The DOJ has been instrumental in curbing abuse and misconduct by local law enforcement agencies around the nation. Its own backyard, however, remains a complete mess.
This is hardly a surprise, but the DC Appeals Court has issued a stay on Judge Richard Leon's ruling from earlier this week that the NSA's bulk phone record collection program was unconstitutional. This is the same appeals court that overturned Leon's earlier ruling finding the program unconstituti... (more)
The state of Maryland, which has some of the most stringent gun laws in the US, has scrapped a scheme it has been operating for fifteen years allowing police to keep a gun tracking database, because it has failed to contribute anything to a single criminal case.
The system worked by storing photographs of spent casings fired by every gun sold in the state, which manufacturers were mandated to provide.
The idea behind the registry is that every firearm leaves unique... (more)
The follow up to #Equality, Modern Educayshun delves into the potential dangers of our increasingly reactionary culture bred by social media and political correctness.
Cincinnati, OH — In what can be described as a decision made in a society driven by fear, a 7-year-old boy was suspended from school for three days for pretending to shoot an imaginary bow and arrow.
The boy, who returned to school today after receiving his punishment, formed an imaginary bow and arrow and 'shot' it at his friend. The two boys were engaged in a 'dangerous' game of Power Rangers when they were spotted by the teachers who saw something and said something. ... (more)
Rights groups are charging that a new FBI program to counter "extremism," expected to be unveiled shortly, employs games and online tools that encourage teachers and students to snoop on--and discriminate against--Muslims, in violation of their most fundamental civil liberties.
Entitled 'Don't Be a Puppet,' the program "leads the viewer through a series of games and tips intended to teach how to identify someone who may be falling prey to radical extremists," New York Times journa... (more)
A BBC journalist recently had his computer confiscated by British police because he was conducting interviews with people the government suspected were terrorists. Journalist Secunder Kermani has been working with BBC's Newsnight for just over a year and has developed a reputation for obtaining exclusive interviews with Western-born ISIS fighters. This reputation caught the eye of the British government, which used powers granted through the Terrorism Act to confiscate the reporter's property.... (more)
A US federal appeals court has rejected efforts by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to stop bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said on Thursday that Congress wanted the National Security Agency (NSA) program to continue during a six-month transition period before a new law takes effect.
"An abrupt end to the program would be contrary to the public interest in effective surveillance... (more)
Earlier this year, we wrote about a ridiculous lawsuit in Australia where Janice Duffy was suing Google because the search engine returned links to some Ripoff Report pages that Duffy claimed were defamatory. As we noted at the time, this is just a ridiculously misguided lawsuit on multiple levels. It's not target... (more)
Senator Ron Wyden -- who has been fighting back against secret laws expanding surveillance for years -- made it clear months ago that CISA was really "a surveillance bill by another name." Of course, if you just read the bill it might not appear that way, because you need to understand how it works with a variety of secret orders and... (more)
Two recent legislative efforts have been mounted to add police to the rolls of "disadvantaged" citizens in need of the additional shelter of "hate crime" laws. Hate crime laws are immediately problematic. They add additional punishments to criminal acts already punishable under existing laws. It's exactly the sort of thing justice ... (more)
State police in Michigan have been secretly using hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of cell site simulator equipment to locate and track cell phones since at least 2006, according to records obtained by the ACLU and ACLU of Michigan. And although the agency justified its initial purchase of the surveillance gear as "vital to the war on terrorism," the records show that the department used its cell site simulators in 128 run-of-the-mill investigations last year--not a single one of which wa... (more)
