Civil Liberties & Privacy

The Standard of Liberty

by Rodney D. Lewis March 1, 1994

The concept of a standard is as old as man himself. It has been expressed in man's earliest writings. Moses understood its principles; so did the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the ancient dynasties of China and Japan — in every society, there have been those who have understood its principles. Standards are so powerful that adherence to their principles ...

The War on Cash and Privacy

by Donald S. McAlvany March 1, 1994

In the former Soviet Union, if the government wanted to apprehend and imprison someone who had committed no crime, they charged him with the catchall crime of "hooliganism." In America, the catchall crime used against organized crime figures or other Americans has for years been RICO statutes or ...

How Police Confiscation Is Destroying America, Part 2

by Jarret B. Wollstein November 1, 1993

Part 1 | Part 2 Under the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984 and other federal crime laws, any monies a defense attorney receives from a client can be confiscated — either before or after trial — if the government alleges they were the proceeds of an illegal transaction. In March 1992, the Securities and Exchange Commission froze all of the ...

Toward an American Police State

by Donald S. McAlvany November 1, 1993

George Orwell's 1984 has arrived in the U.S.S.A. Just as in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and in Russia from 1917 to 1990, any government agent or agency in America today can confiscate or seize almost any property from any American and there is very ...

How Police Confiscation Is Destroying America, Part 1

by Jarret B. Wollstein October 1, 1993

Part 1 | Part 2 Throughout America, police are now seizing cars, houses and bank accounts — without trial . . . and killing innocent Americans. The police now have the legal power to confiscate anything and everything that you own. Without trial, conviction, or even indictment, police are seizing cars, bank accounts, homes, and businesses from at least 5,000 ...

Laws That Are Criminal

by Otto Scott October 1, 1993

Until recently, forfeiture laws were a part of the English and colonial past. They were revived during the Civil War, when — in 1862 — an Abolitionist Congress permitted the president to seize the homes and estates of Confederate soldiers. This power was used especially during the postwar Reconstruction period ...

The Only Real Revolution

by Bryce Buchanan July 1, 1993

Happily for America, happily we trust for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution that has no parallel in the annals of human society. . . . In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the ...

The People’s Pottage

by Garet Garrett June 1, 1993

In 1932 a bund of intellectual revolutionaries, hiding behind the conservative planks of the Democratic party, seized control of government. After that it was the voice of government saying to the people there had been too much freedom. That was their trouble. Freedom was for the strong. ...

The Failure of Socialism and Lessons for America, Part 2

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 1993

Part 1 | Part 2 In the early 1920s, Ludwig von Mises pointed out that "socialism is the watchword of our day. The socialist idea dominates the modem spirit. The masses approve of it; it has set its seal upon our time. When history comes to tell our story it will write above the chapter, 'The Epoch of Socialism."' Since ...

The Failure of Socialism and Lessons for America, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 1993

Part 1 | Part 2 The world is watching the spectacle of Russia and the other captive nations of the former Soviet Union trying to free themselves from their seventy-five-year experiment in socialism. The bankruptcy of the system is accepted by practically everyone. The economies of the former Soviet republics are in shambles. Civil wars and ethnic violence have ...

Individual Liberty and Civil Society

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 1993

In 1819, the French classical liberal, Benjamin Constant, delivered a lecture in Paris entitled, "The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Modems." He drew his audience's attention to the fact that in the world of ancient Greece, "the aim of the ancients was the sharing of power among the citizens of the fatherland: this is ...

Wanted: A Real Deregulatory Revolution

by Doug Bandow January 1, 1993

Jennifer Crafts exemplifies the best of American entrepreneurship. She wanted both to work and to spend more time with A.J., her infant son. So she opened a restaurant-A.J.'s Place- and put A.J. in a playpen next to the kitchen. The customers were almost as happy as Jennifer to have him around. Explained regular Richard Reynolds, ...