How can the life of such a man Be in the palm of some fool’s hand? To see him obviously framed Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land Where justice is a game.—Bob Dylan, “Hurricane” Justice in America is not all it’s cracked up to be. Just ask...

“Who needs direct repression when one can convince the chicken to walk freely into the slaughterhouse?”—Philosopher Slavoj Žižek Despite the best efforts of some to sound the alarm, the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive,...

“Strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and then.” ― Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly Once upon a time, there was a nation of people who believed everything they were told by their government. When terrorists attacked the country, and government officials...

“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those...

“No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that’s in the right and keeps on a-comin’.”—Texas Rangers In one swoop, on June 22, 2015, a divided US Supreme Court handed down three consecutive rulings affirming the right of raisin farmers, hotel owners and prison...

“A person under surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy.”—Writers Against Mass Surveillance THE GOOD NEWS: Americans have a right to freely express themselves on the Internet, including making threatening—even...

“The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control.”—William Binney, NSA whistleblower We now have a fourth branch of government. As I document in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this fourth branch came into being without any...

“If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers? If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to...

“The government is merely a servant―merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.” ― Mark Twain How many Americans...

Police officers are more likely to be struck by lightning than be held financially accountable for their actions.—Law professor Joanna C. Schwartz (paraphrased) “In a democratic society,” observed Oakland police chief Sean Whent, “people have a say in how they are...

“The greatness of America lies in the right to protest for right.”—Martin Luther King Jr. Everything this nation once stood for is being turned on its head. Free speech, religious expression, privacy, due process, bodily integrity, the sanctity of human life, the...

“The game is rigged, the network is bugged, the government talks double-speak, the courts are complicit and there’s nothing you can do about it.”—David Kravets, reporting for Wired Nothing you write, say, text, tweet or share via phone or computer is private anymore....

“The year is 2025. The population is 325 million, and the FBI has the DNA profiles of all of them. Unlike fingerprints, these profiles reveal vital medical information. The universal database arrived surreptitiously. First, the Department of Defense's repository of...

Corporate America is using police forces as their mercenaries.” —Ray Lewis, Retired Philadelphia Police Captain It’s one thing to know and exercise your rights when a police officer pulls you over, but what rights do you have when a private cop—entrusted with all of...

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” ― Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means If 2014 was the year of militarized police, armored tanks, and stop-and-frisk searches, 2015 may well be the year of technologized police,...

“There will come a time when it isn't ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me.’” ― Philip K. Dick If ever Americans sell their birthright, it will be for the promise of expediency and comfort delivered by way...

If you dress police officers up as soldiers and you put them in military vehicles and you give them military weapons, they adopt a warrior mentality. We fight wars against enemies, and the enemies are the people who live in our cities — particularly in communities of...

Back in the heyday of the old Soviet Union, a phrase evolved to describe gullible western intellectuals who came to visit Russia and failed to notice the human and other costs of building a communist utopia. The phrase was “useful idiots” and it applied to a good many...

Arnold Abbott, 90, arrested for feeding the homeless Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of...