Banning e-cigarettes because they look like real thing. A few weeks ago, as the New York City Council's health committee
considered a ban on using electronic cigarettes in public, several
fans of the battery-powered devices sat in the audience,
demonstrating their operation. "I'm watching puffs of vapor go up
in this room," ... MOREJacob Sullum: Vaping Gives Politicians The Vapors
Banning e-cigarettes because they look like real thing. A few weeks ago, as the New York City Council's health committee
considered a ban on using electronic cigarettes in public, several
fans of the battery-powered devices sat in the audience,
demonstrating their operation. "I'm watching puffs of vapor go up
in this room," ... MOREWalter E Williams: Dumb Politicians Won't Get Elected
A vote-buying technique called handouts. Politicians can be progressives, liberals, conservatives, Democrats or Republicans, and right-wingers. They just can't be dumb. The American people will never elect them to office. Let's look at it. For years, I used to blame politicians for our economic and social mess. That changed during the 1980s ... MOREDoug Bandow: Obamacare's War On Civil Society
One more gift from big government. Washington offers many opportunities for Schadenfreude, that wonderful German word which means to enjoy the misery of others. The sudden realization of liberal professionals who voted for Barack Obama that they will be forced to spend thousands more on health insurance was one of those ... MOREEric Peters: Good Cops?
All cops are bad – by definition. Harsh statement? Certainly. It does not make it less true – like an accurate terminal cancer diagnosis. Pretending otherwise doesn’t alter the reality. Whether the cops themselves are conscious of their badness is immaterial. No doubt, many cops (as distinct from peace officers) believe in their hearts ... MOREFormer Top NSA Official: “We Are Now In A Police State”
America has a "totalitarian process" in place. Bill Binney is the high-level NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information. A 32-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency, Binney was the senior technical director within the agency and managed thousands of NSA employees. ... MOREProstitution Freed From Legal Restrictions In Canada
by Brooke Magnanti. Yesterday, the long running saga of sex worker
Terri Jean Bedford's (pictured at right) challenge to Canadian
restrictions on prostitution came to a head as the Supreme Court of
Canada unanimously struck down
several such laws in
Canada v. Bedford. Declaring laws restricting
brothel-keeping, negotiating the ... MOREPoll Finds Falling Resistance To Marijuana Legalization
by Jacob Sullum. A new A.P. poll finds that the number of Americans who oppose marijuana legalization has fallen dramatically in the last few years. In a survey completed last week, 29 percent of respondents said they opposed “legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” compared to 55 percent ... MORECivil Forfeiture Hurts Law Enforcement Too
Rebecca Fudek on credibility forfeiture. “I’ve always paid my taxes and have never been arrested or charged
with any crime in my life. I am a successful small-business man. But in
January of this year, I woke up to find that my business’ entire bank
account — more than $35,000 — had been wrongly seized.” These are the words of Terry Dehko, who ... MOREFBI Spooks: Infiltrating and Informing
by J.D. Tuccille. The National Security Agency isn't the only arm of the government in the surveillance business. According to a September report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "every 90 days for the past seven years the FBI has obtained secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court orders compelling telecommunications ... MOREVeronique de Ruby: Slouching Toward Bankruptcy
Its dangerous to put off Social Security reform. In November 2004, President George W. Bush was re-elected after campaigning on personal accounts for Social Security. It was unfair, he argued at the time, to make a generation of young people pay into a system that's going broke. Bush's plan promised to make the program solvent, ... MORE
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