Civil Liberties
Rhode Island political junkies will recall that Chris Young was literally dragged away by police from a microphone at the Brown University health care forum starring Congressman Patrick Kennedy ten days ago and then criminally charged. Ahlene has an excellent analysis of the incident and its First Amendment implications in Thursday’s Valley Breeze. Excerpt: ……
At the time of Sondra Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination hearings, Anchor Rising noted that Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch had not joined an amicus brief offered by other state Attorney Generals in the case of McDonald v. Chicago in support of the position that the Second Amendment is protected from state-government abridgement via the…
At least I’m not alone in my concern that the “smart grid” craze opens up new horizons of privacy infringement: Smart grid technology — including new “smart meters” being attached to businesses and homes — is designed in part to provide consumers with real-time feedback on power consumption patterns and levels. But as these systems…
I’ve got mixed feelings about this odd little story out of Tiverton: James R. Lapre, 24, of 320 Hurst Lane, Tiverton, was charged with disorderly conduct and with threatening to place a bomb in a public place (a felony) after police took him into custody, then searched his residence and discovered makeshift bomb-making materials. Police…
Not to go all social conservative on you, but I have to believe that there are (or should be) more pressing issues for the head of a civil liberties organization than protecting an industry set on selling the sexual objectification of children. But there goes the ACLU’s Steven Brown: Legislation passed last week to make…
Something’s been gnawing at me since Andrew posted video of Congressman Patrick Kennedy proving once again why we should all hope his handlers keep him well away from any real power, and it took a revistation of Ed Achorn’s concern about the Obama administration’s jihad against Fox News to jar the pest loose. Here’s Achorn:…
Sometimes news out of Europe suggests the possibility that another revolution may be coming, such as this story from England: On Monday afternoon, the mother gave birth to a girl by Caesarean section. And 28 hours later, social workers arrived at the maternity ward to take the baby into care, after serving child protection papers…
A comment from Joe Bernstein, to yesterday’s post on assisted suicide, points us toward a deeper conversation: I am pro-life on the issue of abortion, but on this I believe that if someone with all their mental faculties intact makes a decision to commit suicide due to a hopeless, painful, or tortuous medical situation it…
Put assisted suicide on the long list of issues that ought to be left to the states, but that I’d oppose in my own. In the name of civil liberties that conflict with the (until recently) long-standing moral consensus of our culture, we’re building a giant trap that will at some point close on us…
Is this the future of energy? Planners envision installing a new kind of power meter in homes – a wall-based unit that can monitor how much electricity is being used by various appliances and turn them off when demand for energy is higher, and thus costlier to consume. The project also would upgrade the utility’s…
