Category Archives: Civil liberties
Beware The Thief At Your Back Door
From this week’s National Journal cover story on the relationship between NSA and the telecoms: Then, in the late 1990s, a furor erupted over export controls on software encryption. The NSA sought to bar exports of the best encryption technology, … Continue reading
Further Surveillance Legislation Floor Action Unlikely This Year…Unless…
I know a lot of folks are hopeful that we’re finally getting some traction on rolling back NSA’s dragnet surveillance of Americans. Here’s why I think it’s likely the Amash amendment battle on the House floor this week is the … Continue reading
The Amash Amendment, Legislative History And The Surveillance State
In the aftermath of the defeat of the NSA funding restriction amendment to the Fiscal Year 2014 Department of Defense Appropriations bill offered by Rep. Amash, I did a little vote comparing: PATRIOT Act expiring provision reauthorization vote, 2011: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll036.xml … Continue reading
Citizens, Not Suspects
From a recent op-ed on MSNBC: For most of our history prior to the 9/11 attacks, a fundamental American principle was that those who search, seize, intercept and detain should not be allowed to decide who are the bad guys … Continue reading
A Whistleblower’s Take On Our Post-Snowden World
I rarely discuss my professional life online so as to allow me to keep my personal opinions just that–personal. The events of the last month or so have been so profound in their impact and implications that I’ve decided to … Continue reading
July 4th In A Surveilled State
[View the story “July 4th In A Surveilled State” on Storify]
Hamilton On How Liberty Dies
Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist #8 about the inevitably destructive consequences of what I call the “cult of the imperial American national security state: Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love … Continue reading
A Response To “Modest Encroachments”
The Washington Times on Obama’s response to the massive data mining and dragnet electronic surveillance revealed by the Guardian this week: President Obama Friday defended his administration’s massive seizure of private citizens’ phone records, email and Internet activities as “modest … Continue reading
The Drone Court Dodge
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) quoted today in the CSM on the dubious idea of Star Chamber-style “drone courts”: Congress will carefully consider any drone-court proposal, Sen. Ron Wyden (D) of Oregon told National Public Radio on Thursday. Senator Wyden has … Continue reading
A Bland And Unassuming Official
Yale professor David Bromwich on the pernicious paternalism of Eric Holder: Attorney General Holder is a bland and unassuming official who is not given to hyperbole. But his actions have been hyperbolic. During the first 92 years of the existence … Continue reading
Long Strange Journey 