I’m shocked — shocked! — that Colonel Denise Lind, the military judge who ruled in February that Bradley Manning could be tried on various charges even after being held prior to arraignment for more than five times the absolute longest time specified in the US Armed Forces’ “speedy trial” rules, has now also ruled that…

The Internet industries of America may just have inadvertently had their hats handed to them by the military industrial complex. Now it’s up to Europe to provide an alternative to the surveillance state. Almost all of the major Internet industry giants are based in the United States. The reasons for this are historical and economical. The tradition of strong…

Esperado e oficial – o estado de escuta global. O vazamento de Edward Snowden para The Guardian mostrou à escâncara o quanto os Estados Unidos foram longe em nome da “segurança nacional”. O que os vazamentos revelaram foi um governo fora dos limites de sua constituição, dedicado à coleta secreta de informações, e incrivelmente intrometido. Nos recintos do poder…

Recently, I spoke at the “Syria: Not Our War” anti-war rally in Oklahoma City. My topic was something like “there are no humanitarian interventions.” One correction is that when I say “any worse” toward the end, I meant to say “any better.” http://youtu.be/GFDKqJlTzYQ Thanks to Alan Brown from Liberty Minded for getting video!

Long after the February 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, defendant George Zimmerman, has been found not guilty by a jury of his peers. The case has remained a hot topic for media since it was first reported. The unarmed teenager was shot and killed in a street fight with Zimmerman, a 29-year-old member of his neighborhood…

Expected and official – the global surveillance state. Edward Snowden’s leak to The Guardian blew wide open just how far the United States has gone in the name of “national security”. What has been revealed by the leaks is a government outside the limits of its constitution, dedicated to intelligence, and incredibly intrusive. With in…

WHAT is patriotism? Is it love of one’s birthplace, the place of childhood’s recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations? Is it the place where, in childlike naivety, we would watch the fleeting clouds, and wonder why we, too, could not run so swiftly? The place where we would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken lest…

Now we can add border militarization to America’s list of “moral equivalents of war” — all of which involve tightening state control over the public and funneling billions in loot from taxpayers to corporate interests. As part of the US Senate’s “Immigration Reform” package, the border control budget will increase by $38 billion over ten…

On a very cold day in February more than 40,000 people came together in Washington DC from across the United States and Canada for the largest climate rally in US history — Forward on Climate. They urged the Obama administration to take climate science and our energy crisis seriously. They called attention to devastating storms,…

Libertarians often insist Independence Day is really our holiday, which statists have no right to celebrate with a straight face. But perhaps this whole approach is misguided. Maybe the lovers of freedom should be the ones loath to bring out the fireworks. Surely, conservatives who cherish the Fourth of July while cheering today’s wars have…

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over…

American traditions, begotten of religious rebellion, small self-sustaining communities, isolated conditions, and hard pioneer life, grew during the colonization period of one hundred and seventy years from the settling of Jamestown to the outburst of the Revolution. This was in fact the great constitution-making epoch, the period of charters guaranteeing more or less of liberty,…

“The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.” – Lord Acton Jeff Olson, a 40 year old Californian Occupy activist was just acquitted after facing 13 years in prison for scrawling anti-bank chalk messages outside of three San Diego branches…

Last Thursday, the US Senate passed an expansive “immigration reform” bill. The bill’s Hoeven-Corker Amendment would increase the US government’s “border security” spending to $46.3 billion. This money will be used to create what John McCain calls “the most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” staffed by at least 38,405 Border Patrol agents….

Today I had the great pleasure of appearing on my friend Jake Shannon’s radio show. Mostly we discussed WikiLeaks whistleblower Pfc. Manning, and the work I’m doing with Freedom Torch in Salt Lake to stand in solidarity with Manning and other whistleblowers. C4SS was one of the first sponsors of the Freedom Torch Parade. While whistleblowers were the…

Are you concerned about overpopulation? If you live in a city, or Asia, it is easy to feel justified. But strictly speaking, the Earth has plenty of land, air, food and water for billions more. The limit is energy and the true crisis is poverty. Billions live in a world of destitution brought about by state-augmented…

The recent reports of secret NSA surveillance reveal the important role the whistleblowers play in uncovering government wrongdoing. Edward Snowden is the latest whistleblower to face the Obama administration’s wrath for uncovering executive branch criminality. But another victim of the administration’s War on Whistleblowers is Private Bradley Manning. Manning  currently faces charges of “aiding the…

To most Americans Anarchy is an evil-sounding word — another name for wickedness, perversity, and chaos. Anarchists are looked upon as a herd of uncombed, unwashed, and vile ruffians, bent on killing the rich and dividng their capital. Anarchy, however, to its followers actually signifies a social theory which regards the union of order with…

We must get rid of the Anarchists! They are a menace to society. Does not Hearst say so? Do not the M. & M. and the gentlemaen of the Chamber of Commerce, who have also declared war on Labor, assure us that the Anarchists are dangerous and that they are responsible for all our troubles?…

A White House petition asking US president Barack Obama to pardon NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has passed the 100,000-signature mark, theoretically compelling a response from the Obama administration (I say “theoretically” because the finish line on these petitions has been moved before). My own sympathies naturally lie with Snowden, and the petitioners’ hearts are presumably…