Some things you just cannot make up: A device designed to control unruly inmates by blasting them with a beam of intense energy that causes a burning sensation is drawing heat from civil rights groups who fear it could cause serious injury and is “tantamount to torture.” The mechanism, known as an “Assault Intervention Device,” [...]

@ezraklein Downside of #topsecretamerica: It’s watching everything you do. Upside: It doesn’t know what it’s seeing. I believe that’s intended to be reassuring. What I’m not sure Ezra understands is that this is probably WORSE, because it’s less likely to be indiscriminately applied. Rather, it’s far more likely to be abused for political or personal [...]

When I thought of all the ways the TSA body-scanning machines could end badly, surprisingly I didn’t hit on this: A Transportation Security Administration screener is facing an assault rap after he allegedly beat a co-worker who joked about the size of the man’s genitalia after he walked through a security scanner. The May 4 [...]

The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue is currently running an ad – a friendly reminder to encourage PA residents who owe back taxes to pay up because the PDR knows where you live. Creepy huh? But don’t be alarmed PA residents who owe back taxes, go to the website (PAtaxPayup.com) and you will find that the [...]

In one of the early Republican debates in the 2008 election cycle, Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani sparred over the September 11th attacks and the role that U.S. foreign policy choices may have played in inciting the attacks: On Iraq, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the Libertarian candidate for president in 1988, stood alone in [...]

I have to think that’s the only acceptable reaction to this: The Transportation Security Administration is spreading airport body-scanner technology across the country. A TSA official said Friday that units will be fielded next week in Chicago, and in the coming months at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; San Jose, Calif.; Columbus, Ohio; San Diego; Charlotte, N.C.; [...]

Those of us who truly believe in limited government* tend to be simultaneously amused and irritated hearing the folks at CPAC speak of limited government as though it’s a principle they truly support. Yesterday, the Libertarian Party’s Executive Director Wes Benedict, monitoring the CPAC festivities from afar, said some of the things that many of [...]

This has been making the rounds, and I’d be remiss not to post it here considering how much time I spend in the air.

Bruce @ QandO, responding to this story about Obama pushing a “surge” of air marshals: Mr. Obama – the idea is to get them before they get on the freakin’ airplane. As he goes on to point out, passengers (due to human self-preservation instincts) have proven remarkably able to take down terrorists in-flight. Perhaps Obama [...]

From Jonah Goldberg, re: airline security: Anyone who flies regularly will tell you, the hellishness of airline travel is not primarily derived from the outrage of lost privacy, it’s derived from the outrage of inefficient, time-consuming idiocy. I would gladly trade the privacy invasion that would come with those body scanners in Total Recall in [...]

It’s not often when I come across something so bone-chillingly despicable that I want to post about it but can offer nothing to say beyond the mere actions taken… So look at what Iran is doing: His first impulse was to dismiss the ominous email as a prank, says a young Iranian-American named Koosha. It [...]

Over the past 30 years, America has seen Presidential scandals ranging from Watergate to Iran-Contra to Travel-gate, Whitewater, the Lewinsky scandal, and the Valerie Plame affair. We’ve learned the truth about some of the truly nefarious actions undertaken by some of most beloved Presidents of the 20th Century, including the iconic FDR, JFK, and LBJ. [...]

On Monday morning around 5:30 a.m. in Springfield, Virginia, Eric Williamson was making coffee (in the privacy of his own home) in the buff. Unbeknownst to Williamson, a woman and her 7 year old son could see him in all his glory as they took a shortcut through his front yard. The woman, horrified that [...]

The PATRIOT Act was sold to the country as the line in the sand protecting us from the murderous hordes of Islamist terrorists. Passed in a hurry following 9/11, they told us that these powers were needed for terrorism only, and not for general law-enforcement. Civil libertarians didn’t believe this assertion, of course, and as [...]

I tells ya, sometimes ya just gotta to make an example of ‘em: When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs. … Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her [...]

The more things change, the more they stay the same: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration supports extending three key provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of the year, the Justice Department told Congress in a letter made public Tuesday. Lawmakers and civil rights groups had been pressing the [...]

The July/August 2009 issue of the Left-leaning Mother Jones dedicates several articles to the asinine War on (some) Drugs. The title of the magazine’s cover story states it best – “Totally Wasted: We’ve blown $300 billion. Death squads roam Mexico. Cartels operate in 259 cities. This is your War on Drugs. Any Questions?” Reason’s Nick [...]

First a little humor in this Sprint Spoof from Reason.tv Now Dr. Ron Paul’s prescription for reforming healthcare in America

Hey Cougars? Want to flash those pearly whites and shiny disposition when that mid-20′s waiter flatters you by asking for your ID at the bar? Well, good luck in Virginia… Smiling is forbidden: Few places in Virginia are as draining to the soul and as numbing to the buttocks as the branch offices of the [...]

From the “Not The Onion” files comes a tale that I can’t even believe, much less figure out how to respond to. Is this really what the Boy Scouts are becoming? The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in [...]