Americans can sleep easier now that the US military has wiped out 150 more “terrorists.” US airstrikes over Somalia targeted al-Shabab militants, who were, according to Pentagon spokesperson Captain Jeff Davis, planning “offensive operations.” Davis neglected to elaborate on what “offensive operations” were planned by the group. He did say that they had been monitoring…

Content Warning: Brief mentions of suicide, rape and general discussions of transphobia. Recently there’s been laws among several states that unfairly target the trans community, most notably in South Dakota. South Dakota not only has a bill that targets the transgender community in public schools, but has had this bill passed in both the House…

Content Warning: Discussions of rape and sexual abuse After over two decades of abuse, Julia Tutwiler Prison, located in Montgomery Alabama, will close. After almost two decades of prison guards sexually assaulting, abusing and raping inmates, Tutwiler prison will be closed. After nearly two decades of investigations, reformist legislature, promises on the part of the…

A recent study conducted by The National Registry of Exonerations found that in 2015 there were a total of 149 people who were exonerated for a myriad of reasons. The exonerations revolved around convictions that were based on police misconduct, false confessions and in some cases, the fact that no crime had occurred. In addition,…

Back in August 2014 a man named Michael Brown was shot by a police officer, Darren Wilson. Brown was unarmed and found himself in the hostile climate that exists between people of color and the police. His resulting death was the spark that lit the fire. Protests for #BlackLivesMatter began in earnest, people rallied for…

(Content Warning: Brief discussions of suicide) President Obama has announced executive actions in response to the “outbreak” of gun violence. In particular Obama has said he’ll increase the efficiency of background checks. Obama’s reasoning comes from the belief that gun violence is on the rise. But as Reason‘s Jesse Walker reported in early December, “More people die in…

Imagine it’s the week of Christmas and you’re far away from home. There is no chance that you will see your family or your once familiar friends in time. You miss the taste of pizza and there’s likely no gifts waiting for you around the corner. You’ve been far away from home for a while….

With its recent 9-0 vote, Seattle’s City Council decided to extend collective bargaining rights to Uber and Lyft drivers. The App-Based Drivers Association (ABDA) lobbied for the outcome in collaboration with a local Teamsters union. Reactions to the decision have been split along the usual, predictable lines. Lyft claimed in an official statement that the ordinance threatens…

I usually don’t dip my feet into the perilous waters of the gun-control debate for several reasons: I’m not a gun-owner, guns have never interested me as either a pastime or culturally, and having the capacity to end people’s lives easily unnerves me. Be this as it may, I still strongly oppose gun control and Obama’s…

Secondo la Reuters, domenica scorsa la Nsa ha chiuso il suo programma invasivo di sorveglianza telefonica. Il programma permetteva alla Nsa di raccogliere i cosiddetti metadati dei chiamanti. Informazioni come chi e quando veniva chiamato venivano immagazzinate in un database governativo. La chiusura del programma è un passo positivo verso il recupero della privacy perduta…

According to Reuters, as of last Sunday, the NSA has shut down their invasive phone surveillance program. Under the program, the NSA collected callers’ so-called metadata.  Under the system, information such as what numbers people called and when they called were gathered and retained in a government database. This program’s closing is a positive step…

You could make a sport out of writing on police misconduct at this point. And to date I may as well have — I’ve written about police brutality and the (partly intentional) lack of statistics for said brutality. More recently I’ve written about their ability to act like a mafia towards their critics as well….

When I heard noted filmmaker Quentin Tarantino had participated in a rally devoted to opposing police brutality, I thought that was cool. When I heard that the police unions were encouraging people to boycott his upcoming movie, The Hateful Eight, I thought that was funny. But when I heard that the Fraternal Order of Police,…