J.D. Tuccillle over at Reason has an excellent article entitled: “Why I’m Teaching My Son To Break the Law.” Tuccille explains that when the law runs contrary to one’s conscience, s/he should disobey said law (the primary example used in the article was when in 1858 residents in Oberlin and Wellington, Ohio prevented the police [...]

…why I don’t trust people who want power: By mid-May Steve [Heymann] was acting weird. None of his raids seemed to have turned up what he wanted. Aaron’s lawyer was talking to JSTOR, which had found him through Steve. We had contacted people to talk to JSTOR, eminent people, many of whom were shocked by [...]

In Little Canada, MN the police are trying to argue that Andrew Henderson violated HIPPA (federal healthcare privacy law) when he recorded a police interaction with a third party which required an ambulance. His camera was confiscated, the file was deleted (according to Henderson), and is being charged with “disorderly conduct” and “obstruction of the [...]

Today, I had the joy of observing an officer of the Newton Police force take a bad situation and make it worse.  The incident showed much that is wrong in the relationship between the common citizen and the government that is there to protect him or her. An elderly person had fallen and a police [...]

This week, the State of Connecticut made progress in the right direction on the criminal justice front on two issues I care deeply about: the right of individuals to record the police in public and abolishing the death penalty. Earlier today, the Connecticut Senate passed a bill 42-11 that would hold the police liable for [...]

How about some good news on the civil liberties front to kick off the week for a change? Robert Barnes writing for The Washington Post reports that SCOTUS ruled 9-0 in United States v. Jones stating that the police placing a GPS tracking device on a person’s vehicle and tracking said vehicle over days, weeks, [...]

We’re not going black today, over SOPA or PIPA. In case you by some miracle hadn’t noticed it yet, tens of thousands of web sites around the country and around the world, are “going black” or putting up banners explaining that they are not available or there is no content today etc… In protest against [...]

December 15, 2011 marks the 220th anniversary of the Bill of Rights – at least what is left of them. Anthony Gregory’s article at The Huffington Post runs through the list of violations of these precious rights from the Adams administration’s Alien and Sedition acts all the way to the present day violations of the [...]

Disclaimer: The views expressed here at The Liberty Papers either by the post authors or views found in the comments section do not necessarily reflect the views of The Innocence Project nor its affiliates. In support of our fundraising efforts for The Innocence Project, I have decided to dedicate at least one post per week [...]

I don’t know how much play if any this story has received in the national media but it has been a subject of local news and talk shows here in the Denver media market. Basically, an 11 year old boy drew a disturbing picture for his school counselor and later that evening, the boy was [...]

Money quote from the interview: “Asserting your Constitutional rights is not a trick in any way. What the police officers do is a trick […] police officers are legally allowed to lie.” You can watch the 10 Rules for Dealing with Police series in its entirety here (which I highly recommend whether you are one [...]

In beginning the 112th Congress, House members took turns reading the Constitution aloud to a nearly empty chamber. While I in some ways appreciate members at least uttering the words, I believe that the members would have been better served not by merely reciting the words but by studying the philosophical roots of the Constitution, [...]

As Stephen Littau noted, November 24th (Wednesday) is the busiest travel date in the country and it’s also National Opt Out Day.  To assist Opt Out Day participants, and all air travelers after Wednesday, the Opt Out Alliance is providing free “Know Your Rights” travelers cards. I spoke with one of the key people at [...]

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up (and busiest travel day of the year), a group of concerned citizens is calling November 24th “National Opt-Out Day.” Wednesday, November 24, 2010 is NATIONAL OPT-OUT DAY! It’s the day ordinary citizens stand up for their rights, stand up for liberty, and protest the federal government’s desire to virtually [...]

“Nobody likes the 4th amendment being violated when going through the security line, but the truth of the matter is we are going to have to do it.”-Former. Asst. TSA administrator Mo McGowan So when the friendly TSA agents pull you out of the line for a groping or full body nudie scan as you [...]

As cameras have become more available to individuals and government alike, viral videos of cops behaving badly have become quite pervasive on the internet. This short video by The Cato Institute provides a few recent examples of this relatively new phenomenon and explains why recording the actions of police and government officials for all the [...]

Reason’s Radley Balko reveals another disturbing story of America’s increasing police force gone awry: Last Sunday night, police in Morganton, North Carolina shot and killed 17-year-old Michael Sipes. The officers were responding to a noise complaint called in by a neighbor in the mobile home park where Sipes lived. His mother says there were three [...]

Most of us have been pulled over and issued a ticket for speeding or other moving violations at least once in our lives. It’s probably also fair to say that in many if not most cases; we don’t even bother to challenge the ticket because the patrolman says that his radar gun reading showed that [...]

The Bill of Rights provides citizens basic protections against unlawful searches and seizures via the Fourth Amendment, protections against self incrimination via the Fifth Amendment, and the right to an attorney via the Sixth Amendment. On a theoretical level, most people probably know this but what does this mean on a practical level? If the [...]