Suggesting that hawk politicians are out of touch with the American people, a new non-partisan poll conducted by the University of Maryland showed that Americans would on average like to see the military budget decrease by $12 billion. Democrats and independents wanted even deeper cuts, but not even Republican voters wanted to see more money spent on the military. Could this by why the neocon-favored uberhawk Marco Rubio is going down in flames in the presidential primary? What is the lesson for other politicians? Finally a good news story today in the Liberty Report:

You won’t read in the mainstream media that the US government has been trying for ten years to break Apple’s encryption. You also won’t read that they unsealed the case against the San Bernardino attackers to terrify the American public into supporting FBI demands that Apple be forced to break its own encryption and hand the keys to the US government. The privacy-hating federal government wants Americans to believe this is simply about a benevolent government entity trying to protect us from terrorism. Don’t believe it for a second. It’s about prompting Congress to pass legislation regulating encryption — and taking away our Constitutional right to privacy. Today’s Liberty Report is joined by former State Department official and writer Peter van Buren, who tells us why we should care a lot about this case even if we do not use Apple products:

Neocons like Robert Kagan are having panic attacks over the possibility that their preferred presidential candidate may not end up the nominee. They are writing strong letters and threatening to take their toys and leave the Republican Party if Trump, who they don’t trust, is selected by the American voters. Who are the neocons and why do they continue to have a stranglehold on US foreign policy? Today’s Liberty Report is joined by Philip Giraldi to deconstruct the neocon crack-up:

According to a recent New York Times series of articles, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the key Obama Administration figure arguing for a US attack on Libya back in 2011. She promised it would be a triumph of “smart power,” but with billions wasted, tens of thousands killed, and a country in ruins, it looks more like “dumb power.” Now the US and its allies are readying a new military force to go back into Libya to fight an ISIS that was not present before the US “liberation.” Score another defeat for interventionism. The full story today in the Liberty Report:

Will Hillary Clinton be indicted for storing classified materials on an unsecure server in her house while Secretary of State? Will President Obama call off the Justice Department and risk making it look like there is a different set of laws for the elites? Or will he allow the investigation to continue and risk the Democrat Party frontrunner in the presidential race facing jail time. The issue is more a political one at this point. But, as Ron Paul says in today’s Liberty Report, why isn’t Hillary facing prosecution for war crimes over her role in the Libya debacle?

This week a judge in New York ruled in a case similar to the San Bernardino case that Apple should not be compelled to do work for the government against its will, in these cases providing a back door to its encrypted products. Both the FBI and Apple were on the Hill this week to present their sides of the case, and Congress will likely soon step in to try and settle the dispute. Does anyone think Congress will come down on the side of privacy over government snooping? Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-IL) has given us a clue which side Congress will come down on when he told Apple’s lawyers, “I warn you, you won’t like what comes out of Congress.” What to expect from Congress? Tune in to the Liberty Report:

Greece is wracked by financial meltdown but is hosting tens of thousands of migrants who are blocked from their intended journey northward. Calais in France is home to makeshift refugee camps where thousands hope to travel to the UK. The EU social welfare system attracts migrants from poorer regions, but Brussels following Washington’s policy of destabilizing the Middle East has resulted in a perfect storm of hundreds of thousands seeking a better life in relatively rich Europe. Brussels is demanding that all EU Member states take in tens of thousands of migrants to share the burden equally. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban is resisting such demands and has called a referendum to let Hungarians decide if they want to take in migrants. Brussels is furious. Will this migrant crisis be the final undoing of the European Union? Tune in to today’s Liberty Report:

President Obama has made his final effort to fulfill a campaign promise to close down the US detention facility at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba, sending Congress a plan that would see a new facility constructed in the US to house those of the 91 remaining prisoners who were not cleared for release. The plan is dead in the water in Congress, however, as Republicans in charge of the House and Senate have signaled a refusal to even work with the president on the issue. But this political tussle over the facility is in reality just a sideshow. Neither side wants to bring up the flawed and anti-American nature of Guantanamo and the undeclared and vague “war on terror” that prompted its creation. On the Liberty Report, however, that is precisely what we are interested in:

Washington’s hawks are already trashing the Syria ceasefire deal that the US and Russia presented yesterday. The Russians will never honor their agreement, they argue. Nevertheless the agreement offers some slight hope that the five year war might be coming to a close — but only if some of the dangerous ambiguities in the agreement are spelled out properly. What else will have to change if this deal has any chance? Tune in to the Liberty Report to find out:

Why is the Justice Department trying to keep the Senate report on CIA torture under wraps? The same reason the CIA officer in charge of the torture program gave when he ordered the torture tapes destroyed: “the heat from destroying [the torture videos] is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into the public domain.” As it stands, not even government officials with the required security clearances are allowed to read the report. So much for oversight! More on this travesty on today’s Liberty Report:

The FBI wants Apple to create software that will allow the Feds to break into the latest iPhones. Ironically, Apple upgraded its iPhone encryption as a result of the Snowden revelations about government spying on innocent Americans. The pretext for the government’s demand is that the San Bernardino attackers used iPhones and the FBI needs to see their data. The mainstream media, as usual, takes the side of government and along with officials like Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) is demonizing Apple for resisting what amounts to forced conscription of Apple engineers for the US government. What is really at stake? Another government grab at our Constitutional liberties under the guise of “keeping us safe.” How many terrorist plots has the FBI foiled through the use of surveillance on the rest of us? Zero. More today on the Liberty Report:

Preservation of our civil liberties are very much tied up in the Constitutional separation of powers. We see daily in both the Legislative and Executive Branches the distortion and dysfunction of this important concept, where presidents legislate by Executive Order and Congress ignores its obligations regarding the use of military force. In the Judicial Branch this distortion of separation of powers occurs under the concept of “judicial review,” which is the misguided idea that the courts somehow have veto power on actions by the other branches of government. What should the Supreme Court really look like if we are to preserve our liberties? Today’s Liberty Report takes a look: