Civil Liberties
August 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson
You may have heard that the TSA put Tulsi Gabbard under surveillance in its Quiet Skies program (“Quiet Skies is a TSA surveillance program with its own compartmentalized suspected terrorist watchlist”). The story was originally broken by UndercoverDC (sorry, never heard of it) in “Federal Air Marshal Whistleblowers Report Tulsi Gabbard Actively Under Surveillance via Quiet Skies Program.” The story includes a screenshot from the actual “Target Package” used by
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May 27, 2024 — John Hinderaker
China’s Xi Jinping is building on the covid surveillance state to tighten the Communist Party’s control on the Chinese people. The New York Times reports: The wall in the police station was covered in sheets of paper, one for every building in the sprawling Beijing apartment complex. Each sheet was further broken down by unit, with names, phone numbers and other information on the residents. Perhaps the most important detail,
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July 23, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Did you know that homeless people enjoy a constitutional right to free parking? That’s the main takeaway from a California Court of Appeals opinion issued Friday that ruled cities that tow cars with five or more unpaid parking tickets violate the 4th Amendment’s prohibition of search and seizure without a warrant. The Coalition on Homelessness sued the City and County of San Francisco seeking an injunction against towing scofflaw cars
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April 18, 2022 — John Hinderaker
As Scott noted earlier, Federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle has ruled that the CDC’s Mask Mandate for airline and other travel is illegal. Her decision is embedded below. Judge Mizelle relied on three independent grounds in invalidating the mandate. First, she found that it exceeded the statutory authority that Congress has delegated to CDC under the 1944 Public Health Services Act, 42 U.S.C. § 246(a). The Biden administration argued that
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February 5, 2022 — John Hinderaker
While numbers have reportedly dropped somewhat since last weekend, Ottawa is still thronged with pro-freedom truckers and their supporters. The protest has primarily been directed against covid mandates, but it has morphed into a broader rebellion against the oppressive bureaucratic state. The Epoch Times reports: The protest on Feb. 5 featured speakers, music, dancing, and a singing of the Canadian national anthem. There were also tables set up to serve
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January 21, 2022 — John Hinderaker
President Biden issued four orders purporting to require vaccinations in various populations. Two of those mandates have been addressed by the Supreme Court. The other two were challenged in a case brought in Texas by a group called Feds for Medical Freedom. Earlier today, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown issued an order enjoining the federal government from enforcing Biden’s mandate that all federal employees be vaccinated, or lose their jobs.
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October 8, 2021 — John Hinderaker
We have written about the National School Boards Association’s letter to Joe Biden asking for federal help against an alleged epidemic of violence against school boards, and about Attorney General Merrick Garland’s response to that request, a memo to the FBI dated just five days after the NSBA’s letter to Biden. When Garland’s masters say “jump,” he jumps. Glenn Reynolds weighs in at the New York Post: American parents are
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September 16, 2019 — Steven Hayward
The great people at the Washington Free Beacon, which as of today is under the leadership of a suspiciously familiar name, produced this supercut of liberals saying they don’t want to take away anyone’s guns—until of course Beto let the mask slip because of course liberals want to take away everyone’s guns. Totally worth the two minutes of, um, rapid-fire delivery:
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January 21, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
This post by Jim Geraghty at NRO is so timely and so well-put that I’m taking the liberty of quoting it in its entirety and without comment: There is no sinister, government-run mass-surveillance system watching our every move. The vast majority of us chose to carry around smartphones with cameras, and some of us chose to livestream so much of what we see, whether it’s dramatic or not. Big Brother
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May 11, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Did Politico’s Evan Mandery set out to expose the authoritarian nature of the American left in this article called “What Happened to Alan Dershowitz”? I’m not sure. Regardless, he has done a good job of it. Here are the key passages: Over this storied career, Dershowitz’s public persona has remained more or less unchanged: loud, provocative, brilliant and principled, if also relentlessly self-promoting. And, until recently, his positions have been
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