In a year, if a friend asks you if the CIA is in your underwear, you'd probably not take the question seriously. You'd be wrong. The CIA is spending millions in tax dollars to get into your underwear next year. Eleven years ago, when this column asked if the CIA was...
"Maybe there is a beast. Maybe it's only us." ~ William Golding (1911-1993), "Lord of the Flies" Hidden within some folks are the souls of saints. Hidden within others are the souls of beasts. Torture unleashes the beasts. Nothing is more destructive of human decency,...
When the freedom of speech and of the press die, it will happen by a thousand small cuts. Last Friday night, in the sleepy 1,900-person town of Marion, Kansas, all five police officers in the town were summoned to work because of an urgent need. They were ordered by...
In April of this year, the FBI began an investigation to determine who was using illegal software to spy from within the United States on persons in Mexico. The software was illegal because its Israeli manufacturer, a company called NSO, had previously crafted other...
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it." – Judge Learned Hand (1872-1961) Late last week, a judge on the Foreign...
In 1928, the late Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis characterized the values underlying the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as embracing the uniquely American right, and the right most valued by civilized persons, which he called the right to be let...
In a public courtroom of the United States of America, in which a high-level criminal case is being tried, the prosecutors are permitted to press a buzzer on their table in the midst of argument to the court by defense counsel. The buzzer cuts off the courtroom's...
"We may even cheer on those who ask us to ... forfeit our personal freedoms. Of course, this is no new story. Even the ancients warned that democracies can degenerate toward autocracy in the face of fear. ... And rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving...
The federal government recently revealed that at least 50 U.S. government personnel working in 10 foreign countries have had their mobile devices hacked by unknown persons who employed software known as "zero-click." The zero-click product, called Pegasus,...
Last week, FBI officials boasted that in 2022 their agents had spied on only 120,000 Americans without search warrants! Under the Constitution, that number should be ZERO. This revelation is supposed to give members of Congress comfort that the folks we have hired to...
