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Strip-Searching America: The Supreme Court Favors Abuse Over the Bill of Rights
In a devastating 5-4 ruling that not only condones an overreach of state power but legitimizes what is essentially state-sponsored humiliation and visual rape, the U.S. Supreme Court on April 2...
View ArticleShikha Dalmia: Half-Right on “Right to Work”
Shikha Dalmia, writing in Reason (“Are Right to Work Laws the New Slavery?,” April 26), dismisses most union objections to “right to work” laws. But she concedes that on one issue – the requirement...
View ArticleBritain, “Austerity,” and the Lessons of Economic History
Economists and pundits alike are going wild over the United Kingdom’s recent “double dip” recession. The 2008-9 recession prompted the election of a conservative coalition led by Prime Minister David...
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Help Fulfill Mwalimu’s Dream of Clean Water
Seventeen-year-old Mwalimu William Karisa, a Kenyan exchange student in Davenport, won’t need luggage to carry a gift home to Africa. He is taking clean drinking water for his village. Mwalimu lives...
View ArticleJustice on the Rocks: The Demise of the People’s Court
“Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.” – William Howard Taft When I was in law school, what gave me the impetus to become a civil-liberties attorney was seeing firsthand how...
View ArticleEveryday People and the American Revolution
We elevate the events of the American Revolution to near-mythic status all too often and forget that the real revolutionaries were people just like you and me. Caught up in the drama of Red Coats...
View ArticleThe Corporate Takeover of America: A Government of the Elites, by the...
“By definition, these are closed-door meetings that are part of long-term relationships between the state’s highest officials and for-profit corporations. There is exactly nothing like that for...
View ArticleLondon 2012 Olympics: The Staging Ground for the Coming Police State?
“As London prepares to throw the world a $14-billion party, it seems fair to ask the question: What does it get out of the bargain?” asks the Christian Science Monitor in a recent story on the 2012...
View ArticleApple: Rotten to the Core?
As a company over the past few years, Apple has come a long way in the wrong direction – exactly the opposite direction from that indicated in the seminal, game-changing Macintosh “1984” commercial. As...
View ArticleSmile, the Government Is Watching: Next Generation Identification
“You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement was scrutinized.” – George Orwell, 1984...
View ArticleLooking Beyond Election Day: The Issues That Threaten to Derail the Nation
While it may be months before the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy can be fully resolved, Americans cannot afford to lose sight of the very real and pressing issues that threaten to derail the...
View ArticleCan You Trust the President, Congress, or the Courts to Protect Your Privacy...
“The game is rigged, the network is bugged, the government talks double-speak, the courts are complicit, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” – David Kravets, reporting for Wired Nothing you...
View ArticleEyeSee You and the Internet of Things: Watching You While You Shop
Gifts have been bought. Presents wrapped. Now all that remains is the giving and receiving. Oh, and the tracking, of course. Little did you know that all the while you were searching out that perfect...
View ArticleCompromise or Gridlock in Washington: Two Unpalatable Alternatives
As soon as the elections were over, a wave of commentaries extolling the virtues of compromise appeared in the press. The common theme is that it is time for Democrats and Republicans alike to end...
View ArticleThe Magician’s Con: Renewing FISA and the NDAA Under Cover of the Fiscal...
“If the broad light of day could be let in upon men’s actions, it would purify them as the sun disinfects.” – Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis What characterizes American government today is not so...
View ArticleThe U.S. Supreme Court: Architects of the American Police State
“The unspoken power dynamics in a police/civilian encounter will generally favor the police, unless the civilian is a local sports hero, the mayor, or a giant who is impervious to bullets.” –...
View ArticleDavenport Schools Shouldn’t Contract Out Custodial and Security Services
As the Davenport Community School District considers a proposal to contract out custodial services and campus security, we want to make sure that parents and citizens know who we are, why we are an...
View ArticleSeventeen Benefits of the War on Drugs
With American drug-use levels essentially the same as – and levels of drug-related violence either the same as or lower than – those in countries such as the Netherlands with liberal drug laws, public...
View ArticleHow the News Media Betrayed Us on Iraq
The 10th anniversary of the start of America’s illegal and aggressive war against Iraq should not pass without recalling that the mainstream news media eagerly participated in the Bush administration’s...
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“Boston Strong”: Marching in Lockstep with the Police State
(Editor’s note: A response essay to this commentary can be found here.) “Of all the tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” – C.S. Lewis Caught...
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