Freedom Daily Archive

Obama Codifies Indefinite Detention

by Sheldon Richman March 27, 2012

In yet another reversal of his professed commitment to the rule of law, President Obama says he will sign the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which formalizes his authority to imprison terrorism suspects indefinitely without charge or trial. Where is the “progressive” outrage? George W. Bush and Obama both claimed that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) ...

Abolish the Postal Monopoly

by James Bovard March 11, 2012

Since the 1840s, it has been a federal crime to provide better mail service than Uncle Sam chooses to provide. The Postal Service has a monopoly on first-class mail delivery (with a limited exemption for urgent, courier-delivered letters costing more than $3). The monopoly has become more indefensible with each passing decade — especially since the government has been ...

The Road to the Permanent Warfare State, Part 11

by Gregory Bresiger March 10, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 |Part 12 |Part 13 In reviewing the history of the English Government, its wars and ...

With Freedom and Justice for Some, Part 2

by Glenn Greenwald March 6, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 Revealingly, the central function of the Constitution as law — the supreme law — was to impose limitations not on the behavior of ordinary citizens but on the federal government itself. The government, and those who ran it, were not placed outside the law, but expressly targeted by it. Indeed, the ...

The Natural Right to Be Free

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2012

It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom by Andrew P. Napolitano (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011); 240 pages. Three recent books on libertarianism — Jeffrey A. Miron’s Libertarianism, from A to Z (Basic Books, 2010); Jacob H. Huebert’s Libertarianism Today (Praeger, 2010); and Tom G. Palmer’s Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, ...

The Greatest Threat to Our Freedom, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 27, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Suppose a nation’s constitution prohibits the ruler of the country from infringing fundamental, God-given rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, privacy, economic liberty, and gun rights. Suppose also that the constitution provides a myriad of procedural obstacles and obstructions before the government can ...

War with Iran Would Be Madness

by Sheldon Richman February 10, 2012

Barack Obama’s refusal to rule out military action against Iran, and several Republican presidential candidates’ pledge to launch a war if elected, should appall anyone who believes, with the free-market liberal Ludwig von Mises, that “not war, but peace, is the father of all things.” If the U.S. government or Israel were to attack Iran, all hell would break loose. ...

TSA — Tenth Anniversary of a National Nightmare

by James Bovard February 8, 2012

Less than a month after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush promised Americans, “We will not surrender our freedom to travel.” In hindsight, he may have been referring to himself and other high-ranking government officials. Because for all other Americans, airline travel has become more arduous and more perilous in the past ten years. The Bush administration and Congress responded ...

The Road to the Permanent Warfare State Part 10

by Gregory Bresiger February 5, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 |Part 12 |Part 13 Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the ...

With Freedom and Justice for Some, Part 1

by Glenn Greenwald February 2, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 As a litigator who practiced for more than a decade in federal and state courts across the country, I’ve long been aware of the inequities that pervade the American justice system. The rich enjoy superior legal representation and therefore much better prospects for success in court than the poor. The powerful ...

Fear, Inc.

by Matthew Harwood February 1, 2012

Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State by Dana Priest and William Arkin (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011); 320 pages. All Americans are equal, but some are more equal than others. Since the attacks of September 11, a new, powerful class of people has swarmed into the nation’s capital and its surrounding suburbs. Armed ...

The Greatest Threat to Our Freedom, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 29, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Of all the dangers to the freedom of the American people, I would rank the enemy-combatant doctrine as the greatest. In my opinion, the federal government’s power to label a person a terrorist as part of its so-called war on terrorism — a power that came into ...