Outside the Beltway

Just because NSA data mining is legal, that doesn’t mean it’s proper or that the American people should tolerate it.

In what may be the worst sales pitch in history, President Obama says, “”If people don’t trust the executive branch, and also congress and the judicial branch, then we’re going to have some problems here.”

At what point do science and magic converge? And what are the potential costs?

Big Brother is doing more than just checking your phone records.

The NSA’s data mining project is about more than just subpoenas for cell phone records.

Apparently, it’s not just reporters whose phone logs the Obama administration is tracking.

Another body blow to the Fourth Amendment from the Supreme Court.

Eric Holder’s testimony before Congress is leading to accusations of perjury, but the argument that he did so seem pretty weak.

Once again, national security wins and privacy loses.

The insanity of “Zero Tolerance” policies.

Will drivers really be okay with Google tracking everywhere they go in their self-driving car?

Justice Ginsburg made some interesting comments about Roe v. Wade recently. Could they be a signal about where the Court is headed on gay marriage?

The world’s first entirely 3-D printed gun is now a reality.

The American people aren’t panicking.

Are civil liberties once again at risk in the wake of the bombing attack in Boston?

Opponents of immigration reform are deceptively attempting to use the bombing attack in Boston to derail immigration reform.

The Boston Marathon bombing attacks are leading some politicians to make wildly absurd statements.

Big Brother is watching us. And he may be watching us a lot more after what happened in Boston.

Are we heading toward an era where a diagnosis of mental illness becomes an instrument for state oppression?

Keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people while protecting individual liberty isn’t easy.

The Senate looks like it’s about ready to take up a bipartisan immigration reform package.

The Manchin/Toomey proposal on background checks isn’t perfect, but it isn’t horrible either.

The GOP’s decision to filibuster the Senate Gun Control Bill doesn’t make a lot of political sense.

All of us being watched, all the time, and that data being stored forever.

The Fourth Amendment got even weaker yesterday.

In news you’ve known for years, Jodie Foster has announced that she’s a lesbian.

Robert Bork, the controversial jurist whose failed Supreme Court bid ushered in a new climate in American politics, has died at 85.

Obsessive media coverage makes us believe mass shootings are far more common than they actually are.

Remember when the Bush administration was spying on calls Americans made overseas without a warrant? Those were the good old days.

Not as much learning going on as one might like, to be honest.

If nothing else, the Petraeus affair is teaching us a valuable lesson in just how extensive the Surveillance State has become.

The David Petraeus/Paula Broadwell story gets curiouser.

Sometimes, real life catches up with those who think their online life is secret.

The response rates for opinion polling of all types has become incredibly low.

Secret surveillance of American citizens has dramatically increased under the Obama Administration.

The 9/11 attacks and our response to them changed America, and not for the better.

Based on its recently passed platform, the Democratic Party has given up any pretense of putting civil liberties ahead of “national security.”