"Congress shall make no law ...abridging the freedom of speech or of the press..." ~ First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution During the oral argument before the Supreme Court in the famous Pentagon Papers case, a fascinating colloquy took place between Justice...
Tulsi Gabbard: A Switch in Time?
When she was a member of the House of Representatives, Tulsi Gabbard was a fierce defender of personal privacy rights protected by the Fourth Amendment. She consistently opposed permitting federal agents to spy on Americans without search warrants, and she...
Will Donald Trump Stop Domestic Spying?
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...
Biden’s Lust for War
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...
Gitmo Continues To Haunt
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...
War and the Constitution
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...
Who Cares What the Government Thinks?
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...
The Government Compels Silence Again
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...
Guantanamo: Deal or No Deal?
"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...
A Brief History of Free Speech in America
"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...