STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
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October 08, 2015
After the many high-profile hacking incidents the last two years, it should be clear to all that virtually no automated system is intrusion-proof. Nothing can stop a highly motivated pirate who wants inside your system. What motivates the pirates? To date it ha ...
October 07, 2015
The Gallup Organization goes to great lengths to tell us what we already know. Their latest national polling, for instance, says "Americans' Trust in Media Remains at Historical Low." The greater surprise is the other side of the coin. Some 40% of Americans thi ...
October 06, 2015
If the local sheriff had his way, none of us would know that Chris Harper Mercer was the one who killed nine people and then himself at an Oregon community college. The sheriff thinks putting the name in print or saying it aloud somehow glorifies Mercer's actio ...
October 05, 2015
The U.S. Secret Service looks more like a rogue agency every day. Between agents partying with prostitutes, others drunkenly driving through White House gates and yet others leaving the mansion's front door unlocked, it's fair to wonder when they will "accident ...
October 02, 2015
When top generals talk about protecting military secrets, the average citizen will think some important subject must be at stake: troop movements, weapons capabilities, intelligence sources and the like. The public presumes its generals are men and women of int ...
October 01, 2015
To the so-called neoconservative advocates of "realistic" foreign policy, Israel can do no wrong and Iran can do no right. What do they think about Saudi Arabia? Mostly they pretend it doesn't exist. This saves them from having to explain how Saudi Arabia is a ...
September 30, 2015
U.S. prisons are stuffed to the rafters, often with non-violent offenders. By all kinds of measures, we incarcerate far more people than most of the world. Why? The standard assumption blames aggressive drug law enforcement and mandatory sentencing laws. New re ...
September 29, 2015
That evil acts occur when nations go to war is no surprise. Soldiers arrive already expecting it, their leaders having described the enemy as vermin worthy of death. What some American troops found in Afghanistan is different. It was not an evil they brought wi ...
September 28, 2015
"After all, it's their car," says the author of today's excerpt. This is incorrect. No one "owns" his or her car, if ownership means the right to do what you want with the object you own. What we really have is a sort of long-term conditional lease. The so-call ...
September 25, 2015
We do not know what Pope Francis and President Obama discussed during their 45-minute private Oval Office meeting this week. It would be nice if he heard Obama's confession, but they would likely have needed more time. Their conversation, whatever it was, will ...
September 24, 2015
Bitcoin promoters who long for recognition got their wish last week. It is not an official currency, nor is it likely to become one. The cryptocurrency is an official commodity, though. Whether this is good news remains to be seen. The designation resulted from ...
September 23, 2015
The story we excerpt today is almost two years old. The topic, U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, is interesting but what it reveals about governmental deception is even more so. Bob Woodward of the Washington Post obtained top-secret documents detailing CIA drone ...
September 22, 2015
We all know that the various forms of democratic governance don't work nearly as well as advertised. Representatives usually turn corrupt in short order, no matter how the people select them. They devolve into oligarchy under a democratic façade. The same is t ...
September 21, 2015
Last week's much-publicized and completely unnecessary arrest of young Ahmed Mohamed brought to light an alarmingly (pun intended) broad Texas law against so-called "hoax bombs." The statute is an open invitation for police to detain anyone for anything. In Tex ...
September 18, 2015
Relations between the U.S. technology industry and federal law enforcement look less cordial every day. This summer saw FBI Director James Comey begging them to believe he is not a maniac for demanding back-door access to private customer data. Now Microsoft is ...
September 17, 2015
Each year on Dec. 7, ceremonies occur to mark the 1941 surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Each year the memorials get less attention as those who actually saw the event pass away. Will Sept. 11 also lose its hold on our collective memories someday? Proba ...
September 16, 2015
Yet again, the public is seeing video of a police-citizen encounter gone wrong. Retired tennis star James Blake, whom everyone agrees was guilty of absolutely nothing, was nevertheless tackled and handcuffed by an NYPD officer with a history of using excessive ...
September 15, 2015
Any American, regardless of age and ancestry, who flies to Turkey in hopes of joining the Islamic State has made a terrible choice. He or she is taking a road that leads nowhere good. On the other hand, anyone who has parented teenagers learns to expect bad cho ...
September 14, 2015
The writer for Germany-based Spiegel rightly notes the increasing wealth concentration in the United States in recent decades. The rich are indeed getting richer, while many in the bottom 99% struggle to make ends meet. He veers off course, however, by blaming ...
September 11, 2015
Political mavens tell us polls are mostly meaningless this long before an election. I certainly hope so. As Jeffrey Tucker says in today's excerpt, the current data point to a seriously problematic outcome next November. Nascent authoritarianism has long simmer ...
September 10, 2015
The phrase "to carefully gerrymander" is more than just a split infinitive. It is apparently a legally permissible activity in Missouri. The Business Loop 70 Community Improvement District tried its best to make sure no annoying voters could stop its new taxes, ...
September 09, 2015
The presidential race is already entering silly season. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to build a wall spanning the U.S.–Canada border. Do we have a problem with Canadians sneaking into the United States to take our coffee and donuts? No, of course not. Ca ...
September 08, 2015
Islamic State militants may be crazed killers, but at least some of them are taking an interest in the evil that underlies modern banking. They claim the group will soon issue gold coins as its medium of exchange. In compliance with sharia, the new dinars will ...
September 07, 2015
Civil disobedience in defense of individual rights can be noble and effective, but its success usually depends of the view of the evaluator. People defend disobedience when they agree with its goal. Senator Rubio defends the Kentucky county clerk who says that ...
September 04, 2015
Government officials including FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers frequently demand greater investigative powers. They justify it by highlighting – some would say hyping – terrorist threats from ISIL and other radical groups. To s ...
