Today we have more updates on items covered here before. Eminent domain backfires, the Patriot Act not being used to stop terrorism, and the hazards of national security letters.
Those “sneak and peek” searches in the USA PATRIOT Act, where the government can conduct a search without telling you about it until later — sometimes much later — aren’t being used for terrorist investigations. In fact, they aren’t being used much at all, according to a New York Sun investigation.
Responding to the news of the FBI using national security letters to spy on innocent Americans, security expert Bruce Schneier has a must-read essay on why surveillance of innocent people is such a bad thing for our society. “This isn’t about our ability to combat terrorism; it’s about police power. . . . unfettered police power quickly resembles a police state, and checks on that power make us all safer,” he writes. And one victim of national security letters tells his story.
Ultimately, the war supporters in Congress prevailed in the vote on the resolution. Still, the vote was significant because it places every member of Congress on the record as supporting or not supporting the unconstitutional, costly, violent occupation of a country that never attacked us. This vote should serve as an important reminder to the American people of where their representatives really stand when it comes to policing the world, empire building, and war.
Gardner Goldsmith explains why claims by politicians that consumers can become "irrational" and why claims by the same politicians that government can help "fix" markets are both false and misleading. He also explains what the terms Praxeology and Epistemology mean, which is key in understanding how to place free markets in their proper place among human history.