Free Republic

Homeland Security: Forced to defend its growing terrorist watch list, the FBI let slip a chilling fact that should silence ACLU grumblers: America is teeming with 20,000 terrorists.After 9/11, federal authorities estimated that as many as 5,000 terrorists were living in the U.S. The new figure is jarring not only because it's four times as large but because it's based on real persons, not estimates. It's not something headquarters wanted to publicize. Officials had downplayed the threat so as not to spook the public. The spin had been that Britain has the homegrown problem, not us. But that was before...

Bob Barr, the U.S. presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, said the Bush administration's diplomatic engagement with Iran is "long overdue." Iran appears to be years away from possessing nuclear weapons, giving time for diplomacy to work, Barr said in a release. He said that war with Iran would be a disaster. "American troops in Iraq would be at risk. U.S. citizens would be targeted for terrorist acts," he said. "Tehran could retaliate against Israel. Oil shipments would be disrupted, causing energy prices to soar even higher. Allied states in the Persian Gulf would be vulnerable to attack. Chances for...

My reasons for leaving the Party that I’ve felt at home in since I became politically aware are numerous. I will start with quoting countless conservatives who feel as I do - I didn’t so much leave the Republican Party, it was the Party that left me. The elected Republican officials failed to implement a conservative agenda, despite having the Presidency and both houses of congress. No Child Left Behind, Prescription Drug Entitlements; they even tried to force Amnesty for illegal aliens upon us. They have given us a government that would make even LBJ blush. Our businesses and land...

Squeezing his thumb and forefinger together in the back of a Manchester bar last night, Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr told a crowd of 80 that when it counts, there's that much difference between the Republicans and Democrats. Americans, he argued, are looking for something new. "The definition of throwing your vote away is to go into that voting booth and vote for one of two parties that will not change the direction this country's going in," Barr told a crowd of about 80 at Murphy's Taproom. "And that's the Republicans or Democrats."

Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin and the city of Memphis have filed a lawsuit to learn who operates a blog harshly critical of Godwin and his department. The lawsuit asks AOL to produce all information related to the identity of an e-mail address linked to MPD Enforcer 2.0, a blog popular with police officers that has been extremely critical of police leadership at 201 Poplar. "In what could be a landmark case of privacy and the 1st Amendment," the anonymous bloggers write on the site, "Godwin has illegally used his position and the City of Memphis as a ram to...

In fact, as much as he despised Clinton, Barr thinks President Bush is worse. "What George W. Bush has done to the fabric of our constitutional government, to separation of powers, to a government of limited powers is absolutely unforgivable," he said. That prospect is greatest in Barr's home state of Georgia. Obama is already running ads targeting an untapped pool of African Americans and younger voters. State polls suggest Barr's single-digit following pulls mostly from McCain. "If Barr can win 5 or 6 points of the total vote -- it's an if but it's conceivable -- then Obama could...

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr praised Al Gore, who challenged the United States Thursday to run on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity within 10 years. Barr, a former Republican congressman from Georgia who attended the former vice president’s Washington, D.C., speech Thursday, said Gore’s plan “makes sense.” “America responds well to challenges, if it is laid out, if it’s in terms that people can understand and relate to, if it makes sense – and what he’s laid out makes sense,” Barr said in an interview with Cybercast News Service after Gore spoke. In a speech at the Daughters...

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr praised Al Gore on Thursday for his commitment to addressing climate change and said he has met with the former vice president several times to discuss possible solutions. In a speech Thursday at Constitution Hall in Washington, Gore said that he has also discussed climate change with presidential candidates Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Both McCain and Obama believe that action needs to be taken on global warming and have separately criticized the Bush administration for its approach on the issue. Barr said he believes the most effective energy solution will...

The judiciary is becoming an important election issue. John McCain is warning conservatives that control of today's finely balanced Supreme Court depends on his election. Unfortunately, his jurisprudence is likely to be anything but conservative. The idea of a "living Constitution" long has been popular on the political left. Conservatives routinely dismiss such result-oriented justice, denouncing "judicial activism" and proclaiming their fidelity to "original intent." However, many Republicans, like Mr. McCain, are just as result-oriented as their Democratic opponents. They only disagree over the result desired. Judge-made rights are wrong because there is no constitutional warrant behind them. The Constitution...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A watch list of suspected and known terrorists, compiled by the US authorities, has ballooned and contains more than one million names, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday. The ACLU said it derived that figure from a Justice Department report on the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, which consolidates terrorist watch list information. The Center "had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 and that the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month," according to a report by the Justice Department Inspector General, the rights group said. "By those...

