Justices Broaden Immunity for Officers

If you think that government agents who steal your personal property should be punished or at least held accountable for such actions, you’re out of luck. The United States Supreme Court has just ruled that what appeared to have been a narrow exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act that preserves sovereign immunity for wrongful acts committed by customs officers, should afford that immunity to all federal law enforcement officers. Henceforth, if you are detained or your property is detained or seized by a government law enforcement official for any colorable government purpose, and your property is mishandled, detroyed, damaged, or stolen, you’ll have no recourse whatsoever. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision.

Isn’t it wonderful to live in a country where the government is accountable?

For more detail, see “Justices Broaden Immunity for Officers,” New York Times, January 23, 2008.

Be Careful What You Read.....

Even though the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide the constitutionality of the District of Columbia’s 30-year old gun ban during the Court’s current term, many in the mainstream media are still trying to prejudice the debate through biased reporting in favor of gun control.

In a recent article, the anti-gun bias of Newsday was made crystal clear in the headline to a piece that appeared in Newsday.com announcing that “District attorneys nationwide ask Supreme Court to keep gun ban.” Based on this headline, you’d expect that a significant number of district attorneys from all parts of the country were supporting the District’s gun ban that had been invalidated last year by a federal court of appeals. Wrong! While the headline is designed clearly to leave the reader with that impression, the facts – not revealed in the article – are quite the opposite.

While the article accurately relates that 18 district attorneys have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the D.C. gun ban, what the magazine doesn’t tell you is that this represents less than .7% of all district attorneys in the country! That’s right, only 18 out of some 2,700 district attorneys apparently have gone on record with the High Court supporting the D.C. gun ban. Less than one percent. Hardly a landslide movement. Moreover, while these anti-Second Amendment district attorneys do represent jurisdictions from the east to the west coast, they are hardly representative of the population – virtually all hail from liberal, metropolitan areas such as New York City, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, and Atlanta.

I suppose after all these years of having the Second Amendment bashed by the likes of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, his predecessor Rudy Giuliani, and other liberal mayors, and by much of the media in those cities, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see the bias continue even as the Supreme Court is poised to hopefully find the D.C. gun ban unconstitutional, just as did the court below it. I guess that worries the anti-firearms crowd. That’s not a bad thing.

Ongoing FISA Legislation

Senate has put off til January the re-authoauthorization on the so-called Protect America Act which basically opened up for the government virtually every international telephone call or email by anyone in this country to or from someone overseas (the PAA was signed last August 5th and expires the beginning of Febuary ’08). The administration and its supporters in the Senate also want to grant full retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that violated the old FISA law and gave government agents virtually unlimited access to subscriber phone data without any court orders or supervision.

Best thing that could happen would be for the PAA to simply expire, but the administration will do everything it can to avoid that. A handful of Senatorts – e.g., Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold, et al. – are waging a courageous fight to limit government surveillance and telecom immunity.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

A huge thumbs up to Ted Nugent and his recent article, “I Fell Like Writing Another Gun Celebration Column.”

In the town of Colorado Springs, CO, a young woman used her concealed weapon to protect herself, and the people around her during a church gathering this week. She used her gun to defend herself, her congregation, and her freedom. She should be commended for taking the high road of defense instead of cowering in the corner and taking what the gunman was giving to her and the congregation.

Ted Nugent should also be commended for taking the initiative of writing such a strong and moving article.

“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

For more:

http://lucy-chronicles.livejournal.com/37883.html

Privacy Protection During the Holidays

With the holiday season upon us, with its attendant shopping, this is a good time to be aware of several small, but important steps we can take to help protect our privacy and avoid identity theft.

For example, many retailers ask for your zip code, telephone number, or address when making a purchase or exchange. It is never necessary to give out this information, and it is better if you don’t.

Also, when shopping, notice that the store keeps a copy of your receipt, and you are given a copy. While most stores comply with the law and do not print your full credit card number on the receipt, some still (and inappropriately) have the complete credit card number on the receipt. Make sure that only the last four digits are visible on their (and your) copy of the receipt.

Finally, when making internet purchases, only do so from a “secured” website. Such sites are considered more secure because they have specific firewalls installed that make it more difficult for hackers to access your information. While nothing is completely “hacker-proof,” this is at least one good way to ensure you have taken steps to protect yourself from having your information stolen.

For more information, see:

http://www.scambusters.org/CreditCardFraud.html

Facebook and its Lack of Privacy

In the world of high technology and convenience, we sometimes need to be reminded that there is a cost associated with having both. And companies need to be reminded to do their homework before putting things out into the public spectrum. The users and managers of Facebook are facing such difficulties.

Facebook is a free site that receives the majority of its funding through advertisers and contributions; most people would likely consider that this would extend to banner ads, side page ads, and the occasional pop-ups. However, internet advertising agencies are going beyond these reasonable efforts; and this is what is especially troubling. The program is called “Beacon” and the sole purpose is to memorize your purchases. While this may be considered an appropriate tool for internet stores to employ in order to track purchases and make suggestions to you based on your purchase upon checkout, it would seem highly problematic when employed in an endeavor such as Facebook. The version installed on Facebook essentially does the same thing, except this time, everyone one of your “friends” will also be allowed to view your purchase history.

Originally, the tracking part of the program would be able to be turned off by its users. The problem is that once implemented on Facebook, “Beacon” has no way of turning off - - and no option for users to have the ability to turn it off, with or without permission.

This might not seem like a big deal in hind sight, but it is a slippery slope, and may very well – if continued – raise serious privacy concerns; even perhaps involving Fourth Amendment issues. For Facebook and its creator, Matt Zuckerberg, this is not the first time they have been in the hot seat this year when it comes to privacy rights.

This brings us back to the Big Brother issue our country is facing today. How much imposition is too much imposition? What kind of rights are we going to have left if we allow the government, businesses, and other entities to continue to chip away at our privacy – something Ayn Rand correctly identified as the very foundation of civilization? It is important that we, as citizens, educate ourselves about the privacy underpinings in the Bill of Rights, and ensure that we promote and vote for leaders of this country who will also keep our rights in the highest regard – and support only those businesses that commit themselves to doing likewise.

Cry Me a River.

Last Sunday, in an interview with Chris Wallace, Senator and presidential candidate Fred Thompson complained that Fox News was portraying him in a negative light and thereby hurting his campaign. Welcome to the real world, Senator!

Probably the best thing Senator Thompson could do would be to quit whining, start showing some fire in the belly, and put forward specific and comprehensive ideas for the presidency he covets. (Of course, any campaign that has to spend its time telling people “I’m not lazy,” is in trouble anyway.)


http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/thompson-charges-fox-news-is-biased-against-his-campaign-2007-11-25.html