“The state of Georgia has gone to extreme lengths to keep its own state laws hidden from the people, and has even gone after those who have attempted to give this information to the people.”
Read more: https://fee.org/articles/this-state-really-doesnt-want-its-residents-to-know-the-law/
“Four privacy-minded lawmakers have introduced legislation requiring law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant before searching phones belonging to US citizens, and prohibiting them from barring entry to Americans who decline to share their passwords at the border. ‘Americans’ Constitutional rights shouldn’t disappear at the border,’ Senator Ron Wyden said in statement to BuzzFeed News.”
Read more: https://www.buzzfeed.com/hamzashaban/new-bill-would-outlaw-warrantless-phone-searches-at-the
“Congress as a whole has been more intent on protecting the government from insider leaks than protecting the public from government surveillance. The tension between privacy and government surveillance is one that runs central to the ongoing debate over the CIA and NSA’s data collection tactics, as well as the potential Homeland Security policy that aims to refocus efforts to target ‘insider threats.'”
Read more: http://theantimedia.org/march-madness-mass-surveillance/
“Data provided by the Department of Homeland Security shows that searches of cellphones by border agents has exploded, growing fivefold in just one year, from fewer than 5,000 in 2015 to nearly 25,000 in 2016. According to DHS officials, 2017 will be a blockbuster year. Five-thousand devices were searched in February alone, more than in all of 2015. ‘That’s shocking,’ said Mary Ellen Callahan, former chief privacy officer at the Department of Homeland Security. She wrote the rules and restrictions on how CBP should conduct electronic searches back in 2009. ‘That [increase] was clearly a conscious strategy, that’s not happenstance.'”
Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/traveling-while-brown-u-s-border-agents-can-search-your-n732746
“In an era in which federal officials are now requiring Americans who are returning from foreign travel to turn over their cell phones for searches and forcing them to disclose their passwords, it’s time for Americans to start asking some fundamental questions regarding the nature of liberty, the purpose of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the proper role of government in a free society and to abandon the passivity, submissiveness, and deference to authority that have come to characterize their lives.”
Read more: http://www.fff.org/2017/03/17/americans-searched-border/
“The bill seeks to remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act and resolve the existing conflict between federal and state laws over medical or recreational use of the drug. It would not legalize the sale and use of marijuana in all 50 states – it would simply allow states to make their own decisions on marijuana policy without the threat of federal interference.”
Read more: http://www.thecannabist.co/2017/03/02/federal-marijuana-prohibition-states-rights-bill/74718/
“Passengers on a Delta Air Lines flight from San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to John F Kennedy International Airport (JFK) began reporting Wednesday that immigration agents were insisting on checking travelers’ papers before allowing them to deplane. It seemed possible that brand new federal travel policies might now be in place; the US Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP), however, called the unusual inspection procedure ‘routine’ in press reports following a growing public outcry.”
“Girod, a member of the Old Order Amish faith, operated a business in Bath County that made products to be used for a variety of health problems, including skin disorders, sinus infections and cancer, according to court documents. Girod represented himself, arguing that his products weren’t subject to FDA oversight because they were herbal remedies, not drugs. He referred to himself as ‘accused, in error.’ Girod also said that requiring FDA approval of his products infringed on his religious freedom. Old Order Amish seek to insulate themselves from the modern world, including modern pharmaceuticals, he said.”
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article135986318.html
NORML reports that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer declared war on much of the cannabis community yesterday when he announced the the Trump administration intends to engage in the ‘greater enforcement’ of federal anti-marijuana laws in the eight states that have legalized and regulated its adult use.
In resuming this regressive policy, Trump stands with a shrinking minority. Again, according to NORML, fifty-nine percent of voters say that adults’ use of marijuana should be legal while a whopping 93 percent support the medical use of marijuana. Perhaps most importantly, 71 percent of voters — including strong majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents — say that they ‘oppose the government enforcing federal laws against marijuana in states that have already legalized medical or recreational marijuana.’
At the Mises Institute, Ryan McMaken points out that 81 percent of all drug arrests are for simple possession, defining the renewed war on marijuana as a war on personal choice. Since Trump has sided with the police regarding civil asset forfeiture and praised Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug death squads, drug-war abolitionists can likely expect little help from the Trump administration over the next several years.
“A lawsuit is accusing the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of turning the entire state of Michigan into a ‘border zone’ where anyone can be detained and searched without a warrant, according to ACLU-Michigan. Federal authorities have said checkpoints elsewhere within the nation’s 100-mile border zone are crucial to catching human and drug smugglers who illegally cross into the US. The ACLU and its co-plaintiff, the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, saw almost one in three, or 31 percent, of people apprehended by Border Patrol were US citizens, and over 63 percent of those apprehended had been stopped by other law enforcement agencies before their CBP encounter.”
Read more: https://www.rt.com/usa/368922-aclu-sues-govt-warrantless-stops/