Federal Court Approves Federal Phone Record Data Mining

One hand of government washes the other.     A federal judge on Friday found that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ telephone records is legal and a valuable part of the nation’s arsenal to counter the threat of terrorism. U.S. District Judge William Pauley said in a written opinion that the program  ... MORE

Bob Barr: 2013, The Year Of The Lie

Deception as a primary political weapon.         According to the Chinese calendar, 2013 was the Year of the Snake. For Americans, however, the year just drawing to a close will be known as the Year of the Lie. Not since the Nixon Administration -- which ended with Richard Nixon resigning in order to avoid being impeached -- has the credibility ... MORE

Caution: New ObamaCare Fees To Be Deployed In 2014

by S.A. Miller and Geoff Earle.       Here comes the ObamaCare tax bill. The cost of President Obama’s massive health-care law will hit Americans in 2014 as new taxes pile up on their insurance premiums and on their income-tax bills. Most insurers aren’t advertising the ObamaCare taxes that are added on to premiums, opting instead to        ... MORE

VIDEO: Milton Friedman - Who Protects The Consumer?

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

Drone-Spotting Survival Guide Informs Citizens Of Threat

published in Russia Today.     A Drone Survival Guide with hints and tips on how to thwart the “robotic birds” has been published on the internet. With over 30,000 drones expected to be flying over the US by 2030, the Guide urges readers to familiarize themselves with the craft. In light of the growing number of drones, the Guide advises a      ... MORE

VIDEO: Nanny Of The Year Awards For 2013

John Stossel: Drive Free

Caution: government speed bump ahead.     If you saw a fat man in a sleigh distributing presents this week, he was in violation of several government regulations. The Federal Aviation Administration has complaints about his secret flight path. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources might shoot his unauthorized reindeer       ... MORE

Snowden's Christmas Message: Privacy Matters

"The mission is already accomplished."           In a message broadcast Wednesday on British television, Edward J. Snowden, the former US security contractor, urged an end to mass surveillance, arguing that the electronic monitoring he has exposed surpasses anything imagined by George Orwell in "1984," a dystopian vision of an       ... MORE

Obama's Top 10 Constitutional Violations Of 2013

By Ilya Shapiro.     One of Barack Obama’s chief accomplishments has been to return the Constitution to a central place in our public discourse. Unfortunately, the president fomented this upswing in civic interest not by talking up the constitutional aspects of his policy agenda, but by blatantly violating the strictures of our founding document.     ... MORE

Fusion Centers: Expensive And Dangerous To Our Liberty

by John Glaser.     A domestic surveillance system established after the terrorist attacks of September 11 collects and shares intelligence on a mass scale about “the everyday activities of law-abiding Americans, even in the absence of reasonable suspicion,” according to a new report. The report, released this month by the Brennan Center for Justice,    ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - The Libertarian Era

Jacob 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,"        ... MORE

Walter 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     ... MORE

VIDEO: Milton Friedman - Socialized Medicine

Doug 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     ... MORE

Eric 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       ... MORE

Former 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.     ... MORE

Prostitution 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       ... MORE

VIDEO: Andrew Napolitano - A Government Without Bounds

Poll 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  ... MORE

Civil 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    ... MORE

VIDEO: This Video Will Hurt


BE AWARE: Protect yourself from mass psychogenic illness.

FBI 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        ... MORE

Veronique 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

20 Dumb Ways Government Wasted Your Money In 2013

by John Giokaris.     "The cupboard is bare ...There’s no more cuts to make." That’s what House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CNN’s State of the Union in September during an interview about spending reform. Really? She can’t find any spending to cut in the federal budget? Why can’t she start with the $30 billion in government   ...  MORE

How Jury Nullification Accelerates the Drug War’s Demise

by Steve Silverman, Flex Your Rights.             I recently had the privilege of joining three jury nullification heavyweights on a panel hosted by the International Drug Policy Reform Conference. The discussion focused on how strategic jury nullification can be used to dismantle the War on Drugs. If you watch this 84-minute panel from beginning   ... MORE

VIDEO: Bill Whittle - The End Of The Beginning



NSA Programs Not About Terrorism, They're About Power

Edward Snowden:            "These [NSA] programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power."  NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has offered to help the Brazilian government in its investigations around US spying in exchange for permanent asylum in the country.    ... MORE

Top Seven Global Warming Alarmist Setbacks In 2013

by Michael Bastasch.          Hold your champagne glasses high this holiday season, because the end of 2013 marks the 17th year without global warming. This year has been trying for climate scientists and environmentalists who have been trying hard to explain away the 17-year hiatus in global warming and link “extreme weather” to rising     ... MORE

VIDEO: Walter E Williams - Incentives and Racial Policy

J. Robert Smith: Crush Phil Robertson, Crush Free Speech

Should political correctness trump individual rights?      Poor Phil Robertson, "Duck Dynasty" star. He had the temerity to express opinions to GQ about homosexuality that landed him crosswise the nation's gay jackboots. Out came the truncheons, whacking not just Phil over the head, but anyone, anywhere, who has anything to do     ... MORE

ObamaCare Means Deep Cuts In Home Health For Seniors

by Andrew Mangione.            As if ObamaCare’s botched website, coverage cancellations, and higher costs were not bad enough, the Obama Administration has quietly dealt yet another blow – this time striking millions of the nation’s most vulnerable seniors.  Specifically, the Obama Administration has decided to deeply cut funding for the      ... MORE