Jacob Sullum on the perilous condition of privacy. After her purse was snatched in 1976, Patricia McDonough began receiving threatening phone calls from a man who identified himself as her robber. Following one of the calls she saw a car she recognized from the scene of the crime slowly pass by her house in Baltimore. Police later ... MORE
Martin Luther King knew all about it. I hear the same complaints about politicians that you do. And while I understand them (I’ve complained plenty myself), the fact is that complaining accomplishes very little. And there is a very simple reason why complainers have no effect: Because the complainers keep ... MORE
Why no centennial celebration? December 23, 2013 marks the centennial of a disastrous transformation of the American Republic. On December 23, 1913, the Federal Reserve System was created. Woodrow Wilson believed that central planning could make America better. His informal deputy, Colonel House (who was not really a colonel ... MORE
Edward Snowden brings the world together. The United Nations General Assembly is expected to approve a resolution
recognizing an international “right to privacy in the digital age” — a
significant political development in response to the controversy over
the surveillance tactics of the United States National Security ... MORE 
If the people lead, leaders will follow. 2013 will go down in history as the beginning of the end of our disastrous war on drugs. Fifty-eight percent of Americans nationally support marijuana legalization. World leaders like former U.N. head Kofi Annan are calling for an end to the drug war. U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., is ... MORE
From patdowns to checkpoints and roadblocks. Ever since 2010, when the Transportation Security Administration started requiring that travelers in American airports submit to sexually intrusive gropings based on the apparent anti-terrorism principle that "If we can't feel your nipples, they must be a bomb", the agency's craven apologists ... MORE