Andrew P. Napolitano

During the course of an FBI written response to a Freedom of Information Act request asking about the trade names and suppliers of surveillance software the FBI had purchased, the government has yet again quietly acknowledged its antipathy to constitutional provisions that all of its employees have sworn to uphold. Since we are dealing with … Continue reading “Will Donald Trump Stop Domestic Spying?”

The war in Ukraine is an American war for which the United States government should be ashamed and blamed. It was initiated by President Joe Biden and then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, both of whom advised Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky that if he rejected a peace treaty that his own government had freely negotiated and … Continue reading “Biden’s Lust for War”

Here’s a pop quiz: When can an Army colonel overrule the Secretary of Defense? It happened last week for probably the first time in modern history. The short answer is: Even in the military, the Secretary of Defense cannot change the rules and procedures for criminal prosecutions and tell military judges how to try cases. … Continue reading “Gitmo Continues To Haunt”

Can the president fight any war he wishes? Can Congress fund any war it chooses? Are there constitutional and legal requirements that must first be met before war is waged? These questions should be addressed in a national debate over the U.S. military involvement in Ukraine and Israel. Sadly, there has been no debate. The … Continue reading “War and the Constitution”

In 1791, when Congressman James Madison was drafting the first 10 amendments to the Constitution – which would become known as the Bill of Rights – he insisted that the most prominent amendment among them restrain the government from interfering with the freedom of speech. After various versions of the First Amendment had been drafted … Continue reading “Who Cares What the Government Thinks?”

When Congress enacted the Stored Communications Act of 1986 (SCA), it claimed the statute would guarantee the privacy of digital data that service providers were retaining in storage. The act prohibited the providers from sharing the stored data, and it prohibited unauthorized access to the data, commonly called computer hacking – except, of course, if … Continue reading “The Government Compels Silence Again”

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive.” ~ Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) The case of the Gitmo plea agreement keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. A few weeks ago, we learned that a plea agreement had been entered into by way of a signed contract between the retired general in … Continue reading “Guantanamo: Deal or No Deal?”

“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” ~ First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution When James Madison agreed to be the scrivener at the Constitutional Convention during the summer of 1787, he could not have known that just four years later he’d be the chair of the House of Representatives committee drafting the Bill … Continue reading “A Brief History of Free Speech in America”

It is always dangerous to human freedom and due process when politics interferes with criminal prosecutions. Yet, present-day America is replete with tawdry examples of this. The recent exposures of the political machinations of the Chief Justice of the United States in the presidential immunity case is just one sad example of the highest judge … Continue reading “Gitmo and Politics”

In 1966, two famous Russian literary dissidents, Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky, were tried and convicted on charges of disseminating propaganda against the Soviet state. The two were authors and humorists who published satire abroad that mocked Soviet leaders for failure to comply with the Soviet Constitution of 1936, which guaranteed the freedom of speech. … Continue reading “Free Speech and the Department of Political Justice”