Civil Liberties
If one presses, as in the comments to a post by Don Hawthorne, it is possible to get a straightforward answer. Writes Bobby Oliveira of the Constitutional requirement that religion be banned from the public sphere: Since everyone will not choose to participate, based on belief systems, you cannot allow some belief system to obtain…
Mark Steyn makes the argument for warrantless wiretapping when one-half of the call is outside of the US as well as can be done in two sentences…If Judge Taylor’s ruling stands, if the U.S. government intercepts a call from Islamabad to London about a plot to blow up Big Ben, it can alert the Brits.…
Here’s the New York Times on yesterday’s NSA wiretap hearing…In a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the secretive court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, several former judges who served on the panel also voiced skepticism at a Senate hearing about the president’s constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a…
D. W. MacKenzie wrote in the October 2002 issue of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, the monthly publication of the Foundation for Economic Education, about the coercive role of government: I am government… Coercion is both my vocation and my avocation; it is in my very nature to compel others to do that which they…
What a delight to read Andrew’s posting about freedom of speech bursting forth in the town of Coventry! And what concern all of us should have as we read his posting about potential government regulations which seek to squash the fundamental American right to speak our minds. Here are some earlier postings on this important…
This leaves me with nothing to say, except to hope that it’s a fluke, not an indication of trends: STATE SEN. Marian Walsh (D.-Dedham) has filed legislation requiring churches in Massachusetts to submit annual reports to the state detailing their collections, expenditures, funds on hand, investments, real-estate holdings, etc. The proposed law would apply to…
We are at war. We are a land of liberty. We have a federal government whose appetite for meddling seems to be growing. Two recent news articles have raised questions about the extension of the Patriot Act: Patriot Act Push Angers Some on Right: A Senate panel vote riles conservatives concerned about the reach of…
Let’s be careful before we say yes too quickly to this request: The FBI on Tuesday asked the U.S. Congress for sweeping new powers to seize business or private records, ranging from medical information to book purchases, to investigate terrorism without first securing approval from a judge. Valerie Caproni, FBI general counsel, told the U.S.…
Joseph Manning’s pro-life activities in Cranston evoke mixed feelings in me: Joseph Manning agreed to take down the baby outfits he had hung in the trees. They were part of an antiabortion display he puts up three days a week outside the Women’s Medical Center on Broad Street. “That said the whole thing,” he said.…
When Mac Owens first signed on as a contributor to Anchor Rising, he sent me a speech that he had given on February 23, 2002, at the North Kingston Town Committee’s Annual Lincoln Dinner. The current collection of issues, both nationally and in Rhode Island, makes it particularly appropriate for posting now. (I’m told, by…