WASHINGTON: The name of the Justice Department's former top criminal prosecutor has turned up on the U.S. government's terror watch list. The former assistant attorney general, Jim Robinson, joined with the American Civil Liberties Union on Monday in calling for elimination of the list, which is designed to identify suspected terrorists. Critics say the list has caused thousands of innocent people to be questioned or searched. The rights organization estimates that one million records will have been added to the list by the end of July. Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the Terrorist Screening Center, which maintains the list, says...

A WATCH list of suspected and known terrorists, compiled by the US authorities, has ballooned and contains more than one million names, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said today. The ACLU said it derived the figure from a Justice Department report on the FBI's Terrorist Screening Centre, which consolidates terrorist watch list information. The centre "had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 and that the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month", according to a report by the Justice Department Inspector-General, the rights group said. "By those numbers, the list...

Hey, it's politics. In the primary, when Barack Obama wanted to connect with his party's disaffected left, he said that he would support a filibuster to stop a reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act if it granted retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that had cooperated with the federal government after the 9/11 attacks. Now Obama has those voters in the bag. So he is reaching out to the majority of Americans who want aggressive international surveillance to prevent another terrorist attack. And the average voter certainly isn't going to lose sleep if the price of that security is that...

Everyone loves guns in Nevada. Ducks Unlimited, the National Rifle Association, Republicans, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ... Wait. The ACLU? The Nevada ACLU has declared its support for an individual’s right to bear arms, apparently making it the first state affiliate in the nation to buck the national organization’s position on the Second Amendment. The state board of directors reached the decision this month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects the rights of individuals to own handguns.

Great post at Protein Wisdom pointing out the contrast between the rhetoric of “domestic spying” and the reality of FISA–that tapped phones on international calls can save lives, stop terrorists, and rescue hostages: The stunning rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors owed its success not just to artful deception, but also to a five-year U.S.-Colombian operation that choked their captors’ ability to communicate. Known as “Alliance,” it began with a satellite phone call in 2003, just weeks after the Americans’ surveillance plane crashed in the southern Colombian jungle, according to U.S. and Colombian investigators and court documents....

CARSON CITY — Everyone loves guns in Nevada. Ducks Unlimited, the National Rifle Association, Republicans, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ... Wait. The ACLU? The Nevada ACLU has declared its support for an individual’s right to bear arms, apparently making it the first state affiliate in the nation to buck the national organization’s position on the Second Amendment. The state board of directors reached the decision this month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects the rights of individuals to own handguns.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush signed a law on Thursday overhauling the rules for eavesdropping on terrorism suspects but immediately met a civil liberties challenge calling it a threat to Americans' privacy. "This law will protect the liberties of our citizens while maintaining the vital flow of intelligence," Bush said at a White House ceremony to mark a rare legislative victory for the president during his last year in office. The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in Manhattan federal court as Bush signed the measure and called for the law to be voided as a violation of...

ACLU of Illinois Urges Senator Obama to Vote No on FISA 'Deal'Mon Jul 7, 10:24 AM ET **SNIP** CHICAGO, July 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the United States Senate returns from the Independence Day recess to debate a major overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois today called on Senator Barack Obama to vote no and reject this unconstitutional measure. Last month, the House of Representatives passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (H.R. 6304), a bill that not only allows for the wide, sweeping and unwarranted collection of Americans communications, but also...

Amanda Simon explains the disappointment at the ACLU Blog. After the amendments were effectively killed – along with any possible hope of court review of the president’s illegal and unconstitutional domestic spying program (can’t say that enough) – the votes for final passage were counted. The votes were cast and so was the dye. Final count: 69 to 28. I can only say it’s been emotional. This isn’t the last you’ll be hearing from the ACLU on this subject — in fact, far from it. Keep an eye on this space for our continued and tireless work protecting the Fourth...

Anti-Civil Liberties Union by: Malcolm A. Kline, July 09, 2008 The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sold many college students on the notion that the group defends the downtrodden against the powerful. In reality, the ACLU bears a closer resemblance to the insulated plutocrats it inveighs against than it does to any underdog that you can think of. “The ACLU forced a Catholic charity to pay for an employee’s abortion and an Orthodox Jewish charity to provide housing for an avowedly lesbian employee and her lover,” Steve Aden of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) said at a seminar on...

