Several of the most controversial and draconian provisions of the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will expire December 31 unless renewed...
Jon Pincus joins us to talk essential, nuts-and-bolts issues: Will Congress reauthorize certain parts of the Patriot Act? We also talk Roman Polanski's arrest and the immediate "rape apology" by half of Hollywood.
The Obama administration has been nervous about prosecuting Bush officials, lest it be accused of conducting a partisan witch hunt. But Obama has a legal obligation to uphold the law.
Republicans are still telling lies, only now the lies and misrepresentation are about health reform. And their lies are being believed once again.
Programs that allow governments to spy on their own citizens are often directed against writers and intellectuals and pose a serious threat to the intellectual and creative freedoms of all citizens.
by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ian Millhiser and Nate Carlile To receive The Progress Report in your email inbox e...
One of the surest clues to the abuse of power is when state officials start inventing new words to describe their own actions.
Economists have a concept they call "revealed preferences." The basic idea is that it's one thing to ask someone how much they value something. It's a...
Pirates are in the news these days. So is torture. What a strange set of sentences that is to begin an article about the twenty-first century world w...
In light of Mr. Bush's hyperactive executive branch, it is not unthinkable to consider whether our new president will follow suit.
Feinstein's call for the appointment of a CIA director who can be linked to the practices Obama has made clear must end demonstrates how out of touch she is on intelligence.
The Obama transition team is taking questions again at Change.gov -- while the press has fixated on the Blagojevich scandal, the allegations of torture by officials in the current administration receive scant attention.
What a delightful change after a regime of secrecy, classified documents, and withholding information not just from citizens, but the press. What a breath of fresh air!
Mike German was a once-politically conservative crack undercover agent who has found a new home at the ACLU, where he uses his insider knowledge to hold his former employer's feet to the fire.
Obama is going to do something to absolutely enrage leftists, progressives, and the few remaining Americans who actually call themselves liberals; and, furthermore, he's going to do it within his first 100 days in office.
The conservative Counter-Establishment is the most cast-iron entanglement of alliances and dependencies known in modern American history.
DPI allows companies like AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner to pry open user's trunks, erect new tolls and sell off or bar privileged access based on what they find inside.
While we're all waiting for someone to leak the Palin Troopergate Report (which is reminiscent of waiting for "Fitzmas" during the whole Scooter Libby...
The Bush administration told us that the government had to engage in warrantless surveillance to stop terrorists from attacking America. Administrati...
This privacy nightmare was born one on the one hand of bad legislation, abusive surveillance tactics and politically-motivated fear mongering, and on dramatic changes in technology on the other.
Back in Volume 36 of this Friday Talking Points column, I pointed out what seemed to me to be an obvious observation -- that the media was going a lot...
