 Since when are automatic weapons required to settle such cases?  In 1949, this definition of "terrorism" could be found on page 1346 of Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of the English Language.  Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1970, page 911. This page is written for the benefit of people who have absolute faith and trust in the government. Perhaps you know people who believe the government can do no wrong. People who believe that the government never lies. People who believe that every good and perfect thing comes from the federal government. One fellow I know comes to mind. When the government declares it illegal to inhale, he will be the first person in town to turn blue. And he will probably be the first person in town with a bar code on his forehead. He will take the government's side in any argument, because the government is his god. To him, and others like him, the situation shown in the photo above is perfectly normal. Here is some of the evidence that the federal government and some state governments have too much power and too little restraint. In fact, much of this web site is devoted to the never-ending task of spotlighting abusive government and bad ideas. Tyranny is defined as the cruel and oppressive government, and that is exactly what is described in some of the news items shown below. Subsections: The Road to Tyranny is All Downhill From Here Abuse of Power by Ordinary Cops The War on Little Kids with Lemonade Stands Videotaping the police Money Down the Drain Abusive and Invasive Searches at the Airport Snitch on Your Neighbor The TIPS program Know Your Customer Obama's "snitch on your neighbor" program: The 2009 version. The Homeland Security report on right wingers Incompetence and Absurd Application of the Law Uncle Sam loses stuff -- especially guns and laptop computers. Uncle Sam is afraid to say what he means The Steven Hatfill / Anthrax Investigation Threats to the Constitution The Bill of Rights is Taking a Beating Property Rights and Property Seizures ... including commentary about the Supreme Court's Kelo decision. Invasion of Privacy (includes numerous subtopics) The Government's Role as Overprotective Nanny ... including The Smoking Section ... and Governor Perry's Vaccination Mandate The use of Traffic Signals as Fundraisers ... as well as seat belt laws and speed traps. The use and abuse of Tasers Taxes and The IRS ... specifically, Cigarette taxes and The Proposed "Odometer Tax" The Americans with Disabilities Act The Endangered Species Act The USA Patriot Act Waco Waco II Ruby Ridge FEMA -- the Federal Emergency Management Agency Other Items of Interest Additional pages on similarly irritating subjects: Zero-Tolerance The Invasion of the Food Police The War vs. Liberty and Freedom Gun Control Pork Barrel Politics Carnivore & Echelon Hate Crime Laws The Proposed National ID Card Featured articles: It's bully government, not nanny. President Obama may be the Nanny King, but he took the crown from the Man Who Gave Us TSA. George Walker Bush was the president who green-lighted making people walk through those body scanners — or else! TSA is not about protecting us. If it were, TSA would be stealth about it. TSA would target terrorist suspects, follow them and nail them to the wall when the terrorist acted. That is good police work. But the purpose of TSA is to dissuade the middle class from flying. The TSA exists now to limit freedom of movement. The price of an airline ticket now includes standing in line for an hour to be humiliated. Everything is now for security reasons. The Welfare State's War on Religious Liberty: The case for limited government is becoming increasingly inseparable from the case for religious liberty. Yesterday, the New York Times published a lengthy article on the battle between the Catholic Church and various arms of the leviathan welfare state. The church is battling Obama administration requirements that Catholic schools and hospitals cover contraceptives in their health plans, battling Obama administration decisions to freeze Catholics out of contracts to aid sex-trafficking victims, and battling the state of Illinois over state requirements that Catholic charities place kids with same-sex couples. These fights come after the Catholic church famously shut down its adoption services in Massachusetts rather than bow to state demands that it place children in same-sex households. DEA now laundering drug money. Combating drug traffic requires the ability to track money. That is a given. After all, even Al Capone could only be brought down by following the money. We now have several news outlets reporting that the DEA has decided to be in the business of laundering the money for Mexican drug cartels. Apparently, it is a new program and involves significant sums of money. Eric Holder's New Scandal: Money Laundering For Cartels. Just as Fast and Furious was allegedly intended to track and interdict gun-trafficking into Mexico, this operation, detailed in a New York Times article Sunday, is said to have as its purpose to follow how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are. But the question once again arises: Have the feds interrupted or aided the flow? Congress and Secrecy. Congress, which is charged and authorized by the Constitution to write the federal laws and to decide how to spend the people's money and to keep public records of all its deliberations, has simply declined to do so. In establishing the debt supercommittee — which consists of six representatives and six senators — Congress is violating the Constitution by keeping its work and deliberations from you. Obamaland: American Mules Must Eat Certified Weed-Free Hay. In Montana's Finley Basin there are known tungsten deposits. An Australian company wanted to bring revenue and jobs to the state by developing the resource. While the property was successfully drilled and recognized by Union Carbide in the seventies, it is now about 200 yards inside a roadless study area. The Forest Service was willing to offer a conditional drilling permit. Among the conditions were these requirements: • The drill sites must be cleared using hand tools, • The drilling equipment and fuel must be transported to the site by a team of pack mules, • The mules must be fed certified weed-free hay, and • Drill site and trail reclamation must be done using hand tools. The company gave up. How can America remain competitive in a global marketplace when we are required to use pick axes and mules? How does this help America's heavy equipment manufacturers like Caterpillar? No wonder we are in trouble. Obama's Creepy Agency Creep. Why is the US Wildlife and Fisheries raiding Gibson Guitar, the SEC examining hydraulic fracturing fluids, NASA seeking to build bridges with Muslims, and the Department of Education attacking Rick Perry? ... Consider [also] that the EPA has strayed into map-remaking with its new "navigable waters" standard, the IRS is Obamacare's bouncer, the formerly domestic ATF now has the ability to instigate hostilities on foreign soil through operations like Fast and Furious, and Health and Human Services is funding abortions. Many Failed Efforts to Count Nation's Federal Criminal Laws. In 1982, while at the Justice Department, [Ronald] Gainer oversaw what still stands as the most comprehensive attempt to tote up a number. The effort came as part of a long and ultimately failed campaign to persuade Congress to revise the criminal code, which by the 1980s was scattered among 50 titles and 23,000 pages ... County Sheriff Enjoys Fruits of Forfeitures. The sheriff's office in Douglas County, Neb., just finished a new $4.2 million crime lab and police-dog center thanks to money seized from people driving by on Interstate 80. That money is a small part of a large and controversial asset-forfeiture program known as "equitable sharing." Federal Fever. Most of the problems caused by politics and government in America today are caused by the federalization of government power and by the unnatural elevation of the judiciary over the elected branches of government. Dallas cops keep $2,000 found by honest teen. Dallas will keep $2,000 found by a teenager in a parking lot last February. The money will go into the city's general fund — not back to Plano high school student Ashley Donaldson, who found the cash in an envelope at the Pavillion Shopping Center in North Dallas. Should a Speeding Ticket Require Forfeiting Your Smartphone Data? Whatever ever happened to the good ol' days where getting pulled over just meant you would get a speeding ticket, or if you're lucky, just a warning? Well, if it's up to the Michigan State Police, those days are not only long gone, but a speeding ticket is now reason enough to harvest all the information possible on you, including all of your e-mail, social networking, texting, personal photos, and virtually anything else you might have on your cell phone, or in many cases, your smartphone. A nation choking on endless laws. Heading back to work this week, Americans were greeted not only by a new year but also by a whole slew