At one time, President Obama noted similarities between his presidency and Ronald Reagan’s, but these days it seems his administration is more often compared with Nixon’s. The Benghazi coverup, followed by the IRS scandal that targeted right wing groups, followed by the revelation that the Department of Justice seized the telephone records of Associated...
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In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration crafted a legal theory and detention policy to handle accused terrorists. Nowhere was the policy more conspicuously problematic than at Guantánamo, where a total of 779 detainees were held and where today 166 remain after over ten years. The Bush administration referred to these...
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To live under tyranny is to live in fear—especially the fear of being arrested and jailed at the whims of the rulers. This is why America’s Founders regarded the right not to be detained arbitrarily as a cornerstone of liberty, and why they cherished the legal device they believed had secured that right: the...
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President Obama’s policies have been criticized by some as harming the economy. The “stimulus” policies he has put into place are not working, according to critics. Indeed, the economic recovery has been unusually slow. Here and here are two of the many articles critical of the president’s economic policies. When I Googled “stimulus not...
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A rancher* friend of ours—fancying himself a free man, self-sufficient, and disinclined to outsiders’ meddling—was stopped in airport security not too long ago, caught carrying a fancy pocketknife: the Mini Leatherman at right, in fact, a handy all-in-one tool just right for a working man. Not taking kindly to the suggestion that he give...
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It seems simple enough. Publicly available evidence shows two young men implicated in the horrific massacre in Boston this Monday, the shooting of the officer at MIT, crimes against others, and violent resistance against the police. One brother is dead and the other on the lam. And so the police have locked down Boston,...
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The war on drugs and the war on terrorism, I noted in a recent Beacon post, have fostered a crisis mentality that has eroded traditional constraints on domestic law enforcement. The new zeitgeist has resulted in police departments increasingly using “no knock” raids and other military-type tactics formerly considered off-limits to them. But other...
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I suspect that most readers of The Beacon tend to favor personal freedoms to a sufficient degree that they will immediately agree with the title of this post. If we want to live in a free country, freedom has to mean that we are free to make choices that others, including others in positions...
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Finally, some sanity, and from a somewhat unexpected source. The ACLU is concerned about the civil liberties implications of the new Harry Reid Senate bill to establish so-called “universal background checks” for firearms purchases. The organization has tended toward silence on gun rights, but at least now it recognizes aspects of the problem with...
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From the early days of the United States to the post-Reconstruction era and beyond, Americans viewed the separation of the military from law enforcement as essential for the health of the republic. In recent years, however, the line between the police and the military has become increasingly blurred, with police departments across the United...
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