This weekend Edward Snowden, a low-level employee who worked for a major defense contractor, came out to the press and acknowledged that he was the source of the leaks behind the National Security Administration's controversial spy program. The negative reaction to these revelations of the past week have been swift and strong from average Americans, some elected officials, and tech companies who have been named as participants in the NSA's data gathering scheme.

Everyone should have the right to unlock their legally owned phones in the Digital–Age yet  government policy once again is unnecessarily limiting consumer choice. In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which outlawed the sale or creation of software for circumventing anti-piracy locks on digital devices, even if they comply with copyright law.

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.

By now you've been alerted to news of another scandal breaking in the Obama Administration.  The National Security Agency has been collecting the metadata of Verizon customers in the USA and abroad since April of this year. Glenn Greenwald The Guardian broke the story on June 5th propelling the twitter hashtag NSA to trend: 

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. 

Here's a handy list of educational resources on why the IRS should not be entrusted with administering the president's health care law. I'll update this list as we publish additional resources. FreedomWorks

On today’s edition of the FreedomCast, legal scholar for the Heritage foundation and litigator, Andrew Grossman joins me to discuss the latest on the NSA phone data scandal, your rights in an increasingly technological world and why “Orwellian” seems to be the new buzzword. Related links:   

Monday was a bad day for the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court ruled in Maryland v. King, by a vote of 5-4, that it is constitutional for police to take DNA swabs of felony arrestees--who have not yet been convicted of anything--without a warrant. Yikes. All freedom lovers should be disappointed in the SCOTUS’ wrong decision: it’s a violation of our individual liberty and just downright creepy.

This is still America, right? We still have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, correct? Lately, it sure doesn’t seem like it. It seems like we are constantly hearing new stories of our rights being under attack here in America. This week, it’s the Fourth Amendment which is being systematically destroyed.