of new laws — 31,000 of them at the state level — covering everything from guns to 100-watt light bulbs to, of course, "health care." As usual, most of these laws tell us what we can't do: texting while driving (duh), cyberbullying and smoking in bars. In the near future, everyone will be a criminal for at least 15 minutes, whether they know it or not. Michigan cops imposing a digital police state. Michigan State Police are accused of stealing driver's cell phone data on routine traffic stops. Michigan has become a digital police state. And if people in Michigan just stand by and let this digital totalitarian [nonsense] continue, it will probably come to your state too. We are a nation of copycats after all, governments in the United States like to take other people's ideas to control people and make them their own. Should Cops Be Allowed to Scan Your Phone During a Traffic Stop? According to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) letter to the director of the Michigan State Police on April 13, that department has several forensic cellphone analyzers deployed in the field. Forensic analyzers are routinely used in police investigations to recover data from computers and other digital devices. Lately, cellphones have become valuable sources of evidence for police, since one phone can include almost all of an individual's private communications (SMS, recently dialed numbers, email, Facebook and Twitter posts) as well as location data from the device's GPS unit. Bill Would Let Only Licensed Barbers Use Barber Poles. As North Carolina lawmakers grapple with closing an estimated $2.4 billion budget deficit, four-term Sen. Doug Berger, D-Franklin, has introduced a bill making it illegal for anyone who is not a registered barber to use or display a barber pole. Berger said he introduced the bill because his barber told him the legislation was needed. Drug-sniffing dogs in traffic stops often wrong. Drug-sniffing dogs can give police probable cause to root through cars by the roadside, but state data show the dogs have been wrong more often than they have been right about whether vehicles contain drugs or paraphernalia. The dogs are trained to dig or sit when they smell drugs, which triggers automobile searches. But a [Chicago] Tribune analysis of three years of data for suburban departments found that only 44 percent of those alerts by the dogs led to the discovery of drugs or paraphernalia. For Hispanic drivers, the success rate was just 27 percent.  TSA 'Strip and Grope':
Meet the Fourth Amendment. [Scroll down] Do these sorts of things violate our rights to be
secure in our persons against unreasonable searches? No act of Congress gave TSA agents the power to do
these things; the Congress delegated various powers to the TSA and the TSA developed the procedures, evidently
with no little or no adult supervision and even less consideration given to the Fourth Amendment. It appears
that substantial discretion is left to low-level TSA employees in deciding what is "reasonable" — substantially
more than is left to more "ordinary" and often better-trained law enforcement officers in deciding whether there
is reasonable cause to think that a crime has been or is being committed.More about the TSA's abusive and invasive searches. Vermont Had No License to Censor Vanity Plates. Shawn Byrne applied to the Vermont DMV for the tag "JN36TN," a creative reference to the popular Bible verse, John 3:16. But Vermont denied his request, citing a state law prohibiting vanity plates that reference religion or deity. On appeal, after the Vermont District Court ruled against Byrne, the 2nd Circuit [Court of Appeals] recognized that even a seven-letter long vanity license plate provides a place for the citizens of Vermont to express their opinions. Since other citizens were permitted to express a variety of messages on their vanity plates, Byrne could not be denied from expressing his message simply because it was religious. Are We Free? We are required to have a social security number as individuals or a taxpayer identification number as a business. We need a license to operate a business, get married, drive a car, hold a rally in a park, etc. We ask permission from the building and zoning department to build a house or change the house we have. We get fined if we do not wear a seatbelt. We pay taxes for just about everything we do. The government controls the airwaves, the waterways, the sky and highways. They tell us where we are allowed to go in the national forests and parks. We are charged fees to use public lands. We are prohibited from using our own land if some rare insect is found there. Our churches ask the IRS for permission to operate with tax favors. Our leaders tell us what we can and cannot say. The first two of the Bill of Rights have been trampled at every opportunity. This list could go on and on, but you get the message. We are controlled from cradle to grave. Obama's Torrent of New Regulation. The burden of regulation on Americans increased at an alarming rate in fiscal year 2010. Based on data from the Government Accountability Office, an unprecedented 43 major new regulations were imposed by Washington. And based on reports from government regulators themselves, the total cost of these rules topped $26.5 billion, far more than any other year for which records are available. These costs will affect Americans in many ways, raising the price of the cars they buy and the food they eat, while destroying an untold number of jobs. Government: No. 1 job destroyer. Taken as a whole, the Small Business Administration estimates that total federal regulatory costs in America amount to $1.75 trillion annually — a number that dwarfs the federal government's entire discretionary budget for 2011 and exceeds Canada's gross domestic product. The cost of compliance is stunning, and it speaks to the heart of the employment issue in manufacturing and every sector of our economy. It's clear that to create more jobs, government at the federal and state levels must change course and embrace policies that drive down the cost of doing business in America. The Death of Government. Government has gotten a bad name among conservatives. There is far too much government in our lives. Government regulates the light bulbs we can use, the process of hiring employees, the licenses which businesses need to operate, and, of course, the mammoth monster of public debt and taxes which have reached such surreal levels that each American — man, woman, senior citizen, and infant — owes a mind-numbing $44,000 of federal debt. The Renewable Electricity Standard Con. On November 2, many voters expressed their displeasure with the 111th Congress and its efforts to control personal lives by passing massive legislation few members of Congress bothered to read, much less understand. Some of these bills have future costs which are now coming to light. By its actions, the 111th Congress abrogated a basic principle of representative democracy: that legislation be freely and openly discussed so that the public has the opportunity to understand its consequences. Barack and the Bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is liberalism's strong right arm. Liberalism would not exist as it does today without it — it would have nothing of the reach or durability that it now possesses. Government bureaucracy forms a kind of shadow universe, in which each human activity has its department or agency to oversee and manipulate it — a massive structure established over decades, with no real purpose but to perpetuate itself. [Emphasis added.] Americans for Limited Government prepares for potential FOIA lawsuit against Department of Education. Americans for Limited Government filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department on Education on September 2 for the release of internal e-mails in which Education Secretary Arne Duncan and his senior staff purportedly either encouraged or required non-partisan career-employees of the Education Department to attend Al Sharpton's National Action Network rally on August 28, a rally touted by Sharpton as an anti-Glenn Beck event. Authorities make changes after first responders watch man drown. Alameda, California, has immediately changed its policies after first responders watched a man drown in San Francisco Bay and did nothing to rescue him. Is it a public service or a protection racket? No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn. Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee. Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat. Cop pleads guilty to hitting man in face with baton in unprovoked attack. A cop pleaded guilty Friday [6/3/2011] to cracking a man in the face with his baton during an unprovoked attack in the Bronx. Officer Marc Rios admitted to the March 30, 2009, assault that left victim John Roperto, 34, with broken bones in his cheek and nose. Video Shows Ohio Cop Grow Irate During Arrest. The June 8, 2011 video, which was obtained by a gun rights group, shows a Canton police officer grow irate after he indicates that the driver of a stopped vehicle waited too long to inform him of his concealed gun, even though he had a proper permit to carry it. "I could blast you right in the mouth," the officer said. "I am so close to caving in your [expletive] head." Video gets Canton police officer in trouble on the job. A Canton police officer is off the job and on administrative leave. The organization called Ohioans for Concealed Carry posted a dash cam video of the officer's verbal altercation with a driver. The Editor says... The only surprise in this story is that the dash-cam video didn't get "accidentally" deleted. House Democrats Pass Bill to Grill School Children about Sexual Preference. At the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing last Thursday [9/16/2010], Democrats passed a bill to require federal health officials to question anyone seeking services from Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) community health centers or other programs about their sexual orientation and "gender identity." Introduced by Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), H.R. 6109 requires HHS to obtain, retain and analyze sexual identity information from patients who seek healthcare, including children. California's Man-Made Drought. On a springtime drive through the Central Valley, it's hard not to notice how federal and state governments are hell-bent on destroying the state's top export — almonds — and everything else in the nation's most productive farmland. Instead of pink blossoms and green shoots along Highway 5 in April, vast spans from Bakersfield to Fresno sit bone-dry. Brown grass, dead orchards and lifeless grapevine skeletons stretch for miles for lack of water. The Fine Pursuit of Exposing Corruption. In a disturbing case of politically motivated retaliation, prominent Beverly Hills attorney Dr. Richard Fine has been incarcerated in coercive solitary confinement for close to fourteen months at the Los Angeles County Men's Jail. That confinement will continue under a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. ... Dr. Fine's plight demonstrates the grim fate of those who come forward in good faith to expose malfeasance, public or private. Bailout Bill Would Require Banks to Track and Report Personal Checking Accounts to Feds. It's amazing to watch the civil libertarians hide when Democrats propose the most sweeping intrusions of privacy in generations. In addition to the litany of bad policies contained in the Dodd Financial Reform bill is this nugget on pages 1039-1040. In short, it extends government reach to every deposit account of every citizen. FCC Lets Hollywood Turn Off Your Output Jacks. Hollywood will soon have the power to remotely disable the analog outputs on your set-top box, under a decision by federal regulators on Friday [5/7/2010] intended to prevent home recording of new movie releases. The move by the Federal Communications Commission grants cable and satellite providers the power to block consumers from viewing just-released movies in an analog format through a process known as Selectable Output Control. The Editor says... Digital television and software-controlled receivers are some of the most powerful tools ever put in the hands of Big Brother. If the government can turn output jacks on and off, it can also take control of the channel selection and the power switch, just like the telescreens in 1984. More about The Technology and Politics of Broadcasting. The Fossilization of America. [Scroll down] Bureaucrats gain control of government programs by feeding on ideals. No doubt the program I was involved in began, as most do, as an attempt to reflect the sincere ideals of the American public. However, when bureaucrats implement programs, ideals are their first victims. ... This self-preservation ethic leads to increasing organizational size and a corresponding growth in government. The larger the organization, the less likely it is that the original ideals generating programs will be attained. In fact, attaining these ideals would be counterproductive as this would result in the termination of the program. Organizational inertia is the ultimate result and the actual goal of all bureaucrats. The NoVa Police Blackout. The Fairfax County Police Department — along with the neighboring municipal police departments of Arlington and Alexandria — are among the most secretive, least transparent law enforcement agencies in the country. And local political leaders don't seem particularly concerned about it. Police Chief Beats the [Heck] Out of Defenseless Old Woman. Interestingly in order to justify his abuses the police officer claimed it was all done because she was being arrested. And yet, according to the new acting Police Chief Randy Liles, "There is no arrest or incident report on file at the department." Despite it all, Liles assures us once Ford's unrelated leave of absence is over "he'll be reinstated." 84-year-old vet suffers broken neck after police takedown. An elderly man is in critical condition after being thrown to the ground by a police officer. It happened Saturday night [9/18/2010] near North Orange Avenue after police say Daniel Daley put his hands on the cop. The World War II veteran is out of surgery. He suffered an injury doctors at Florida Hospital say only about 10 percent of people are lucky enough to survive. Government Is the Biggest Lawbreaker. Measured just by the number of victims, there is no close second place to government as the biggest lawbreaker. Measured in terms of impact, government lawbreaking is disabling our entire society. When an individual or collection of individuals (such as a business) violates the law, there are victims who are harmed directly, and the law provides remedies. ... When government breaks the law, not just individuals, but entire industries are often the direct victims. Debt's All, Folks. Federal programs grow like Paul Bunyan and live far beyond their usefulness. There is simply no incentive to cut programs or staff, which would signal loss of power and prestige. Government managers face no profit motive or expectant stockholders. Businesses and households cut back if they overspend. The government just comes up with more ways to tax us, and in increasingly sneaky fashion. Have you looked at your phone bill lately? Why Fear Big Government? [Scroll down] On the more mundane level, this week I saw the following examples of government exemption. A local police car randomly did a running stop at a 4-way intersection (should I have called 911?); a city bus driver (very common) cell phoning against California law (report him to the cop running the intersection?); a city garbage truck spewing trash out its top as it sped down Freeway 41 (call his cousins at the state EPA?). We are all routinely pulled over for any of the above infractions. But the larger the government, the more its power, and so the more its employees feel that they are royal and exempt from enforcement. In other words, big government creates millions who feel the law does not pertain to themselves. Ask Tom Daschle, Duke Cunningham, Chris Dodd, or Timothy Geithner. The result is an increasingly lawless society. Hundreds of regulatory bodies under scrutiny by N.J. Gov. Christie. Governor Christie has set his sights on the hundreds of regulatory boards whose jurisdiction is scattered throughout the state. They run airports and regulate charity bingo. They borrow money to build schools and try to ban bikini waxes. They provide "soft landings" — complete with fat salaries and pensions — to allies of the politically powerful. And they spend billions of public dollars every year. Homeland Security Collected Information on Wisconsin Abortion, Pro-Life Activists. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted a threat assessment of local pro- and anti-abortion rights activists before an expected rally last year, even though they did not pose a threat to national security. The Forced March to Mediocrity. The perverted, and yes, un-American, pieces of legislation oozing their way through the halls of Congress over the past few years have taken advantage of our "lack of duty" to govern ourselves. We now find ourselves in a predicament that we have been warned of countless times, over decades, generations, and centuries... no longer are Americans a self-governed citizenry, we are virtually dictated to by that which we are supposed to control. Happy Upside-down Day, America. The dream of limited government, personal freedom and liberty, rugged individualism, and self-sufficiency that our forefathers fought and died for is rapidly disappearing in 2009. It is once again a world turned upside down. Our federal government is turning into the very type of heavy-handed, unaccountable, and disrespectful government our forefathers despised, fought against, and warned us to avoid. Public service or self-service? In a free market, as Forbes magazine says, your reward is a function of how much you contribute to the economy, but in a regulated market it's how much you contribute to politicians. Sound familiar? It should, especially to Californians. In New York, it is the reason