If there is one thing most of us can agree on, whether we’re liberal or conservative, it’s that we don’t want the federal government tracking us.  So I’m happy to share this except from a hearing Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) had last Tuesday with the NSA’s top lawyer, Matthew Olsen. In it, Olsen basically admits that there may be times the government has the authority to track Americans using cell site data.

The subject of the hearing was secret interpretations of the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendment Act of 2008 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Makes me nostalgic for a time when the Patriot Act was used as a way to protect us from foreign terrorists.

Apologies for the jitteriness. There were some conversion issues.

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Honestly, the first thing that comes to mind when I think “Department of Education” is No Child Left Behind, followed by a lot of trouble coming up with what else the DOE actually does in the government. Never in my life would I have thought that it contains its own set of federal agents that apparently have the power to raid people’s homes.| MORE ›

Via Hot Air, the sorta-crazy Florida pastor Terry Jones, who is best known for his burning of a Koran just weeks ago, was convicted of breach of peace by a Detroit court earlier this week. The jury found that Jones was likely to incite violence by way of his protesting:

At the start of Friday’s trial, prosecutors presented their arguments before the jury.| MORE ›

My my, the lessons American society is teaching its youth today.  Our soon to be adults are learning that you can’t even help another kid find their parent lest you be accused of kidnapping them.  According to the Orlando Sentinel, that’s what happened to one Florida teen last week, and now 14-year-old Edwin is facing charges of false imprisonment:| MORE ›

To the growing list of problems with the death penalty, add this one from Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy: It puts attorneys in a position of arguably having to commit malpractice in the best interests of their client.

Ineffective assistance of counsel is a common habeas petition claim, particularly in capital cases.| MORE ›

The LA Times says that U.S. District Judge George H. Wu will throw out the conviction of Lori Drew, the mother who stalked and harassed Megan Meier, a classmate of her daughter’s, until Megan committed suicide, when his written ruling is filed, probably next week.| MORE ›

Sometimes, it’s nice to be proven wrong, if only in part. Last week, I spent a lot of time writing about the TSA and other organizations like Homeland Security. I argued that we are seeing more and more security-state policies everyday, and that we risk slipping from security-state to police-state.| MORE ›

Apparently, cigarettes are the new crack cocaine. At least, that’s what New York mayor Michael Bloomberg seems to believe. After banning smoking in indoor public areas, he now wants to do the same with outdoor areas such as parks, beaches and pedestrian malls.

Like most ex-smokers, I’m vehemently anti-smoking.| MORE ›

Over at Salon, Glenn Greenwald apparently found it fit to spend the first part of his analysis of Solicitor General Elena Kagan as possible Supreme Court nominee in order to marvel about how it was possible that a Democratic president might nominate someone more moderate for the high bench (emph. his):| MORE ›

Speaking with MSNBC’s “Meet the Press,” the Senate’s top Republican, Senator Mitch McConnell, said Sunday that although he admires Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s personal story, he will not vote for her confirmation to the Supreme Court.

McConnell said he is a “big fan” of her biography and career but that he has a problem with her personal views.| MORE ›

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that a strip search of a 13-year-old girl in a hunt for ibuprofen (brand name: Advil) was unconstitutional. The court relied on a 1985 precedent that requires searches of students take into account the severity of the offense and the age and sex of the student. While the application of such a vague standard is clearly difficult in some cases, it is not in a search for Advil.| MORE ›