FEE: Local cops can skirt state limits on surveillance by joining federal task forces Ed: Communities must place a firewall around their police forces, preventing outside control or influence. Their funds must come solely from the community they serve, because, like everyone else in the world, police are loyal to the source of their revenue. It’s the same argument against foreign aid: the money separates the foreign government from its people. The position of sheriff, more than probably any other in the country, must be isolated not only from federal money and influence, but also from extensive collaboration with other sheriffs. The sheriff must be independent of every individual and institution except for his or her community. It’s the only check on an expansive, law-skirting surveillance state. That the surveillance state is easily expanding into every jurisdiction in America is proof at how little “independence” is being forced on not only our sheriffs but also local district attorneys.
ACLU: 4 things to be worried about in the NSA’s new transparency report
Techdirt: Oakland residents now protected by the ‘strongest’ surveillance oversight laws in the country
The American Conservative: The conservative case against CIA pick Gina Haspel : “I have no doubt that she considers herself to be a patriot, as her supporters do. But that’s not the issue here. The issue is respect for the rule of law. Since the end of World War II, we have had laws in this country that specifically ban exactly those torture techniques implemented and overseen by Gina Haspel at a secret prison overseas. And the United States is a signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Indeed, we were the primary drafters of that measure, which, having been ratified by the Senate, has the force of law in the United States.
If Gina Haspel had any doubts about her “orders” from the CIA hierarchy, she had only to look at recent history. Just after the end of World War II, the United States executed Japanese soldiers who had waterboarded American prisoners of war. Similarly, in January 1968, the Washington Post published a front-page photo of an American soldier waterboarding a North Vietnamese prisoner. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered an investigation. The soldier was arrested, charged with torture, convicted, and sentenced to 20 years at Leavenworth.”
Ed: I think the case could be put in even simpler terms: an “enemy of the State” sounds dangerously flexible, and could be twisted to mean anything that government lawyers want it to. Do we really want a government that is permitted to torture perceived enemies of the State?
USA Today: Don’t celebrate Karl Marx. His communism has a death count in the millions. Ed: His gospel of property abolition, put into effect, formed a chrysalis from which totalitarianism emerged shortly in such horrific purity as the world had never before seen. The depths to which the human race could sink were plumbed deeply during the the 20th century, when governments slaughtered their unarmed, unresisting civilians on an industrial scale. The number stands at 262 million.
Activist Post: “Good Morning America” experiment on kids and unrestricted screen time
The Week: China’s digital nightmare
National Review: Civil liberties can’t survive partisan hatred
A perspective we should think about Zero Hedge: Is social media destroying humanity on purpose?
Washington Post: The giant sucking sound of a debt spiral
CHRIS HEDGES: The danger of leadership cults
DAVID GORDON: Confessions of an auto-didact Ed: I met David Gordon at the Mises Institute during the summer of 2008 as a sophomore in college. What a fun guy. I can’t believe it’s been a decade since attending Mises U. The class photo is still up!
Ars Technica: The material science of building a light sail to take us to Alpha Centauri
