Drew Zahn: Big Brother Tells Kids: TSA 'Isn't Scary'

Coloring books, cartoons to placate terrified tots.       Four-year-old Isabella Brademeyer had just learned about “stranger danger” at school, her family said. Perhaps that’s why the little girl was terrified when Transportation Security Administration officers at a Kansas airport separated her from her mother, told her to spread her arms and   ... MORE

Search Warrants Based on a "Prediction of a Future Crime"

Eric Nicholoson on tyranny in the lone star state.      Police in Parker County had been watching Michael Fred Wehrenberg's home for a month when, late in the summer of 2010, they received a tip from a confidential informant that Wehrenberg and several others were "fixing to" cook meth. Hours later, after midnight, officers walked       ... MORE

Ever Vigilant, TSA Confiscates Sock Monkey's Toy Pistol

You can't make this stuff up.        "Rooster Monkburn" the cowboy sock monkey is without his pistol, thanks to a diligent TSA agent in St. Louis. Phyllis May of Redmond, Wash. says she is “appalled and shocked and embarrassed all at the same time” about the incident that happened on Wednesday. May has a small business selling unique sock      ...  MORE

Louisiana Cops Can Force Drivers To Give Blood

The police state ushers in "no refusal."     If you live in Louisiana, be aware that police seem to have a fairly new power. If they suspect you to be driving drunk they can demand your blood for an alcohol test and if you don’t want to give it they have the power to throw you in jail until they get a court order demanding you give them blood.      ... MORE

Peggy Noonan: What We Lose If We Give Up Privacy

The danger of amping up what government can do.      What is privacy? Why should we want to hold onto it? Why is it important, necessary, precious? Is it just some prissy relic of the pretechnological past? We talk about this now because of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency revelations, and new fears that we are        ... MORE

The Police State Mindset In Our Public Schools

by John W. Whitehead.     Once upon a time in America, parents breathed a sigh of relief when their kids went back to school after a summer’s hiatus, content in the knowledge that for a good portion of the day their kids would be gainfully occupied, out of harm’s way and out of trouble. Those were the good old days, before school shootings  ... MORE

Steve Chapman: TSA's Inept Bureaucracy Mindlessly Grows

Just like its close relative, the cancer cell.        If you're an air traveler who feels the urge to pull your hair out every time you enter a security line at the airport, you may have considered taking Amtrak or even the bus instead. If so, you may want to scratch that idea. The Transportation Security Administration, you see, is showing up in ... 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

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

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

Grasping for Dignity in the Era of the American Police State

by John W. Whitehead.   During a routine traffic stop, Leila Tarantino was allegedly subjected to two roadside strip searches in plain view of passing traffic, while her two children—ages 1 and 4—waited inside her car. During the second strip search, presumably in an effort to ferret out drugs, a female officer “forcibly removed” a tampon from     ... MORE

TSA: Pay More And We Will Grope You Less

Purchase exemption from warrantless airport searches.   The government is expanding the ways airline passengers can enroll in an expedited screening program that allows travelers to leave on their shoes, light outerwear and belts and keep laptop computers in cases at security checkpoints. Under the Transportation Security Administration's  ... MORE

Julie Borowski: Knowing Your Rights Gets More Important

Freedom is under attack incrementally.    Many Americans have probably read about oppressive governments in history books and thought, “Why didn’t the people stand up and stop this from happening?” In hindsight, it just seems so obvious that the people should have noticed and protested government overstepping its bounds. But often,   ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: Liberty In Shambles

Colonial intrusions pale in comparison to today's.      When British soldiers were roaming the American countryside in the 1760s with lawful search warrants with which they had authorized themselves to enter the private homes of Colonists in order to search for government-issued stamps, Thomas Paine wrote, “These are the times that     ... MORE

4 Ways the Fourth Amendment's Already Being Pummeled

by Ed Krayewski.   Last week The Guardian and The Washington Post reported that the National Security Agency collects information on the phone and Internet habits of millions of Americans. Since then we've seen President Barack Obama argue against the strawman of combining “100 percent privacy and 100 percent security.” We've seen the      ... MORE

David Bittle: TSA = Thousands Standing Around

The enormous apparatus isn’t making us safer.    Not long ago while walking through the airport, the following announcement caught my attention: “Will the person who forgot their hearing aids please return to the Transportation Security Administration security checkpoint to reclaim them.” It took me a moment to absorb entirely the irony of the   ... MORE

Roads Have Become Revenue Generating Surveillance Grid

by Michael Snyder.   What do speed traps, parking tickets, toll roads, speed cameras and red light cameras all have in common?  They are all major revenue sources for state and local governments.  All over America today there are state and local governments that are drowning in debt. Many have chosen to use "traffic enforcement" as a way to raise  ... MORE

When Congress Voted Down The Fourth Amendment

by Radley Balko.    Earlier this month, President Obama nominated North Carolina Rep. Mel Watt to head up the Federal Housing Finance Authority. Here's a fun little nugget about Watt that has little relevance to the job he's seeking, but has lots of relevance to the current debates over leaks, press investigations, wiretapping, and such: Back in  ... MORE

VIDEO: Walter E Williams - TSA (Thugs Standing Around)

Andrew Napolitano: Obama's War On The 4th Amendment

Here they go again.    The Obama administration has asked its allies in Congress to introduce legislation that would permit the feds to continue their march through the Fourth Amendment when it comes to obtaining private information about all of us. The Fourth Amendment, which guarantees the right to be left alone, was written largely in     ... MORE