Adam Dick

Judge Andrew Napolitano, an RPI Advisory Board member, explains on Fox News last week that the US Congress can restrain the National Security Agency’s mass spying by cutting the NSA’s budget. “The recourse is to persuade Congress to clip the NSA’s wings by taking some of its budget away from it—and that almost happened a few months ago, and it may happen after the first of the year,” says Napolitano.

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Rep. Walter Jones, speaking on the US House of Representatives floor yesterday morning, called on Congress to exercise its constitutional power over US military policy in Afghanistan. In particular, Jones insisted that Congress debate and vote on the matter instead of acquiescing to keeping the US military in Afghanistan for ten more years under a bilateral security agreement being negotiated by US President Barack Obama and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.

Near the conclusion of his four minutes speech Jones states:

To the American soldier, I’m sorry to say, but, if we don’t do our job in congress, you will be [in Afghanistan] until 2024.

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RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul, in an interview Thursday with John Stossel on Fox Business, explains that the United States is in the middle of an intellectual revolution powered by the “message of liberty.” Paul points to grassroots opposition preventing a US government attack on Syria as a manifestation of the revolution.

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Federal Bureau of Investigation documents released last week reveal the FBI investigated Antiwar.com, a website regularly publishing content critical of US foreign policy, for at least six years based on the content and audience of the antiwar.com website, as well as an asinine mistake by the FBI.

According to Julia Harumi Mass of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which is representing Antiwar.com in a lawsuit against the FBI, the FBI produced in response to a document request in the lawsuit documents confirming “that the FBI targeted and spied on Antiwar.com [and the website’s founding editors Eric] Garris and [Justin] Raimondo based on their First Amendment protected activity and kept records about that activity in violation of federal law.” Mass elaborates on the anti-press freedom justifications for the investigation:

One of the factors that prompted the FBI to investigate the editors of the online magazine was that Justin Raimondo writes under this pseudonym. The content of a writer’s published opinions and whether they write under a pseduonym [sic] should never be used to characterize someone as a potential threat to national security, or justify an FBI investigation. The First Amendment protects anonymous speech too. News articles and the comments of the public should not be included in FBI intelligence files unless they’re necessary to a real criminal investigation.

The second flawed factor that prompted the FBI investivgation [sic] is that “many individuals worldwide…including individuals who are currently under investigation” view the website. Presumably people around the world, “including individuals who are currently under [FBI] investigation” view all kinds of websites and news sources. Being part of a successful media outlet should not make a journalist suspicious and should not be the basis for government surveillance.

In addition, Mass points to a mistake as a third factor prompting the investigation:

The third flawed and incorrect factor was the FBI’s mistaken conclusion that Eric Garris had threatened to hack the FBI website. In fact, Garris reported to the FBI that he was the recipient of a hacking threat to Antiwar.com. After reporting this threat, he was instructed to forward the email to the FBI, which he did. The FBI later concluded that Garris had threatened to hack the FBI website and placed him under suspicion.

It is an odd mistake for the FBI to interpret Garris’s reporting of a hacking threat against the Antiwar.com website as a threat by Garris against the FBI’s website. The flub up could have been rectified and an illegitimate investigation potentially prevented by just double-checking Garris’s communication with the FBI. Instead, the asinine mistake remained uncorrected, allowing the investigation to proceed with a justification not rooted in concern about First Amendment-protected expression.

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Journalist extraordinaire James Bovard explains in a Washington Times editorial Tuesday why, even though many in the media do not want to admit it, there is widespread and justified hostility toward the Transportation Security Administration. Bovard writes:

In the wake of last Friday’s shootings at Los Angeles International Airport, some politicians and media commentators are feigning shock at the widespread hostility toward the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). There was no justification for the shooting suspect, Paul Ciancia, to gun down three TSA agents on the job, killing one. Ciancia’s brutal rampage, though, should not obscure the fact that the TSA has perennially pushed many Americans to the breaking point.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.