Civil Liberties & Privacy

The Washington Post’s Cave-In on Moussaoui

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 8, 2003

In a major reversal of position, it seems that the Washington Post has abandoned its position that the Justice Department should remove Zacarias Moussaoui from the jurisdiction of a federal district court and transfer him to the control of U.S. military authorities for trial by military tribunal. ...

Are Military Tribunals Worth Dying For?

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 6, 2003

Despite the fact that the U.S. government so far is not applying military tribunals to U.S. citizens, the stakes have now gone up for the American people. What began as a life-and-death issue for the federal government’s detainees at Guantanamo Bay has now been converted into a life-and-death issue for the American people. For al-Qaeda ...

Crossing the Rubicon

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 11, 2003

Have you noticed how many Americans get upset over the comparisons that are increasingly being made between the United States and National Socialist Germany? After all, it’s not as though we’re living in a police state, right? Well, if U.S. officials could somehow assure us that the U.S. government’s treatment ...

Celebrating the Fourth of July

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 4, 2003

Let’s not mince words: The “freedom” that Americans celebrate today is opposite to the freedom that Americans celebrated on, say, July 4, 1890. Think about it: In 1890, Americans were celebrating a way of life in which there was no income tax, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, drug war, gun control, ...

What’s Happened to America?

by Sheldon Richman July 4, 2003

Who says the government schools and the welfare state don’t work? They work perfectly. They were designed to put the American people into a political coma, and that’s what they’ve done. The objective would never be framed that way. The politicians would say that the purpose was to create ...

Drugged Up on Power

by Sheldon Richman July 2, 2003

Congress, pushed by a president who clearly intends to get reelected partly by stealing the Democrats’ ideas, is moving toward expanding Medicare to include prescription drugs. That may be good news for win-at-any-price Republicans, but it’s bad news for sound medical care, and, more important, for individual liberty. Here’s ...

The Ten Planks of the “Freedom” Manifesto

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 13, 2003

Now, tell me if I have this right: It doesn’t really matter whether President Bush and his associates lied about Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” or exaggerated the danger — even though the reason that most Americans supported the war was the threat of imminent attack from such weapons — ...

Our Lives and Liberty Turn on Moussaoui

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 11, 2003

There is little difficulty, and there is often very little gain, in declaring the existence of a right to personal freedom. The true difficulty is to secure its enforcement. The Habeas Corpus Acts have achieved this end, and have done for the liberty of Englishmen more than could have been achieved by any declaration of ...

Security and the Right to Liberty

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 9, 2003

As everyone knows, the federal government has seized upon the September 11 terrorist attacks to expand its power to harass and spy on both immigrants and American citizens. “We must give up some liberty to protect our security,” government supporters often cry in an attempt to justify the federal expansion of power over our lives. Must ...

Economic Liberty and the Constitution, Part 12

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 |  Table of Contents Elsie Parrish, a chambermaid at the Cascadian Hotel in ...

Why Not Send Moussaoui to Havana and Be Done With It?

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 25, 2003

Fidel Castro recently did us the favor of showing how a communist regime wages a “war on terrorism.” Three accused hijackers were captured on the high seas attempting to escape communist tyranny and come to the United States. They were taken into custody, given a trial, and convicted; their appeals were denied, and they were ...

If This Is Freedom, What Exactly Is Dictatorship?

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 21, 2003

Let me see if I have this right. In the United States of America: 1. The president now has the unrestricted power to declare war against a country that has not attacked the United States, wreaking death and destruction on both sides of the conflict. 2. The president now has ...