Outside the Beltway

New technology brings the day of round the clock tracking of citizens who’ve done nothing wrong ever closer.

There are many fallacies contained within the GOP’s insistence that immigration reform must begin and end with “border security.”

A privacy rights group has filed a Petition with the Supreme Court regarding recent actions by the FISA Court.

Chief Justice Roberts is the only person who gets to say who sits on the FISA Court.

Don’t blame “secret courts” for the government’s expanded spying on American citizens and allies.

Contemporary Americans accept actions by the state that were once the cause for revolt.

Every piece of mail you send and receive is being logged by the Postal Service.

A Colorado 6-year-old with a penis has successfully sued for the right to use the girls’ restroom.

NSA Metadata coming to a courtroom near you?

Thanks to one question from one Senator, we learned yesterday that the FBI has used surveillance drones inside the United States.

There is an important difference between private companies holding private data and government holding it.

My latest for The Atlantic, “Why Should Congress and the Courts Care About Snooping If Citizens Don’t?” has posted.

Exploring data from 33 years’ of FISA reports to Congress

The ACLU is suing over the NSA’s data mining. Does it really have a chance?

Revelations about the NSA’s data mining programs don’t seem to be having a significant impact on public opinion.

Will voters care about the revelations about NSA data mining? Signs point to no.

Not only do we not know the whole story of the NSA data mining operation, key details of what thought we knew are wrong.

Jay Stanley and Ben Wizner, privacy experts at the ACLU, argue that metadata is more sensitive than we think.

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.