September 03, 2015
Our view of civil rights has to evolve as technology changes our lives. More often than not, the changes are for the worse. Fifty years ago, could the police enter your home without a warrant and review your family photos for criminal evidence? No, and they sti ...
September 02, 2015
Many non-scientists hold a romanticized view of scientific research. We think it is very black and white, with scientists rigorously searching for measurable evidence, and happily conceding when experiments prove a hypothesis wrong. In fact, scientists are as h ...
September 01, 2015
The technology that lets unmanned U.S. drones blow up alleged "enemy combatants" in the Middle East is coming home. U.S. police departments, which already embraced drones for surveillance purposes, now want to deploy weapons on them. North Dakota's legislature ...
August 31, 2015
A good question arose in the comments to our Thursday story about U.S. border agents searching and seizing laptop computers. Can't people simply store their data on the cloud to keep it safely from government hands? Let's think this through. Say you have a few ...
August 28, 2015
George Will, who often has no problem embracing Big Brother, found enough small-government vocabulary to write an entertaining takedown of Donald Trump's immigration plan. The article exemplifies the exasperation mainstream GOP powers must feel at Trump's ascen ...
August 27, 2015
There are logical arguments for nation-states to defend their borders against illicit persons and goods. Those arguments are not nearly as compelling as some people think, but they exist. They apply mainly for people and goods entering a country – not those l ...
August 26, 2015
Having the right to vote is significant only to the extent it means you can vote for some meaningful office or issue. Saudi Arabian women can now vote in municipal elections. This is progress for a kingdom in which men, particularly men of the royal family, hol ...
August 25, 2015
Americans like to think the nation takes good care of their veterans. Its actual record for doing so is spotty at best, as recent VA hospital scandals demonstrate. Nevertheless, one category of veterans always lands on its feet after it hangs up the uniform. Re ...
August 24, 2015
In a world where economic dinosaurs quickly go extinct, traditional banking is one of the prime survivors. Abundant capital and friendly capital have let it adapt to every challenge. When banks lost commercial lending business to asset backed securitization in ...
August 21, 2015
On the surface, Ohio looks like a strong candidate to join the list of states allowing legal recreational marijuana. Look deeper and you will find a more complicated story. "ResponsibleOhio" is a noble-sounding name for a group of investors who seek a state-enf ...
August 20, 2015
Charles Blow, the New York Times columnist we quote today, is no libertarian. Nonetheless, he points to an important issue libertarians should consider. The reasoning goes like this: If we must have government at all, power should reside mostly in local governm ...
August 19, 2015
Donald Trump's persistent poll lead puzzles both journalists and political operatives. Despite breaking all the normal rules of electoral politics, he obviously appeals to a sizable voter segment. Yet another paradox is that, in the course of pursuing public of ...
August 18, 2015
The line between government and private business is often fuzzy, but for AT&T it seems almost invisible. Asked by the National Security Agency to help spy on American citizens, the company apparently jumped at the opportunity. So did other telecom providers, bu ...
August 17, 2015
Those of a libertarian or anarchist bent like bitcoin for both its privacy and the incapacity of governments to debase its value, but the underlying "blockchain" technology has a wealth of other potential uses. "Smart contracts" are one such use. As MIT Technol ...
August 14, 2015
Like the proverbial frog in a kettle, the American public is almost completely unaware that its president is waging an illegal war. President Obama has been spending American blood and treasure in and around Syria for a full year now. Whether attacking the Isla ...
August 13, 2015
Dogs may be man's best friend, but they do make mistakes. Lex, an Illinois drug dog, signals drugs are present in 93% of his searches. Yet searches by human officers find Lex is wrong some 40% of the time. A federal appeals court upheld the conviction of a man ...
August 12, 2015
The news media loves to speculate about the impending robot invasion. Automated systems will steal our jobs, they say. The robot apocalypse will seal the doom of unskilled workers. You might buy some time by learning to code now, at least until the robots learn ...
August 11, 2015
Last week's GOP presidential "debate" was more interesting than expected. While Donald Trump certainly enlivened the event, the night's most substantive discussion was the Chris Christie – Rand Paul exchange on warrantless National Security Agency surveillanc ...
August 10, 2015
"Never let a good crisis go to waste," a phrase attributed to various American political strategists, is advice politicians everywhere try to follow. Certain European leaders are following it right now. The Greek debt drama exposed serious divisions in the Euro ...
August 07, 2015
When farmers plunge their life savings into mining stocks at 6-to-1 leverage, it is fair to assume a bubble has formed that will eventually pop. That is certainly the case in China right now. Farmers like Yang Cheng made the mistake of believing their governmen ...
August 06, 2015
Police shootings have been a major news topic for a year now, dating back to when a Ferguson, Missouri officer killed Michael Brown in August 2014. Social media and video evidence have convinced many Americans police kill citizens far too frequently and without ...
August 05, 2015
Americans were ready for a change when Jimmy Carter left office in 1981. No amount of money would have outweighed the damage a weak economy and an Iranian hostage crisis did to his presidency. Almost 35 years later, Carter is now the longest surviving ex-presid ...
August 04, 2015
New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton, never a privacy zealot, now just denies the whole concept. "There are no secrets," he says. We will remember that next time one of his officers kills an unarmed citizen. If he's serious, the investigation will ...
August 03, 2015
That the super-rich are not like you and me is no surprise. Among other differences, they have billions of Federal Reserve Notes to their name – more than they can possibly spend. How does one join them? The author profiled in today's article asks that questi ...
July 31, 2015
Today's excerpt is by Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor. The Sandra Bland arrest video he discusses will – or at least should – outrage anyone who respects justice and decency. The way the officer repeatedly screams, "I'm giving you a ...