a taxi cab license is worth $600,000 (because of fares rigged by paid-off politicians). In California, the cost of a vast range of services gets skewed by high pay and benefits for public employees. Ending Corruption in Washington. [Scroll down slowly] The only way to get rid of such corruption is to deprive Congress of its vast regulatory powers. There is truly no reason why politicians should superintend any portion of the private sphere. Finance, health care, energy, housing, farming, and all the rest should be left wholly to the market, since the market invariably delivers goods and services in the most economical and cost-efficient manner. Every time politicians decide to regulate, they only make matters worse. More government won't work. Government is bigger than ever and controls more aspects of American life than at any time in U.S. history. Last year, the federal government ate $3.52 trillion out of a $13.2 trillion economy. ... A basic problem with a future dominated by ever-expanding government is that bureaucracies are hobbled by waste, fraud and abuse. Government simply does not work well. Freedom works, but the more government that exists, the less freedom we have. Why Government Agencies Take on a Life of Their Own: As soon as a proposed budget cut looms, as if on cue governments start threatening to shut down the police force, fire department, and schools. Since almost nobody wants to do without cops, firemen, or teachers, this is a highly effective tactic most of the time — although oddly enough, governments always seem to find a way to hold on to the Special Executive Assistants For Airport Graft, to say nothing of the odd Georgia Road and Tollway Authority. Gun Nuts at 30,000 Feet? [Scroll down] After the flight landed, the marshals nailed another terrorist suspect — Robert "Bob" Rajcoomar. He was handcuffed and taken into custody because, as TSA spokesman David Steigman later explained, Rajcoomar, "to the best of our knowledge, had been observing too closely." ... When the plane landed, Rajcoomar recalled, "One of these marshals came down to me and said, 'Head down, hands over your head!' They pushed my head down, told me to bend down." Rajcoomar said one of the marshals told him, "We didn't like the way you looked" and "We didn't like the way you looked at us." Some air marshals apparently think of themselves as minor-league deities whom no mortal should be permitted to directly observe. Nothing to fear but we citizens. According to yesterday's Herald, Boston City Hall has been testing ePanicButton software. "[City] workers would be able to hit a button on their computer or push a pedal on the floor to summon help if an angry taxpayer storms into City Hall or if someone arguing a parking ticket gets out of hand," the Herald reported. ... Consider the thousands of businesses around New England that provide customer service or take customer complaints. Now consider how few of them fear their customers to the point of emergency panic systems. "When the people fear their government there is tyranny; APF and Hardin Constitution Violations. A Livingston state representative is questioning whether Hardin officials and American Police Force have violated the Montana constitution. Representative Robert Ebinger says he became aware of the situation after Cascade and Park County law enforcement officials came to him asking questions about APF. ... "No armed person or persons or body of men shall be brought into the state for the presentation of the peace or the suppression of domestic violence unless the application of the legislature or of the governor when the legislature cannot be convened," said Ebinger while reading the constitution word for word. California jail entrepreneur has checkered past. Michael Hilton showed up in Hardin, Mont., last week, presenting himself as an economic savior, the man who would take over the town's $27 million jail — empty since it was built as a development project in 2007 — and provide 200 new jobs in the process. He wore a military style uniform, and as a gesture to local law enforcement offered up the use of three Mercedes SUVs. Mystery 'Police' Force Has Small Montana City on Edge. When two brand new, shiny black Mercedes SUVs bearing a "Hardin Police Department" logo drove through the main thoroughfare of Hardin, Mont., last week, people took notice. "How many police forces have Mercedes?" said Charlene Warren, a local business owner who has lived in Hardin for more than half a century. "That threw up a red flag." Military helicopters land in Rolesville field. Three Chinook military helicopters set down in a Rolesville field Monday afternoon, witnesses said. People reported seeing the helicopters flying low and slow over Holly Springs, downtown Raleigh and elsewhere in Wake County. A viewer told WRAL News they came to rest off Rogers Road about half a mile from U.S. Highway 401. The Editor asks... Isn't that what Fort Hood is for? Why must this be done in a small town? The Tipping Point? We are living in a surreal age of $2 trillion annual deficits, in which we just casually talk about "more stimulus", "reforming health care", "fixing education", "cap-and-trade", while fighting two wars abroad — all the while "not raising taxes on 95% of Americans" — all predicated on the idea that "they" will always be willing and able to create new wealth and now hand over two-thirds and more of it to an ever-expanding government. High Court Curbs Power of Police to Search Cars. The Supreme Court ruled that police couldn't search the car of a person arrested unless the officer's safety was threatened or there was reason to think the car contained evidence of a crime, reviving a constitutional protection against unreasonable searches. The court effectively closed a loophole opened in a 1981 opinion that has been widely interpreted to allow police, without a warrant, to search cars — as well as bags or containers within them — when they arrest a driver or passenger. Congress killing us softly with laws and red tape. For the past 20 years, I have advised landowners, homebuilders and energy companies on the intricacies of the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. Both are complex statutes supplemented by dense volumes of regulations and administered by confusing agencies that have state and local counterparts applying state and local versions of the similar laws and rules. The costs of these regulatory regimes are enormous, but dimly, if at all, understood by the public. The highest-sounding rhetoric surrounds both laws, but, even as they accomplish important environmental goals, they also operate to batter tens of thousands of Americans every year. The Coming of the Fourth American Republic. The appropriations committees and their pork barrels are the most obvious example of rule by special interest, but not always the most important. Whole departments are dedicated to special interests — Labor, Education, Energy. Money is important, but regulation is every bit as useful, especially because regulations can shift property rights from third parties without going through the budget process. For example, environmentalists successfully combined a vaguely worded Endangered Species Act with control of the Fish and Wildlife Service to shift the costs of their no-development ethic onto random land-owners, regardless of costs, benefits, or fairness. Let's 'Restructure' Washington While We're at It. The federal government is a giant Rube Goldberg machine that not only wastes hundreds of billions of dollars each year but also burdens local governments and the private sector with legal requirements that no longer serve the public good. Congress should take its own advice and retool Washington. Demonizing America's 86th most proftable industry. When Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a sidekick decided to intimidate CEOs in the health insurance industry, it wasn't just another instance of shabby politics, but an imperious, anti-democratic abuse of power, an attempt to put the fear of the almighty federal government in the hearts and minds of American citizens. Former Chicago Cops Admit to Invading Homes and Stealing. Four former members of a now-disbanded Chicago police unit have admitted they used to barge into people's homes and steal money. In England: Arrests are being made 'to expand DNA files'. Police are routinely arresting people simply to record their DNA profiles on the national database, according to a report published today. It also states that three quarters of young black men are on the database. The finding risks stigmatising a whole section of society, the equality watchdog has warned. Also in England: 'Stunned' Driver Fined For Blowing His Nose. A motorist has told Sky News of his disbelief at being fined for blowing his nose while his vehicle was at a standstill. Michael Mancini had stopped his van in traffic and wiped his nose with a handkerchief. When he moved off, he was pulled over by police who told him he had not been in control of his vehicle. The Editor says... Don't worry, Michael, that's what juries are for. (How