“Big Brother is Watching You,” George Orwell wrote in his disturbing book 1984. But, as Mikko Hypponen points out, Orwell “was an optimist.” Orwell never could have imagined that the National Security Agency (NSA) would amass metadata on billions of our phone calls and 200 million of our text messages every day. Orwell could not… Read more »
In 1937, the American Bar Association refused to allow people of color to join its ranks. With the blessing of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the National Lawyers Guild was founded as a multi-racial alternative to the ABA. The Guild’s founding members included the attorney general, several judges, some congressmen, and the head of the National… Read more »
We do not believe the Executive has, or should have, the inherent constitutional authority to violate the law or infringe the legal rights of Americans, whether it be a warrantless break-in into the home or office of an American, warrantless electronic surveillance, or a President’s authorization to the FBI to create a massive domestic security… Read more »
Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires – a wiretap requires a court order.-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004, Buffalo, New York. In an assertion of executive power that rivals the excesses of the McCarthy era of the late 1940’s and 1950’s, and the dreaded COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program) of… Read more »
When George W. Bush’s weapons-of-mass-destruction rationale for invading Iraq evaporated, his excuse morphed into bringing democracy to the Iraqi people. But the way Bush has eviscerated our democracy in the United States is proof positive that his democratic credentials are phony. We have seen our government assault First Amendment rights in the past – during… Read more »
“Watch out for well-meaning men of zeal!” These words penned 74 years ago by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis are no less relevant today. Brandeis was dissenting from a ruling that exempted wiretapping from the protections of the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court later reversed its decision, holding that the government must follow the… Read more »
On May 30, 2002, the same day America mourned the victims of the September 11 attack and the conclusion of the Ground Zero cleanup, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller III unveiled sweeping new surveillance powers for the FBI. In order to cover up its own incompetence in failing to properly analyze… Read more »
Reichmarshall Hermann Goering of the Third Reich once said: “It is always a simple matter to drag the people along” to do “the bidding of the leaders,” regardless of the form of government. “All you have to do,” he said, “is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of… Read more »