The shameless perks of government employees. The 31-year-old former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden
has warned that during surveillance, among other things, NSA system
administrators also intercepted and routinely passed the nude photos of
people in "sexually compromising" situations among ... MORE
by Eva Galperin and Nadia Kayyali. Imagine that you watched a police officer in your
neighborhood stop ten completely ordinary people every day just to take a
look inside their vehicle or backpack. Now imagine that nine of those
people are never even accused of a crime. They just happened to be in
the wrong place at the wrong time. Even the ... MORE
from the Beaufort Observer. Most of our regular readers know that police must have probable cause to search and seize evidence. They cannot search just because they want to and then use what they find to charge a person for a crime. Or so that is the way it is supposed to be. But as we have reported often, there are some crooked cops among ... MORE
by Travis H. Brown. Thanks to the signatures of more than 807,000 concerned Californians,
an ambitious idea has moved that much closer to becoming a reality. The
“Six Californias” Initiative,
sponsored by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper, seeks to
create areas that are more governable, more productive, and more
successful. As I wrote ... MORE
by Lily Dane. Proactive justice is occurring. Courts around the country are having more
trouble prosecuting marijuana cases because of increasing awareness of a
constitutional doctrine called jury nullification. Under the Bill of Rights, jurors have the power to find a defendant not guilty if they find the law in question is flawed – even if ... MORE
by John F. McManus. Earlier in 2014, the Kansas state legislature enacted a law stating that some federal gun control regulations would not be obeyed in Kansas.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder immediately notified Governor Sam
Brownback that this new state law was unconstitutional. He cited Article
VI of the U.S. Constitution, ... MORE
by Peter Suderman. In
the past year or so, the White House has become increasingly
aggressive in touting President Obama’s achievements in reducing
the deficit. The deficit has been “cut by more than half since
2009,” a 2013
blog post by the White House Office of Management and Budget
declared, pointing to the shrinking of ... MORE
Government planners vs the free market. "Tea party members don't think there's a federal role in transportation!" complained Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, last week, near the site of a $5.8 million highway project. If only most tea party members were that radical. While Brown and other big-government folks worry that Republicans will ... MORE