difficult can it be to maintain control of a stationary car?) This case shows what can happen when traffic cops become self-important badge-happy goons. The Attorney General and the Black Panthers This subsection is now on a page of its own, located here. Stop and Think. Really. Stop and think. What does your government actually do for you? ... In short, nothing tangible in the room is a "gift" from the government. Not one thing. (This is true even if you happen to work for the government and are situated in a government owned building. All of the work on the building was subcontracted. All of the items in the building were privately produced.) Many Of Today's Americans Love Government. Congressional efforts to create "affordable housing" have created today's financial calamity. Congress props up failed enterprises such as Amtrak and the U.S. Postal Service with huge cash subsidies, and subsidies in the forms of special tax treatment and monopoly rights. I can't think of anything that Congress does well yet we Americans call for them to take greater control over important areas of our lives. I don't think that stupidity, ignorance or insanity explains the love that many Americans hold for government; it's far more sinister and perhaps hopeless. I'll give a few examples to make my case. FBI Defends Disruptive Raids on Texas Data Centers. The FBI on Tuesday [4/7/2009] defended its raids on at least two data centers in Texas, in which agents carted out equipment and disrupted service to hundreds of businesses. The raids were part of an investigation prompted by complaints from AT&T and Verizon about unpaid bills allegedly owed by some data center customers, according to court records. One data center owner charges that the telecoms are using the FBI to collect debts that should be resolved in civil court. But on Tuesday, an FBI spokesman disputed that charge. Democrats: It's OK When We Politicize the Justice Department. The "politicization" of the Justice Department was one of many aspects of the Bush administration which the Obama administration was going to cure. But it appears that while the party of the administration has changed, we are seeing a level of political meddling at the Justice Department which the Bush administration never remotely approached. First, we had word that Eric Holder overruled the career attorney lawyers' research on the issue of voting rights for the District of Columbia. Now we learn that political appointees have overturned the work of career attorneys attempting to prevent voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party. Who pressured Justice to drop case against voter intimidation in Philly? After screaming for 8 years about Bush "politicizing" the Justice Department, it appears that there is a clear cut case of interference in a legitimate prosecution of the New Black Panther Party for intimidating voters at a polling station in 2008 by Obama appointees. Charges Against 'New Black Panthers' Dropped by Obama Justice Dept.. Charges brought against three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense under the Bush administration have been dropped by the Obama Justice Department, FOX News has learned. The charges stemmed from an incident at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008 when three members of the party were accused of trying to threaten voters and block poll and campaign workers by the threat of force — one even brandishing what prosecutors call a deadly weapon. Protecting Black Panthers. Imagine if Ku Klux Klan members had stood menacingly in military uniforms, with nightsticks, in front of a polling place. Add to it that they had hurled racial threats and insults at voters who tried to enter. Now suppose that the government, backed by a nationally televised video of the event, had won a court case against the Klansmen except for the perfunctory filing of a single, simple document — but that an incoming Republican administration had moved to voluntarily dismiss the already-won case. Surely that would have been front-page news, with a number of firings at the Justice Department. The flip side of this scenario is occurring right now. Civil Rights: Who are the "Cowards"? On taking office as Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder stated that America is a nation of "cowards" when it comes to race and that he would commit the Department of Justice to making civil rights cases a top priority. President Obama himself promised to "reinvigorate federal civil rights enforcement," especially by prosecuting cases of voting discrimination against blacks. On May 15 Obama's Department of Justice quashed a civil rights case involving voter intimidation by blacks in Philadelphia on election day, 2008. The U.S. Department of Injustice. Let's examine the uproar over Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to protect hate-mongering thugs who harassed and bullied precinct workers and voters on Election Day in Philadelphia. Oh, wait. There's been no uproar. Let me tell you why. The Rise of the American Police State. The increasingly antiterrorism-oriented police units have begun to regard dissenting citizens, or even innocent and unsuspecting citizens, as the "enemy" in domestic "war zones." ... The militarization of the police does not occur instantaneously, but is the cumulative result of each military tool amassed, each protester silenced based on his political views, or each wrongful search that goes unchallenged. A young boy serves a life sentence. He's just a normal, average, typical 12-year-old boy. If the normal, average, typical 12-year-old boy has the world's longest-reigning dictator drop by every year for his birthday, that is. Elian Gonzalez was shipped into the waiting arms of Fidel Castro in 2000. The delivery man was Bill Clinton, who used a SWAT team armed with submachine guns to assure everyone's compliance. Elian Gonzalez joins Cuba's youth Communists. The Cuban boy at the center of an international custody battle eight years ago has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union. Elian Gonzalez said he will never let down ex-President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro, according to the Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde. Elian Gonzalez back in news again. Here's a name I didn't think I'd hear again, but remember Elian Gonzalez, whose story transfixed our nation eight years ago in an international custody fight between the U.S. and Cuba? Now comes the news that the 14-year-old has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union, according to the Associated Press. Janet Reno's Show of Force. How would you respond to a 30 second warning at 5:00 AM? This is barely enough time to wake up and gather your wits in order to deal with a threatening, armed contingent wearing body armor and banging at the door. Was this just another way for the INS to paint the family as non-cooperative, giving them the excuse to use a battering ram to break their way in? Anita Dunn — Pots and Kettles. On April 16, 2000, viewers of CBS' 60 Minutes saw Dan Rather interviewing Elian Gonzalez' father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. ... Here's what America didn't see: "Most of the questions Dan Rather was asking Elian's father during that 60 Minutes interview were being handed to him by Gregory Craig," recalls Pedro Porro, who served as Rather's in-studio translator during the taping of the famous interview. A Decade of Defiance. Let us give the last word about the gloriously diverse past decade of American law to an unlikely mouthpiece: Lazaro Gonzales, Elian's effervescent uncle, who came into our lives nearly 10 years ago, at the start of the 21st Century. Told that Janet Reno's federal agents were on their way to his town outside Miami to seize young Elian, Lazaro famously said he wouldn't hand over the kid. "Not in Opa Locka, not in any locka," Lazaro declared, in Spanish no less, in an epic comment that was as funny as it was serious. Update: Now 16, Elian Gonzalez shown at Cuba youth meeting. Cuba has released photos of one-time exile cause celebre Elian Gonzalez wearing an olive-green military school uniform and attending a Young Communist Union congress. Anniversary of an Outrage. Castro's Stalinist regime just released pictures of 16-year-old Elian Gonzalez, resplendent in the uniform of a Communist Party youth. The timing of the photo-release may coincide with the 11th anniversary of Elian's shanghaiing from the U.S., which hits on the 22nd of this month. Bill Clinton in Miami compares Elian case to kidnapping. Former President Bill Clinton said Saturday [4/17/2010] he had no regrets over sending Elian Gonzalez back to live with his father in Cuba, and would order a federal raid on Little Havana all over again. When Eric Holder Earned his Spurs. [Scroll down] Then on Dec 5th, 1999, Castro clapped his hands and his MSM minions snapped to attention. Within weeks Clinton's INS had turned its initial decision on its head. Within months this same INS was kicking down Lazaro's door, pummeling camera men and elderly ladies to the ground with