Black Budget in the Red | Julian Sanchez | Cato Institute: Commentary

Black Budget in the Red | Julian Sanchez | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Nobody doubts that the FBI and the NSA serve vital functions. And if $75 billion per year is the price of detecting and preventing plots to murder Americans by the thousands, it would be hard to call it money wasted.

Yet the most compelling conservative arguments for skepticism about runaway government growth have never depended on the worthiness of the goals at which government aims. Rather, conservatives have drawn on the insights of public-choice economics, which predicts that rational bureaucratic actors — often in collusion with profit-seeking firms — will more reliably act to maximize their own power and budgets than seek the general welfare."

Court allows warrantless cell location tracking | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

Court allows warrantless cell location tracking | Privacy Inc. - CNET News: "the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permissible because Americans enjoy no 'reasonable expectation of privacy' in their--or at least their cell phones'--whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers have said that 'a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records' that show where a mobile device placed and received calls."