Privacy Matters

Three and a half years ago former president Jimmy Carter was upbeat about the country and prospects for human rights after the years in which the Bush Administration viewed the Geneva Conventions as a “quaint anachronism” and moved with impunity beyond the rule of law.

In June 2012, Democratic Congressman from Colorado Jared Polis questioned DEA administrator and law enforcement officer Michelle Leonhart about the differences between various illegal drugs. Polis represents Colorado, where marijuana has been decriminalized and medical marijuana legalized. He asked Leonhart directly about whether the DEA supports the latter. Watch the video to get a glimpse of what the agency's top administrator thinks about the war on drugs.

Consider these two bits of technology news in light of one another:

On June 21, 2012, a number of Occupy Boston activists were denied entry to Canada. One of the activists wrote the following tweets after being turned away from the border:

There they go again. 

Rather than simply allowing the US government to get on with the business of targeting “suspected terrorists” for death no matter where they are found, the ACLU is insisting that the American public has a right to know the legal grounds for putting Americans on the hit list. 

Now that President Obama has fully bought into the broad surveillance powers that Senator Obama had first vowed to filibuster and then supported, Congress seems bent on doing its bipartisan best to trash the Fourth Amendment. 

“Although the CIA is best known for its spy work overseas, the agency has stations in most major U.S. cities.”

That’s what the Senate Armed Services Committee wants to do. In a June 4, 2012 report on the 2013 Defense Authorization Bill, it is pulling out the stops. 

_{Cleveland National Forest (source)}

Conservation and wildlife activists are concerned that FBI stewardship of 900 acres of federal land connecting Laguna Wilderness Park to the Cleveland National Forest will destroy habitats and wreak biological havoc. 

Watch what you say as you travel through security and customs controlled areas at the Ottawa airport: officials will soon record your every word.