jackboots and wrenching a screaming Elian from his legal custodians in a blaze of pepper gas and machine guns. When asked for the legal authority for this, they brandished either a search warrant to seize evidence that didn't exist (and would not have been hidden anyway) or an arrest warrant to seize someone who no one claimed was a criminal or even a lawbreaker! Another update: Elian Gonzalez turns 18 in Cuba at a quiet celebration. Nearly twelve years have passed since he was pulled from a closet by a masked machine gun wielding US agent. Now Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who survived a perilous raft journey that killed his mother and became a symbol of troubled relations between the United States and Cuba, is an adult. Here's why you don't remember Elian Gonzalez. It was horrifying. I looked down at a little Easter basket the inn hostess had made and I was reminded this was Easter day. The sky was dark where they were broadcasting because in a shrewd move on the part of the U.S. military, the extraction of this child by brute force happened at an hour when most Americans were asleep. You did not see this live. The news coverage you saw of Elian Gonzalez being taken from his home were snippets narrated by calm news personnel in clean suits who were not choking on tear gas. The Chicago Way is Piracy, Too. While they don't use grappling hooks to board merchant ships, the Chicago Way pirates do have their hooks in the merchants, nevertheless. The Chicago Way is a political system run by kleptocrats who demand tribute from merchants whenever the merchants want to do something. If they want to get a building permit or win a lucrative contract at O'Hare Airport, they must pay tribute. Your government in secret. Thom Rae wants to know why his town is spending $1 million to keep a second-run theater afloat. Kevin and Anne Barber want to know what happened to the principal who forced their 8th grader and his classmates to kneel painfully on a gym floor during a lecture on respect. Patricia and Joel Garza want to know why so many secrets surround the investigation into the crash that killed their grown son. They all want answers. The answer they all got was "no." Chicago City Hall routinely denies requests for public documents. The Daley administration routinely denies requests for documents that could shed light on how the mayor really runs the city. Colorado Governor Signs She-Male Restroom Bill. This bill makes all public accommodations — including public restrooms and locker rooms in the state — "gender free." This law now means that anyone who identifies as the opposite sex, can freely access public facilities formerly reserved for a single sex. Sexual predators can now enter women's restrooms and claim they have a sexual identity different from their birth sex. It makes it legal for drag queens, cross-dressers and anyone else with a serious Gender Identity Disorder to use opposite sex restrooms and locker rooms. But it goes further. It defines "public accommodations" as including malls, restaurants, schools, and small businesses. The Taxpayer Frog In the IRS Pot: In 1900 federal spending was $0.5 billion. In 2000 it was $1,789 billion. Those amounts translated to 2.5% of GDP in 1900 and 21% in 2000. Government spending at all levels in the U.S. was 36.5% of GDP in 2006. That 2.5% of GDP that could sustain the entire federal government in 1900 is not even enough to cover the Medicare program today. The Medicare program, by the way, did not exist in 1900; it was established in 1965. Nearly eight years in prison without a trial. Whatever happened to the right of an accused to have a speedy trial? Once a successful dentist in St. Louis County who treated many indigent patients, Charles Thomas Sell was accused of Medicaid fraud in 1997. Although he has never hurt anyone, and a federal court held that he poses no danger to those around him, prison officials frequently placed him in solitary confinement for periods that totaled nearly two years. Woman jailed for refusing court-required psych exam. An Iowa grandmother has been banished to jail, including a night in isolation, after refusing to give in to a judge's demand that she submit to a psychiatric exam and take psychotropic drugs if prescribed to mitigate her opposition to abortion, her husband has confirmed. Would Your Beliefs Brand You A 'Homegrown' Terrorist? H.R. 1955, titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 allows the government to target Americans and actually calls "thought" crimes "homegrown terrorism". Part of the bill (Section 899A) employs extremely vague terminology ("violent radicalization") to describe the promoting of any belief system that the government considers "extremist". The Editor says... Under H.R. 1955 it is a crime to "intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives". Such a crime is depicted in the photo at the top of this page. 'Thought Crimes,' HR 1955 Passed. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955, titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. It was passed with 404 votes in favor. ... This is a "Thought Crime" bill of the type so often discussed in an Orwellian context. It specifically targets the civilian population of the United States. It defines "Violent Radicalization" as promoting any belief system that the government considers to be extremist. "Homegrown Terrorism" and "Violent Radicalization" are defined as thought crimes. Since the bill does not provide a specific definition of extremist belief system, it will be whatever the government at any given time deems it to be. The Senate Could Vote on the "Thought Crimes" Bill Soon! It should be remembered that following the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Clinton administration blamed not just the indicted perpetrators, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier, but also all those who had like McVeigh, Nichols and Fortier protested against the government's deadly actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge. Time magazine and other media organs joined the administration in charging that these "anti-government" protesters were actually "ideational co-conspirators" with the OKC bombers. Like President Clinton, President Bush now equates opposition to his policies, especially concerning the War in Iraq and the "War on Terror," as unpatriotic, or even treasonable. Bullies, Muggers, Sneak Thieves, and Con Men. The beginning of political wisdom is the realization that despite everything you've always been taught, the government is not really on your side; indeed, it is out to get you. Sometimes government functionaries and their private-sector supporters want simply to bully you, to dictate what you must do and what you must not do, regardless of whether anybody benefits from your compliance with these senseless, malicious directives. The drug laws are the best current example, among many others, of the government as bully. America's Injustice System Is Criminal. In the US the wrongful conviction rate is extremely high. One reason is that hardly any of the convicted have had a jury trial. No peers have heard the evidence against them and found them guilty. In the US criminal justice (sic) system, more than 95% of all felony cases are settled with a plea bargain. Armed and dangerous: Federal agencies expanding the use of firepower. During the late morning of January 14, 1997, 20 heavily armed federal agents and local sheriff's deputies descended from a military helicopter onto rocky Santa Cruz Island off the California coast. As snipers moved into position along the ridge tops to secure the perimeter of the attack area, other agents staged dynamic entries into the buildings — rousting 15-year-old Crystal Graybeel who was sleeping late in her cabin. The agency responsible for all this was not the BATF, nor the FBI, nor any other agency typically associated with such "dynamic entries." This raid was the work of the National Park Service. At a time when elected legislative bodies from city councils to Congress have been passing laws that restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms, federal agencies within the executive branch have been quietly authorizing dramatically increased numbers of armed personnel — often heavily armed with military-style assault weapons. Today, there are nearly 60,000 federal agents trained and authorized to enforce the over 3,000 criminal laws Congress has passed over the years, plus the hundreds of thousands of regulations which now carry criminal penalties. The EPA's Swat Team: Hubert Vidrine, a manager at a refinery plant, was at work when FBI and EPA Criminal Division Agents stormed into his place of business using M-16s and police dogs. His alleged crime was storing waste covered by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) without obtaining a permit. Just wait, it gets better... DOE 'SWAT' raid still troubling after story corrections. The story was a sensation on Wednesday morning [6/8/2011]. A Department of Education SWAT team broke down the door to a house owned by a man whose wife was delinquent