A 60-year-old librarian received a trespassing ticket Monday after a liberal group's protest outside John McCain's town-hall meeting. Kreck — a former Denver Post reporter who works part time as a librarian for an education think tank — said she was removed as she quizzed a police officer about whether he could deny her free-speech rights "on city property" by taking away her sign, while McCain supporters wore buttons inside. Jenny Schiavone, a spokeswoman for the performing arts center, said the venue is city-owned rental property but is not legally defined as public property. Detective John White, a spokesman for...

"Rep. Barr and the ACLU disagree on many other issues, but we have no doubt that a strange bedfellows collaboration between us will yield great things for informational and data privacy rights," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said that Barr's agreement to work with the ACLU "demonstrates how deeply concerns about personal privacy cut across partisan lines." He noted that the ACLU has "no permanent friendsand no permanent enemies, just permanent values." "We look forward to working with Congressman Barr in our fight to protect data and information privacy,"...

All part of his daring master plan to make his name as widely reviled among the right as Ralph Nader’s is among the left. Polls in Georgia and North Carolina over the last two weeks show Mr. Barr winning 8 percent and 6 percent respectively of the presidential vote, and in both cases helping keep likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama within striking distance of Mr. McCain in those states — which, taken together, account for more electoral votes than Florida, Pennsylvania or Ohio… [InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt] Towery said North Carolina and Georgia are exactly the places that Mr....

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr tells the Brody File that when it comes to judges John McCain cannot be trusted. Basically what he is saying is that voters shouldn’t just accept the line that McCain will nominate judges like Roberts and Alito. Watch above [link in post #2]. Read below. Bob Barr: “I know that many conservatives for example say well we have to vote for McCain even though we don’t like him because he’ll give us better judges. Well, ask people to think a little bit about what they’re saying. John McCain gave us McCain/Feingold which is the most...

Days of Silence Bethany Stotts, July 08, 2008 Same-sex marriage isn’t the only pro-gay policy making waves in California. Now school districts with bullying problems are forming alliances with organizations such as the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) and the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), often at the behest of the American Civil Liberties Union. Upper Lake Union Elementary School District (ULUESD) recently decided to adopt comprehensive “sensitivity” policies following an ACLU lawsuit over the alleged assault of a 14-year-old student last Fall. The ACLU recently issued a press release celebrating the out-of-court settlement with the California school district. “We’re...

Christian groups are appealing a federal judge's ruling that bars the Gideons from distributing Bibles to students of the South Iron Missouri School District. The South Iron School District allows off-campus organizations to distribute literature to students before and after school, and during other non-instructional times such as lunch breaks. But the American Civil Liberties Union sued, saying the Gideons should not be allowed to hand out Bibles because of their religious nature. U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry agreed. "In fact, the federal judge said...the ACLU must be able to have the say-so over whether religious literature can be distributed...

The ACLU urges Senators to reject legislation that eviscerates the oversight structure of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Last night, the Senate voted to begin consideration of FISA legislation, although the timing of votes on the legislation is not clear. Last week, the House of Representatives passed an the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (H.R. 6304) that not only allows for the wide, sweeping collection of Americans' communications, but also grants immunity to telecommunications companies for their role in domestic spying. The ACLU vehemently opposes this bill. "Moving forward on this terrible bill is disappointing to say the least,"...

America the beautiful, or so you used to be. Land of the Pilgrims' pride; I'm glad they'll never see. babies piled in dumpsters, Abortion on demand, Oh, sweet land of liberty; your house is on the sand. Our children wander aimlessly poisoned by cocaine choosing to indulge their lusts, when God has said abstain From sea to shining sea, our Nation turns away From the teaching of God's love and a need to always pray We've kept God in our temples,how callous we have grown. When earth is but His footstool, and Heaven is His throne. We've voted in a...

WATCHING AMERICA DIE At almost 86, the saddest time of my life, second only to loss of my Beloved Wife, I am forced to watch my America die at the hands of Executioners I shall name below. Before doing so, it is essential to remind ourselves of the Cornerstones of this Great Republic, A Nation Under God, Blessed By God through all adversities, until Puny Governmental Gnats decided to take God out of the Equation, and indeed to begin violating every principal laid down by the Founding Fathers, and from which Greatness was achieved. THE CORNERSTONES: * One Nation Under...

