police State America     The Government is Not Us

May 11, 2016

The lethal success of pain pill restrictions

fromCreators: Restricting access to pain pills also seems to be increasing the percentage of opioid users who begin with heroin. No wonder the drug warrior lobby wants this.
Regulation Nation    The War Against Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Promoted as a law enforcement tool, this practice is actually highway robbery

fromKMBC9: How the state has set itself up to legally steal you stuff even though you are never even charged with wrongdoing.
Police State America

Man protests police department's violation of speech rights, so cops arrest him

fromReason: Stamford, Connecticut, police chief objects to salty language on a sign. That’s not a crime.
Police State America

Illinois police claim if marijuana is legalized, they'll have to kill their police dogs

fromCreators: Dog gone. Cops now argue that nonviolent people must be imprisoned as a dog-saving program.
The War Against Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

John Stossel: Hating DeVos

fromCreators: An administrator who is fighting to empower parents and cut government is a natural target of the left.
Regulation Nation

Seattle’s proposed employment tax is just the city's latest self-inflicted wound

fromCreators: City officials seem dedicated to driving away the businesses that create prosperity. They are behaving as if they are in California.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market      Regulation Nation

September 16, 2017

Maduro drops all pretense, vows to become a dictator to ensure “economic peace” in Venezuela 

from PanAm Post: End stage socialism for all to see. Leftists and children should be careful what they wish for.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

Sheriff forced to pay own money for sending SWAT team after cop who criticized him 

from The Free Thought Project: A Louisiana Sheriff, who sent a SWAT team after a fellow officer who exposed his corruption, is now being held accountable with a civil lawsuit. Of course, no criminal or disciplinary actions have been taken.
Police State America

 🎬  Thomas DiLorenzo - The Revolution of 1913 

LibertyPen: Ever wonder how our beautiful country, founded on individual liberty, has morphed into its present state of a powerful central government attempting to dictate every facet of your life? The events of 1913 contains the answers.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

The self-driving vehicle future will be the end of privacy 

from The Activist Post: The vehicles sensors will constantly be sucking up data (weather, traffic, speed, location, time, date) and feeding it into the navigation system, potentially revealing private details to law enforcement and other hackers.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Cops claim standard procedure used as teen is tasered to death 

from The Free Thought Project: Cops caught on video tasering a teen in his genitals until he died and saying they were going to kill him, now claim this is standard procedure.
Police State America

The Crypto Wars Are About Power, Not Terrorism

by Andrea Castillo.        The FBI may have been able to unlock San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s work-related iPhone without conscripting Apple as an unwilling hacker, but that has not slowed down the government’s broader war on encrypted technologies one bit. It didn’t take long for another tragic terrorist attack, this one in Belgium, ... MORE

Another Sexual Assault In Service Of The Drug War

by Jacob Sullum.   Public servants or simple perverts, you decide. Yet another case of a driver sexually assaulted in the name of the war on drugs dramatically illustrates the dangerously broad power that police officers have to mess with motorists. According to a lawsuit filed last September, described in a February 3 ruling by federal judge in         ... MORE

Ed Spillane: Many Judges Continue To Jail Defendants Without Money To Pay Fines. Here Are The Alternatives.

Why one judge refuses to send such folks to jail.   Melissa J. showed up in my court last year with four kids in tow. Her children quietly watched from a nearby table while I spoke with her. The charges against her — driving with an invalid license, driving without insurance, not wearing a seat belt, failure to use a child safety seat properly  ... MORE

VIDEO: Why The Public Is Losing Respect For The Badge

Public servants or statist bullies? You decide. 

Senate’s Encryption Bill Would Destroy Cybersecurity

by Scott Shackford.   Privacy under assault. The Senate Intelligence Committee's draft legislation to require tech companies assist federal authorities in bypassing the security of their products and software could have well been titled the "Shut Up and Do What You're Damn Well Told, Nerdlinger, Act of 2016." Actually, it very nearly is. The short     ... MORE

Richmond California Establishes A New Low By Paying Criminals Up To $1000 A Month Not To Shoot People

by Jennifer Cruz.  A San Francisco suburb has taken an unconventional approach to fighting crime by essentially paying a sort of monthly salary to ex-cons in exchange for them staying out of trouble and helping others to do the same. The program, known as Operation Peacemaker Fellowship, targets some of the most violent offenders in Richmond,     ... MORE

VIDEO: The Cost Of The War On Drugs

Law enforcement's spending addiction.

Matt Agorist: “Please Don’t Shoot Me” Body Cam Shows Innocent Unarmed Dad Killed By A Cop Begging For His Life

A simple execution.     Mesa Police Officer Philip Brailsford has been charged with the second-degree murder of Daniel Shaver, an innocent father of two. The shooting was captured on his body cam. On January 18, Brailsford, along with several other officers, responded to a call about a suspect with a rifle in a hotel room. The ‘rifle’ was nothing more  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Drug War Corruption

Law Enforcement Now Snoops Private DNA Databases

by Jessica Chia.    A filmmaker in New Orleans became a suspect in the 1996 murder of an Idaho Falls teenager after his father donated his own DNA to a nonprofit organization conducting a hereditary study backed by the Mormon church. Idaho Falls Police Department had a warrant to seize the genetic information later sold to Ancestry.com in an attempt  ... MORE

Shining A Light On Police Seizures, Civil Forfeitures

by Nick Sibilla and Lauren Krisai.    How a town of 7,000 can build a $4.1 million dollar police station.  Mississippi has some of the strongest protections in the country for private property rights. But those protections are shockingly lax when it comes to a little-known police practice called “civil forfeiture.” Unlike criminal forfeiture,     ... MORE

The Brute Force Of Government Spending On Autopilot

by Debra J. Saunders.   My car was towed from an area near a train station in San Francisco last month. I had parked in front of a small "No Parking" sign that I had not seen. I spent an hour looking for my car and calling an attendant who didn't answer the phone. When someone finally answered, she told me my car had been towed. It cost me $350.  ... MORE

Sharon Cohen: Chicago's $662 Million Police Misconduct Bill

But few officers punished.   In this city's troubled history of police misconduct, Eric Caine's case may be unrivaled: It took more than 25 years and $10 million to resolve. For decades, he maintained he didn't brutally kill an elderly couple. The police, he said, beat him into a false confession. Locked up at age 20, he was freed at 46, bewildered by a world  ... MORE

Man Charged With Breaking A Trooper’s Fist With His Face

by Larry Hohol.   Public servants or government thugs? A motorist was viciously beaten, tasered, and maced repeatedly, then charged with 24 separate crimes and maliciously prosecuted for every one of them. He was beaten four (4) times over the course of 11-hours, and not once had he acted maliciously. The incident stemmed from his driving while  ... MORE

America’s Gestapo: The FBI’s Reign Of Terror

by John W. Whitehead.  “Don’t Be a Puppet” is the message the FBI is sending young Americans. As part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the nation’s de facto secret police force is now recruiting students and teachers to spy on each other and report anyone who appears to have the potential to be “anti-government” or “extremist.”   ... MORE

VIDEO: John Oliver - Encryption (from HBO)