MetaFilter posts tagged with freedom and government

"more than two centuries of surveillance in America"

amberglow — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:11:48 -0800

Tracked In America --the stories of 25 individuals who have been targeted by the U.S. government. The stories span from World War I to the post-9/11 world.

Bush vs The US Constitution

knave — Wed, 03 May 2006 15:32:31 -0800

Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush Not much of this report from the Cato institute will be surprising to MeFites, but it is a great document [31 page PDF] that summarizes Bush's consistent disregard for the Constitution and drive for greater executive power.

Article: War and Freedom: We can have both

tommyc — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 07:49:18 -0800

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers...is the foundation of totalitarianism" Perhaps Tony Blair and George W. Bush regard Winston Churchill as a bleeding heart lefty. But what Churchill's view represents is an old, very basic principle of Anglo-American warfare and justice: fight war with ferocity, but never lose your democratic soul.

This little light of mine...

baltimore — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 08:10:59 -0800

So it's Sunshine Week. That's not a weather forecast, but a creation of the press to focus attention on the need for more open government. Some sites have posted How-To Guides on filing a FOIA request, a skill without which sites like this wouldn't be able to publish entertaining mugshots and court documents. My local paper has a package of articles on Sunshine Week. Anything happening in your town?

Return of COINTELPRO?

homunculus — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 00:53:04 -0800

Lost Liberties? Salon has an interesting two part series on the tensions between antiwar protesters and law enforcement. Part 1: "Outlawing dissent: Spying on peace meetings, cracking down on protesters, keeping secret files on innocent people -- how Bush's war on terror has become a war on freedom." Part 2: "A thousand J. Edgar Hoovers: State and local police are taking it upon themselves to investigate antiwar activists -- and in the computer age, the threat to our civil liberties is even greater than it was in Hoover's day." Does Protester = Criminal?

mattpusateri — Wed, 18 Sep 2002 12:45:58 -0800

Paging Winston Smith... Not content with mere cynical doublespeak, the Bush Administration is now trying to shape government reports and research to agree with the President's beliefs: an EPA report omits a section on global warming for the first time in six years; the Department of Health and Human Services is being "restructured," eliminating committees that were coming to conclusions at odds with the president's views; and at the Department of Education, old studies that contradict the current administration's policies are being removed from the agency's web site. When you add this trend to the administration's "permanent war," I suspect George Orwell is smiling somewhere...

rushmc — Thu, 23 May 2002 09:23:07 -0800

Does privacy have a place in society anymore? Or is it incompatible with a crowded and technologically-advanced world? If we must submit to constant surveillance, who should we trust to watch?

rushmc — Thu, 02 May 2002 17:29:16 -0800

Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the General Government. --Thomas Jefferson