The American Civil Liberties is getting blasted on its own blog site for holding onto the belief that the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution establishes a collective right for militias to have weapons, even though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the right applies to individuals. "Sorry ACLU you lost me," wrote SuperNaut. "I just took the money I had slated to re-up my lapsed ACLU membership and used it to re-up my NRA membership." Hundreds of comments have been posted in just the first few days of July, almost uniformly condemning the ACLU's explanation of its position on...

An Egyptian-born nuclear physicist is suing the US Department of Energy over the revocation of his security clearance. Moniem El-Ganayni worked from 1990 as a scientist at the Bettis Laboratory, a contract lab for the energy department near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that works on nuclear propulsion. El-Ganayni, a US citizen since 1988, is an active member of the local Islamic community...[snip] In May, the energy department revoked El-Ganayni's security clearance, in part because he was suspected of “conflicting allegiances”. Shortly thereafter, he was fired from the laboratory. El-Ganayni's suit, filed with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, claims that...

So, we’ve been getting a lot of comments about the ACLU’s stance on the Second Amendment. For those of you who didn’t catch our response in the blog comments, here it is again: The ACLU interprets the Second Amendment as a collective right. Therefore, we disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller. While the decision is a significant and historic reinterpretation of the right to keep and bear arms, the decision leaves many important questions unanswered that will have to be resolved in future litigation, including what regulations are permissible, and which weapons are embraced by the...

For conservatives unhappy with McCain as our candidate, I’ve heard a few mention Bob Barr as an alternative for their protest votes. Make sure you know who your voting for before you do so, and make sure if your protest is that of principle that you share the same principles with whom you pull the lever for. For some conservatives, Bob Barr’s teamwork with the ACLU to fight against the Patriot Act and the NSA’s terrorist surveillance program is enough to drop consideration. He has also sided with the ACLU on the immigration issue, opposing local law enforcement from helping...

The ACLU is threatening to sue the U.S. Naval Academy because they say prayers before lunch.

Hold your horses their cowboy! It's not that type of fence ya'll (Yes, I said it. I'm from Texas sue me). Demos are not in support of a fence that'll keep illegal immigrants out of the country, but they are in support of a fence that'll keep undesirables OUT of their convention. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the DNC regarding the fence they have decided to set up outside their Convention arena. The ACLU is claiming that the demos attempts to keep other democrat protesters out is a violation of their 1st amendment right to peacefully gather. This...

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, a former Georgia congressman, said today that the Republican Party has utterly failed to present a "new program, new leadership or vision." "What's wrong with John McCain is symptomatic of what's wrong with the Republican Party in these first years of the 21st century," Barr said on "Fox News Sunday." "They talk one thing but do something different, and that's become very obvious to the American people." Barr said that he tends to agree with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on issues of civil liberties, while he tends to agree with McCain, a senator from Arizona,...

He has been called a spoiler. A would-be Ralph Nader. A thorn in the side of Senator John McCain and the Republican establishment. None of it bothers Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman from Georgia turned Libertarian Party candidate for president, who gleefully recounted what he says a group of Republicans told him at a recent meeting in Washington: Don’t run. “ ‘Well, gee, you might take votes from Senator McCain,’ ” Mr. Barr said this week, mimicking one of the complainers, as he sat sipping Coca-Cola in his plush corner office, 12 stories above Atlanta. “They all said, ‘Look,...

A brief has been filed in a federal appeals court asking the justices to overturn a judge who ordered a school district specifically to ban the Bible in its policy regarding the distribution of literature to students. WND reported just a week ago when a federal judge declared unconstitutional a Florida law that was used to prevent Gideons from handing out Bibles to students on public property near schools.Now comes another dispute, this one in Missouri and pursued by Liberty Counsel in its request to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. It wants the court to...

Colorado's new state law that was based on the apparent belief that free speech rights are not unalienable and they sometimes must be restricted is scaring residents who now fear expressing their opinions in public. WND has reported previously that the law, SB200, which was promoted as an "anti-discrimination" plan favoring alternative sexual lifestyles and gender perceptions, has made it a criminal offense to discriminate against someone based on those lifestyles or perceptions. The Christian publishing house Focus on the Family has called it a payback by the Democrat-controlled legislature and Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter to homosexual activists such as...

