The IRS, in its zeal to block the legal political activity of conservative groups, has still not come clean. The agency is out of control, and needs serious reform, and ought to be shuttered, its services provided in some other way.

Lovers of freedom know that a limited government is the only way to achieve it. Limiting our government in the modern age means also limiting how it uses our personal data.  If you want to keep a secret, don't tell anyone. The only way to be sure data is not used improperly is not to allow them to collect it.

There is much confusion about the NSA’s secret surveillance program Prism. It doesn’t record the content of all of our private phone and other digital communications. Rather, it stores so-called “metadata” about them for future reference, in perpetuity. By its own admission, the federal government is collecting massive amounts of ‘metadata’ on every single American. 

Spread the news: tax man has got a new job! Well, sort of. You’ll still see him every April for your 1040, but now he’ll also be handling your healthcare. Under Obamacare, the IRS will have 47 new powers and duties requiring thousands of new employees and billions of more dollars.

“The largest consolidation of personal data in the history of the republic.” ~ USA Today

As a kid, I had a bookcase devoted to 24 leather-bound tomes containing “the Sum of Human Knowledge.” Whenever I had to do a school report, from aardvarks to Zanzibar, I would pull out the correct volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica and take notes. (It was tougher to report on Krakatoa and Martin Luther since my cousins’ Irish Setter ate K-L. [Remind me to tell you about the time he chewed through a wall.])

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

The National Security Agency (NSA) used a top secret court order to collect telephone records on millions of Americans without their consent. The order demanded Verizon to provide records on an "ongoing, daily basis" to the federal government on calls both within the United States and between the United States and other countries.

This morning we learned that the National Security Administration (NSA) has been collecting the phone records of every domestic Verizon customer since at least late April of this year. Under the auspices of "national security" the Obama Administration has been monitoring "meta-data" from Verizon customers. This includes who you're calling, where you're calling from and how long those calls last.

What is going on with Republican (?) Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina? He’s never been the most conservative of conservatives but, this week, he’s managed to tell us just how unimportant he finds the Constitution not once, but twice. Apparently, in Lindsey Graham’s world, the First and Fourth amendments are disposable.