on her student loans, according to original reports. The man was handcuffed and, along with his children, put in a cop car for 6 hours. It turns out that some of this story was misreported. It wasn't a SWAT team but a special branch of the DOE who executes search warrants. And it wasn't for a student loan, but the warrant was in connection with a criminal investigation. But before you breathe a sigh of relief, it should be rightly asked: What ... is DOE doing with a paramilitary unit to serve warrants? SWAT team launch dawn raid on family home to collect unpaid student loans. A father was dragged from his home and handcuffed in front of his children by a SWAT team looking for his estranged wife -- to collect her unpaid student loans. A stunned Kenneth Wright had his front door kicked in by the raiding party at 6 am yesterday before being dragged onto his front porch, handcuffed and led to a police car with his three children. How To Survive The Coming Martial Law In America. Some patriots in the government have already let it leak that local police organizations are aggressively recruiting US Marines still on active duty to leave the military and immediately become police officers... with little or no training. These Marines have been trained not to protect and serve but to kill quickly and efficiently. Let's face it, traditional armies are trained to dispatch enemies with vicious efficiency... and that's why local police have always been trained differently. Local police have traditionally been trained to protect and serve with respect for the rights of the citizens. But things have changed dramatically in this country. U.N. Troops Preparing for Martial Law In America — Who Is FEMA Really? Is it far fetched to imagine that these U.N. "peace keeping" forces would be used against American citizens? The 502nd, another unit from Fort Campbell Kentucky, is shown here arriving as peacekeepers in Somalia wearing their U.N. blue berets and insignia. Shortly thereafter this same unit the 502nd was in Arkansas practicing house to house searches and seizures in a joint U.N. training mission called "Agile Provider" in the Spring of 1994. Criminalizing everyone. "You don't need to know. You can't know." That's what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search. The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris' longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor. The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with — get this — the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Unlikely Orchid Smuggler: A Case Study in Overcriminalization. George Norris, an elderly retiree, had turned his orchid hobby into a part-time business run from the greenhouse in back of his home. He would import orchids from abroad — South Africa, Brazil, Peru — and resell them at plant shows and to local enthusiasts. He never made more than a few thousand dollars a year from his orchid business, but it kept him engaged and provided a little extra money — an especially important thing as his wife, Kathy, neared retirement from her job managing a local mediation clinic. Their life would take a turn for the worse on the bright fall morning of October 28, 2003, when federal agents, clad in protective Kevlar and bearing guns, raided his home, seizing his belongings and setting the gears in motion for a federal prosecution and jail time. Computer snafu is behind at least 50 'raids' on Brooklyn couple's home. Blame it on a computer. Embarrassed cops on Thursday [3/18/2010] cited a "computer glitch" as the reason police targeted the home of an elderly, law-abiding couple more than 50 times in futile hunts for bad guys. The raid on Mayor Cheye Calvo's house This section has moved to this page. Cops Employing Robbers: [Ryan] Frederick's case is only one recent example of the inherent danger and disproportionate absurdity of using violent, forced-entry police tactics to serve nonviolent drug warrants. This raid on a man with no prior criminal record left a police officer dead, his wife widowed, and his children without a father, while effectively ruining Ryan Frederick's life. He's facing one count of capital murder for the shooting of [Detective Jarrod] Shivers, a felony drug distribution charge, and a charge of using a weapon during the commission of a drug crime. D.C. family wins suit over raid on home. A Capitol Hill family won a lawsuit against the D.C. government after their row house was raided in a search for evidence that their renovation plans violated the city's historic preservation laws. About a dozen police officers and D.C. Consumer and Regulatory Affairs inspectors searched the home of Laura Elkins and John Robbins four years ago, entering the bedrooms of their teenage children who were home sick from school, and searching through drawers, behind furniture and under carpets. Available in the airport gift shop. Big Brother endorses these playthings. Two years ago in this column, I lamented the fact that toy manufacturers were cashing in on society's headlong rush toward constant and ubiquitous surveillance. I highlighted a Lego construction set that included, as part of a police 18-wheeler, a surveillance and monitoring unit. I also noted a plastic "play set," manufactured and marketed by Playmobil, depicting a police officer wanding a civilian figure as pretend belongings go through a pretend X-ray machine. This trend toward "play" search and surveillance has continued, and now includes a functioning toy metal detector. The Gangster State: A recent incident in San Diego illustrates that there isn't nearly enough distance separating the federal government from the criminal underworld. According to the local NBC television affiliate, four gunmen disguised as federal agents conducting a drug raid "invaded a home near the San Ysidro border crossing…. Investigators say the gunmen were dressed as agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms." What is surprising is not that the criminals chose to disguise their home invasion as a federal raid, but rather that this sort of thing hasn't happened more often. Kathryn Johnston: A Year Later. When police forced their way into Johnston's home, she met them holding a rusty old revolver, fearing she was about to be robbed. The police opened fire, and killed her. Shortly after the shooting, the police alleged that they had paid an informant to buy drugs from Ms. Johnston's home. They said she fired at them first, and wounded two officers. And they alleged they found marijuana in her home. We now know that these were all lies. In fact, everything about the Kathryn Johnston murder was corrupt. Sometimes 'sorry' doesn't cut it. A SWAT team from the Milwaukee Police Department burst into Denise Berndsen's apartment and turned the place upside down looking for evidence of child porn. Oops. The man they were targeting had moved out five weeks earlier. Instead they roughed up Berndsen, who had returned home from back surgery that day, her 74-year-old father, and a man she had just started dating and who for a few terrifying minutes wondered what he got himself into. The Rise of a Judicial Dictatorship: The Warren Court launched a social, cultural and moral revolution and began openly to dictate to what had been a self-governing people. Under this dictatorship, radically secularist and egalitarian, America's public schools were as de-Christianized as thoroughly as in the Soviet Union. There is No War on Drugs! Why does the War on Some Drugs and Users continue despite the obvious failure of every tactic tried by prohibitionists? Could it be that the illegal drug trade engenders such massive untraceable black market profits and forms of social control that the Warriors really do not want the War to end? When one takes the endless tales of corruption, greed and lies on the part of so many Drug Warriors into consideration, it isn't such a stretch of the imagination. Powder and crack cocaine: Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about a case in which the judge refused to impose the notoriously high sentence required for crack cocaine, Kimbrough v. U.S. While the case doesn't challenge the sentencing disparity directly, it calls attention to the statute that punishes crack cocaine with sentences 100 times greater than for powder cocaine, despite the fact that there is no difference in the chemical makeup of the two forms of cocaine. Drug Laws' Absence of Justice. You've probably read about the disparity in federal mandatory minimum sentences before. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 mandated a five-year minimum sentence for possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine or 500 grams of powdered cocaine. Civil rights groups have attacked the 100-1 volume disparity on racial grounds. The U.S. Sentencing Commission found that more than 80 percent of crack offenders are black, while some 80 percent of powdered cocaine offenders are white. The War on Drugs is No Laughing Matter. Alcohol did not create Al Capone's gang violence in the hometown of our current president. Prohibition did. Marijuana does not create murderous drug cartels in Mexico. America's War on Drugs does. This could happen here, too ... Couple plan to sue RCMP over 911 reaction. A North Vancouver couple has complained to District of North Vancouver council and said they will sue the North Vancouver RCMP after officers responded to their hang-up 911 call by breaking down their door, making a forceful arrest and jailing them overnight when the couple refused to allow a house-search. ... North Vancouver resident Marget Lieder said that in the early evening of Oct. 25 she was having wine with her partner and a guest when she misdialed the emergency number, meaning to call 411 instead. … "I don't want my privacy to be invaded just because I misdial a number," she said. Incidentally, there could be at least 100 Ways to Mis-Dial 911. And even if you dial 911 when you need it, there are no guarantees. Woman Waits 35 Minutes On 911 While Intruder Breaks In. A Williamson County woman fought off an intruder with a vacuum cleaner. She was desperate for help, waiting for almost 35 minutes for law enforcement to arrive. The single mom described that 35 minutes like the scene of a horror movie as she watched a man walk from windows to doors doing anything to break in to her home. Pentagon wants new spying powers in the US. The Pentagon says it won't spy on "innocent" Americans, but critics say past record shows this is false. Monitoring Americans: There is a proper role for police in a free society. They are needed to protect lives and property, to respond in emergencies, and investigate crimes — and the NYPD and America's other local police departments have long served admirably and honorably in this role. But in a militarized society, one in which the police are no longer accountable to local civil authorities and become instead an instrument of a central government in Washington, the central government could be expected to abuse its newfound law-enforcement powers. Cheney won't tell how much he keeps secret. A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003, requires all agencies and "any other entity within the executive branch" to provide an annual accounting of their classification of documents … but [Vice President] Cheney insists he is exempt. I guess the telephone is out of the question... Passport customers fume over parking fees. Getting a passport was already starting to get pricey for Mary Simpson. In March, she paid $97 for the passport application fee, plus another $60 to expedite it. She's expecting to fork over $80 in gas for the trip from San Antonio to find out in person the status of her application. Then, the parking sign declares "$10." City may banish TV dishes from view. The Boston City Council, citing a proliferation of satellite television dishes across the city, is considering banning the devices from the front of buildings. Saying that the dishes are potentially dangerous and increasingly hard to overlook in parts of the city where some buildings are festooned with them, councilors plan to consider a measure to confine the satellite television receivers to the back of buildings, out of public view. [Potentially dangerous? How?] The Runaway Train That Hit Scooter Libby. With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, [Patrick J.] Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. … [This investigation] would not have been conducted if, say, the Iraq war had ended with 300 deaths and the mission had really been accomplished. An unpopular war produced the popular cry for scalps and, in Libby's case, the additional demand that he express contrition — a vestigial Stalinist-era yearning for abasement. N.J. Governor's SUV Went 91 Mph Before Crash. The SUV carrying Gov. Jon S. Corzine was traveling about 91 mph moments before it crashed, Superintendent of State Police Col. Rick Fuentes said Tuesday [4/17/2007]. The governor was critically injured when the vehicle crashed into a guardrail on the Garden State Parkway just north of Atlantic City last week. He apparently was not wearing his seat belt as he rode in the front passenger's seat. [The car is going 91 mph, and he's not wearing a seat belt. Oh, but that's okay because he's the governor after all, and a state trooper was driving. Who's going to tell him to slow down?] Frustration over Corzine not buckling up. Last year, New Jersey law officers ticketed 271,182 people for not wearing seat belts. This year, one seat-belt violator stands out: Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who was critically injured in an automobile accident last week. … State police said Trooper Robert Rasinski, Corzine's driver, was wearing a seat belt and received minor injuries in the wreck, while Corzine aide Samantha Gordon was riding in the back seat without a seat belt and received minor injuries. Virginia Introduces $3550 Speeding Ticket. Virginia legislator introduces new speeding ticket tax that boosts penalties beyond $3550, driving business to his traffic law firm. Highway Robbery: One definition of injustice is grossly disproportionate punishment. You don't put people into prison for a year because they jaywalked. So what do we make of Virginia's new "civil remedial fines" that slam ordinary motorists with thousand-dollar fines (payable in "three easy installments") for relatively minor traffic violations? ... We all know of broad avenues that seem to drop for no apparent reason from 55 to 35 mph -- typically, with a motorcycle cop hiding behind a bush just beyond where the drop goes into force. It has always been unfair. Now, it's egregious. All the material about "Corporate Social Responsibility" has been moved here. Shattered Dreams: 100 Stories of Government Abuse. This publication highlights how regulations that are poorly written and/or inflexibly enforced can overwhelm, intimidate, bankrupt or otherwise harm average Americans. It features situations related to the Americans with Disabilities Act, building codes, INS, IRS, the Endangered Species Act, OSHA, Indian Affairs, zoning, property rights issues, etc. Shattered Dreams: 100 Stories of Government Abuse. Download the entire book in PDF format. Ruled by scoundrels. The March 10 [2003] issue of Human Events carried a special report on the 10 most outrageous government programs. … The Legal Services Corp. headed the list, followed closely by the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act and the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. Rounding out the list were: Americorps, Endangered Species Act, No Child Left Behind Act, Amtrak, Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards, Title X Family Planning Act, and the provision of welfare payments to non-citizens and illegal aliens. FCC Compliance and the Station Engineer. Broadcasting may not be unique in this, but it certainly presents a severe case of a regulated industry. My view is that at least 13 layers of regulation burden broadcasting. The layers go by names like FCC, FAA, OSHA, BOCA, DOJ, Copyright Tribunal, Homeland Security, etc. Colleges Protest Call to Upgrade Online Systems. The federal government, vastly extending the reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications. City of Seattle may ban microwave popcorn. First, Washington State banned indoor public smoking. Now, the City of Seattle may ban employees from making microwave popcorn. No kidding. A memo from the Fleets and Facilities Department addressed to "Employees at Civic Center Buildings" says there has been several evacuations in recent years due smoke alarms being tripped by burning popcorn. Man risks five years jail time for using open WiFi connection. A Michigan man who was caught using a coffee shop's unsecured WiFi connection while sitting in the car park was fined $400 and ordered to do 40 hours community service. But he could have received a 5-year jail term, as the state law which covers this is part of a 1979 anti-hacking bill which makes this a felony. Investigate the CIA. Political correctness reigns in the U.S. government at every level, and the CIA is no exception. The result is an agency that is conducting a steady leak campaign against President Bush designed to discredit the Iraq war and undermine the war on terror. How someone else's meth habit leaves you with a runny nose: Under the Combat Meth Act, which Congress is expected to pass soon, you too can be treated like a criminal the next time you have nasal congestion, thereby doing your part to help achieve a drug-free society. Hoover wanted to put 12,000 in jail. A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, who headed the FBI from 1924 to 1972, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison about 12,000 Americans whom he suspected of disloyalty. Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons. FBI Examines Pastor's Sermons On Culture. Nov. 23, 2004, started out like any other normal morning for Randy Steele, senior pastor at Southwest Christian Church in Mount Vernon, Ill., a town about 80 miles southeast of St. Louis. … The Pastor was questioned by the FBI over the way he talked about abortion from a biblical perspective. |
