Edward Snowden will soon be prosecuted by federal authorities for disclosing top secret Government surveillance programs. While he styles himself a whistleblower, he is really something far more radical: He represents a new, and in my view, welcome, version of civil disobedience. He’s the calm before the storm.
Mr. Snowden, 29, is a former intelligence analyst, employed at various times by the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and, most recently, at a for-profit security consultant for the Government called Booz Allen Hamilton. Until recently, he was an...
June 13, 2013
If you’ve not watched the video interview of Edward Snowden posted on the Guardian’s webpage, do so. He makes a persuasive case that the American people are being lulled into a false sense of security. We’re moving, inexorably, in the direction of what he calls “turnkey tyranny.”
Snowden disclosed to the Guardian and to the Washington Post the extent of United States intelligence gathering. We collect electronic information on virtually everyone, all the time. Analysts can summon at a keystroke surveillance material on anyone at anytime. “The NSA...
June 10, 2013
Oh, Edith. Did you really say these things? Do you believe them? If so, what justifies your sitting on the federal bench, deciding issues of great importance to Americans of all colors and ethnicities?
Edith Jones, the 64-year-old jurist, sits on the prestigious United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Her name gets dropped from time to time as Supreme Court material, although, truth be known, she’s now a little long in the tooth for a promotion to the high court.
Here’s a taste of what Edith had to say at gathering of the Federalist Society at the University...
June 9, 2013
There aren’t enough prison cells in the federal Bureau of Prisons for all the police officers who have pushed a detainee, and then lied about it in a police report. So it's hard for me to fathom why federal officials singled out Meriden’s Evan Cossette for prosecution. But there he was, convicted of shoving a drunken prisoner and then lying. Why prosecute this case and ignore so many more?
I put kids through college suing police officers, typically for using unreasonable force. In one case, witnesses saw a cop slam a kid in the head with a police baton as the kid sat...
June 5, 2013
June 2, 2013
This past Memorial Day I saw a graphic reminding us to recall all those who have lost their lives in armed conflicts on behalf of the United States....
June 1, 2013
Oh, how sensitive they all were. How considerate, how kind, how diplomatic. Governor Dannel Malloy, Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane, state...
May 31, 2013
Clients often claim entrapment when a police officer catches them red-handed in some unlawful act, especially when one of the participants is an...
May 28, 2013
I saw an interview of Nicco Mele on PBS, and was intrigued enough to read his book, The End of Big: How Internet Makes David the New...
May 25, 2013
Odds are you have an opinion about whether Jodi Arias should live or die. You probably also know all about Florida’s prosecution of Casey...
May 16, 2013
I should be bleeding red, white and blue over reports that the Internal Revenue Service has singled out some Tea Party groups for extra-special...