Free Republic

In December of 2011 on New Year’s Eve, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), declaring the entire United States a “battlefield” and giving the U.S. government the right to detain an American citizen indefinitely and even assassinate them, if they are suspected of terrorism—without due process. Then, in March of 2012, Obama signed the National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order (NDRP) that effectively declares peacetime martial law, giving the President authority over food and water, production, fuel, transportation, livestock and more if the government decides it is an emergency. Since September 11, 2001, the government...

Here are a few more details about Obama's plan, which had Joseph Farah scratching his head. First is Obama's quote. "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." Now, since I've never heard anyone inside or out of government use the phrase "civilian national security force" before, I was more than a little curious about what he has in mind. . . . What does it mean? If we're going to...

On Wednesday, Toronto smokers will be forced off the minuscule pieces of public real estate to which they still have access: designated, separately ventilated smoking rooms, cigar bars and, to most everyone's surprise, many outdoor patios. The Ontario-wide legislation expanded last month to include the great outdoors, making it one of the most aggressive anti-smoking laws in Canada. Smoking will be prohibited on patios with any sort of awning, any kind of built-in overhang (even when it is a permanent feature of the building), or even when patio umbrellas are deemed to be too close together. Bar owners, let me...

The European Union insisted Friday that governments and the private sector must share the responsibility of overseeing the Internet, setting the stage for a showdown with the United States on the future of Internet governance. A senior U.S. official reiterated Thursday that the country wants to remain the Internet's ultimate authority, rejecting calls in a United Nations meeting in Geneva for a U.N. body to take over. EU spokesman Martin Selmayr said a new cooperation model was important "because the Internet is a global resource." "The EU ... is very firm on this position," he added. The Geneva talks were...