Here's What Obama Said:Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he disagrees with a Supreme Court decision striking down the death penalty for child rapists, telling reporters Wednesday that states should be able to execute people for “heinous” crimes. “I think that the rape of small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime,” the Illinois senator said. “And if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that does not violate our Constitution.” See the video!

ACLU tries to halt mealtime prayer at Naval Academy By Josh Mitchell | Sun reporter 8:09 PM EDT, June 25, 2008 A national civil liberties group is renewing a push to end mealtime prayer at the U.S. Naval Academy, where a group of midshipmen recently complained to officials that they felt pressured to participate in the longtime practice. The tradition, believed to date back to the college's founding in 1845, now involves a chaplain's leading grace before a noon meal that all 4,200 midshipmen must attend at King Hall. Midshipmen are not required to pray, though they must stand during...

Barack Obama's campaign manager said former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, running for president on the Libertarian line, could play a crucial role in winning Obama the presidency. He said Barr could play a particularly large role in two states: Alaska and Georgia. Alaska is "one of the states where we think Barr can get 6,7, 8 percent," Plouffe said. "Barr will get some votes [in Georgia,. If barr were to get two percent in most states, our belief is he’ll get four percent here, most of it coming out of McCain’s hide."

John McCain's trailing Barack Obama in new poll by quite a solid margin. Is the presence of libertarian candidate Bob Barr in the election only adding to that deficit? Watch tonight, 7 and 9 ET.

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the LAPD's controversial Special Order 40, which directs officers not to ask arrestees about their immigration status. The city of Los Angeles and the ACLU had asked the judge to dismiss the suit.

A judge is scheduled to rule today on a challenge to a taxpayer suit that seeks to repeal a long-standing directive prohibiting Los Angeles police officers from asking arrestees about their immigration status. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu is being asked by the city and the American Civil Liberties Union to dismiss the lawsuit on grounds there are no triable issues. He heard arguments on the motion June 10 and has had it under submission since then. Los Angeles resident Harold P. Sturgeon filed suit in May 2006 against police Chief William J. Bratton and members of...

The Los Angeles Unified School District doesn’t want Karen Kropf talking to its students. District leaders fear that what she says isn’t “balanced” and that she’s not a certified “expert” in the field. Really, though, they just don’t like her message about teenage sexual self-control and the limited protection of condoms. That, and they’re worried about what the ACLU might say, especially given California’s law against “abstinence-only” education.  Investigating Kropf’s situation, I was startled to discover an alarming trend that has gone unreported: The ACLU and Planned Parenthood have teamed up in an aggressive campaign over the past several...

Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia has accepted a presidential nomination from the nation's third-largest political party and GOP officials say that could mean trouble for their party in the fall election. The Libertarian Party has selected Barr, also a former federal prosecutor, as their candidate, and Republicans think he could siphon off votes from their party's presumptive nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Though is bid is definitely a long shot, Barr - who made a name for himself in leading the U.S. House's impeachment of President Bill Clinton - could exploit unease felt by traditional conservatives leery...

The American Civil Liberties Union today asked the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office for documents related to its plans to check the immigration status of all people arrested in the county who are suspected of being in the United States illegally. "We believe these kinds of policies are ill-advised in all circumstances, placing the federal responsibility to implement immigration laws in local hands and leading to hostile relations between local governments and their Latino communities," said Kent Willis, executive director of ACLU's chapter in Virginia. "But where these policies do exist, those in charge must train police officers in non-discriminatory practices,...

You read that right. The leader of the Bill Clinton Impeachment Team in the House says Bush is SO much worse than Clinton ever was. Check it out in this fascinating MobLogic.tv video. Barr also talks about the history of his mustache, civil liberties, privacy and other important topics. (video link- http://www.moblogic.tv/video/2008/06/20/bob-barr/)

The ACLU has announced a major fundraising drive to expand its operations in traditionally conservative states -- and the head of a conservative law firm in one of those states responds: Bring it on! The American Civil Liberties Union is has already raised $258 million through what the Associated Press calls "behind the scenes" solicitations, including $12 million from liberal billionaire political activist George Soros. The liberal legal group wants to expand operations in Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, and other traditionally conservative states. *snip* One little-known detail about the ACLU surfaced in the Associated Press reporting on the campaign: the organization...