National Security and a Less-Restrained FBI | Julian Sanchez | Cato Institute: Commentary

National Security and a Less-Restrained FBI | Julian Sanchez | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In 2008, we were told these rules would give the FBI the flexibility it needed to 'proactively' ferret out national security threats. Now the FBI says these lax limits on its power are still too cumbersome: The next edition of the bureau's operational manual will give agents leeway to search all those databases with no approval or explanation, without opening an assessment and creating a paper trail."

"According to a 2010 report from the Office of the Inspector General, FBI analysts refused to use an electronic system that would track demands for sensitive phone and Internet records, on the grounds that entering all that data was too burdensome."

"If the FBI thinks you might make a useful informant, agents will be free to dig through your garbage in hopes of finding embarrassing trash that might encourage you to cooperate. And they will be able to do this without first having to show any evidence that you are engaged in wrongdoing."

Time to Ax Federal Jobs Programs | Chris Edwards and Daniel Murphy | Cato Institute: Commentary

Time to Ax Federal Jobs Programs | Chris Edwards and Daniel Murphy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Federal programs for unemployed and disadvantaged workers now cost $18 billion a year, yet the Government Accountability Office recently concluded that 'little is known about the effectiveness of employment and training programs we identified.' Indeed, many studies over the decades have found that these programs — though well intentioned — don't help the economy much, if at all."

For U.S. Interventionists, "Isolationism" Is Just a Dirty Word | Justin Logan and Christopher Preble | Cato Institute: Commentary

For U.S. Interventionists, "Isolationism" Is Just a Dirty Word | Justin Logan and Christopher Preble | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The term 'isolationist' is little more than a slur. It essentially means someone who thinks the U.S. should engage in fewer foreign wars than the speaker does."

Reining in Frivolous Class-action Lawsuits | Walter Olson | Cato Institute: Commentary

Reining in Frivolous Class-action Lawsuits | Walter Olson | Cato Institute: Commentary: "one of the plaintiffs' complaints against Wal-Mart was that its personnel practices were too decentralized, giving too much discretion to store managers, not all of whom could be trusted to use it fairly. The more you accept that contention, the less a pattern of bias at Store No. 423 says anything about Store No. 187, a thousand miles away."

Walmart and the Right to Discriminate - Rod Rojas - Mises Daily

Walmart and the Right to Discriminate - Rod Rojas - Mises Daily: "Just to give you an example, young male doctors make considerably more than young female doctors. This is the type of statistic that gets very easily manipulated and publicized. However, if you look deeper, you will see that young male doctors work about 500 hours a year more than their female counterparts. Nine additional hours per week is no small difference!"

"In answer to that, the claimants say that, even though only profits matter, when it comes to hiring, male managers only want to hire other males. For some reason the company deliberately tosses aside all economic matters and takes a 25 percent loss just so that the guys can be with their buddies.

This claim is — of course — preposterous. If women could be hired to do the same work for 75 cents on the dollar, the business world would not ignore this difference.

Good businesses cannot afford this type of discrimination in the long run, because other businesses that realize the profit potential will thrive and replace those who ignore economic reality."

Post-Racial Society? Not Even Close | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary

Post-Racial Society? Not Even Close | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary: "According to (a) NYCLU lawsuit, 'Even though nearly 90 percent of people stopped have done absolutely nothing unlawful — as evidenced by the fact that they are neither arrested or given a summons — the NYPD is entering the personal information of every person stopped into a Department database.'"

View From The Porch: I blame TV.

View From The Porch: I blame TV.: "The very mechanisms that keep some hypothetical jackbooted thug from wandering through your front door and rifling through your unmentionables drawer whenever they get the urge are the same ones that mean occasionally somebody who is guilty as sin is going to walk. Like some game of Constitutional Jenga, every prop you knock out of the structure to make it easier to catch the guilty makes it that much more likely that the whole edifice will collapse right on top of you"

The Cruel Wreckage of Socialism - Frederic Bastiat - Mises Daily

The Cruel Wreckage of Socialism - Frederic Bastiat - Mises Daily: "every time we object to a thing being done by government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the state — then we are against education altogether. We object to a state religion — then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the state then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the state."

Michigan Resident Faces 93 Days in Jail For Vegetable Garden - FoxNews.com

Michigan Resident Faces 93 Days in Jail For Vegetable Garden - FoxNews.com: "The city is claiming that the garden violates a city code which states that front yards must consist of suitable, live plant material to which Bass responds, 'We think it's suitable.'"

Red-Light Camera Feud Reveals Ulterior Motives by Fergus Hodgson

Red-Light Camera Feud Reveals Ulterior Motives by Fergus Hodgson: "The National Motorists Association notes that there are many ways to increase traffic-light safety without prosecution of drivers. For example, research from the Texas Transportation Institute suggests that increasing the amber light by one second reduces collisions by 40 percent. In fact, they found that the average run-in occurs when the light has been red for half a second or less, while almost every right-angle crash occurs after more than five seconds."