If you fall asleep or use the bathroom during your next flight, those incriminating facts could be added to your federal dossier. Likewise, if you use your laptop or look at noisy children seated nearby with a “cold, penetrating stare,” that may be included on your...
James Bovard
That Time the Media Cheered for Gestapo Immigration Tactics
by James Bovard | Jun 28, 2018 | Featured Articles
Every Trump voter is effectively "standing at the border, like Nazis, going 'you here, you here,'" MSNBC guest Danny Deutsch declared on Friday. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden also compared the Trump administration's immigration crackdown with Nazi concentration...
Pro-War Media Deserve Criticism, Not Sainthood
by James Bovard | Jun 21, 2018 | Featured Articles
The media nowadays are busy congratulating themselves for their vigorous criticism of Donald Trump. To exploit that surge of sanctimony, Hollywood producer Steven Spielberg rushed out The Post, a movie depicting an epic press battle with the Nixon administration....
Inspector General’s Report on FBI and Clinton’s Emails Shows Secrecy Threatens Democracy
by James Bovard | Jun 17, 2018 | Featured Articles
The inspector general report on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton contained plenty of bombshells, including a promise by lead FBI investigator Peter Strzok that “we’ll stop” Donald Trump from becoming president. The report reveals how unjustified secrecy and...
A Politically Weaponized FBI is Nothing New, But Plenty Dangerous
by James Bovard | Jun 14, 2018 | Featured Articles
The Justice Department Inspector General is expected to release on Thursday its report on alleged FBI misconduct during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump supporters and opponents are already pre-spinning the report to vindicate or undercut the president....
After pointlessly groping countless Americans, the TSA is keeping a secret watchlist of those who fight back
by James Bovard | May 29, 2018 | Featured Articles
"I need a witness!" exclaimed the security screener at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Because I had forgotten to remove my belt before going through a scanner, he explained, I must undergo an "enhanced patdown." I told him that if he jammed his hand into...
Your Tax Dollars Bankroll Afghan Child Molesters
by James Bovard | May 25, 2018 | Featured Articles
Donald Trump was hailed by the media last August when he announced he was sending more US troops to fight in Afghanistan. A Washington Post editorial praised his “principled realism” and saluted “a rare but welcome story of self-correction” (since Trump had portrayed...
Spare me claims Gina Haspel will ‘speak truth to power’. Real truth-tellers go to jail.
by James Bovard | May 17, 2018 | Featured Articles
In the Senate Intelligence Committee secret vote today on whether to confirm Trump nominee Gina Haspel as chief of the CIA, she will likely again be praised for promising to “speak truth to power.” This has recently become one of the favorite accolades in the least...
Washington Secrecy is Creating a Know-Nothing Democracy
by James Bovard | May 10, 2018 | Featured Articles
Washington may be more secretive nowadays than at any time in recent decades. Federal policymakers have become accustomed to rationing what they release while citizens are assured that official secrecy makes them more secure. But American democracy cannot survive...
Don’t Celebrate Karl Marx. His Communism has a Death Count in the Millions.
by James Bovard | May 6, 2018 | Featured Articles
Saturday marked 200 years since the birth of Karl Marx, and tributes are arising out around the globe. In a New York Times tribute headlined, “Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. You Were Right!” philosophy professor Jason Barker declared that “educated liberal opinion is...
James Comey’s Forgotten Rescue of Bush-Era Torture
by James Bovard | May 1, 2018 | Featured Articles
“Here I stand, I can do no other,” James Comey told President George W. Bush in 2004 when Bush pressured Comey - who was then Deputy Attorney General - to approve an unlawful antiterrorist policy. Comey, who was FBI chief from 2013 to 2017, was quoting a line...
Bitter Lessons 25 Years After Waco, Texas, Siege
by James Bovard | Apr 17, 2018 | Featured Articles
Twenty-five years ago this week, FBI tanks smashed into the ramshackle home of the Branch Davidians outside Waco, Texas. After the FBI collapsed much of the building atop the residents, a fire erupted and 76 corpses were dug out of the rubble. Unfortunately, the...
After the FBI’s Pulse Nightclub Failure, Why Should We Trust James Comey Anymore?
by James Bovard | Apr 4, 2018 | Featured Articles
The FBI suffered another debacle on Friday when an Orlando jury returned a not guilty verdict for the widow of Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people and wounded 53 in his attack on Orlando’s Pulse nightclub in June 2016. The biggest terrorism case of the year collapsed...
Time for the US to End Democracy Promotion Flim-Flams
by James Bovard | Mar 17, 2018 | Featured Articles
Democracy promotion has long been one of the U.S. government’s favorite foreign charades. The Trump administration’s proposal to slash funding for democratic evangelism is being denounced as if it were the dawn of a new Dark Age. But this is a welcome step to draining...
Gun Crackdowns Have Already Led to Too Many Federal Abuses
by James Bovard | Mar 8, 2018 | Featured Articles
President Trump declared last week that the law enforcement should “take the guns first, go through due process second.” But the history of federal firearms enforcement shows that due process is often a mirage when federal bureaucrats drop their hammer. Before...
Hollywood Hoopla Ignores Media’s History of Servility
by James Bovard | Mar 2, 2018 | Featured Articles
Much of the media nowadays is portraying itself as heroes of the #Resist Trump movement. To exploit that meme, Hollywood producer Steven Spielberg rushed out “The Post,” a movie depicting an epic press battle with the Nixon administration. But regardless of whether...
25 Years Ago: Feds Attack at Waco in Name of Gun Control
by James Bovard | Feb 28, 2018 | Featured Articles
Twenty-five years ago today, federal agents launched a military style attack on peaceful Texas residents who were suspected of having modified firearms. At a time when much of the media is in a frenzy in favor of gun control, the ATF raid on the Branch Davidians is a...
George W. Bush Doesn’t Deserve the Media’s Efforts at Rehabilitation
by James Bovard | Feb 15, 2018 | Featured Articles
"Our democracy is only as good as people trust the results,” former President George W. Bush declared in a presumably well-paid speech last week in the United Arab Emirates, a notorious Arab dictatorship. Bush is being exalted as if he is the second coming of George...
Guilt by Musical Association
by James Bovard | Feb 10, 2018 | Featured Articles
Should the feds be permitted to treat anyone who is not a choirboy like a criminal suspect? Unfortunately, local, state, and federal agencies have a long history of targeting, harassing, and entrapping fans of untraditional music. Because so many innocuous activities...
Golden Boy Robert Mueller's Forgotten Surveillance Crime Spree
by James Bovard | Jan 29, 2018 | Featured Articles
When Robert Mueller was appointed last May as Special Counsel to investigate Trump, Politico Magazine gushed that “Mueller might just be America’s straightest arrow — a respected, nonpartisan and fiercely apolitical public servant whose only lifetime motivation has...
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