civil liberties
Police hassling without reasonable suspicion invites evidence suppression
Police hassling exasperates me as a Fairfax criminal lawyer, civil libertarian, and human being. Having police is part of the so-called social contract where society relinquishes vital aspects of its freedom in order to receive protection from the government apparati. However, police and government are...
Crowd Limits and Prosecution Threats – Fairfax Criminal Lawyer Weighs in
Crowd limits in restaurants and other leisure venues started in the nation's capital and state to the north recently, in response to the coronavirus, and yesterday sadly came to Virginia. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I am saddened to see not only that the...
September 11 sixteen years later – Terrorists win if terror erodes civil liberties
The September 11, 2001, murders, happened sixteen years ago. Terrorists win of terror is allowed to erode civil liberties. Sadly, that erosion continues.
Our Police State Must Be Dismantled, One Step at a Time
How do we reverse the Nation's oppressive police state of affairs? As I have blogged for over a decade, we start by shrinking the overgrown criminal justice system, starting with steps as simple as legalizing marijuana, prostitution, and gambling; heavily decriminalizing all other drugs; eliminating...
The politics of grouping pot, Adderall & LSD with PCP and fentanyl
The drug war is bankrupt. Federal, state and local governments have poured billions of dollars into the drug wars for over five decades, with little more to show for it than America's failed trillion dollar years-long war in Vietnam. Sun Tzu wisely advised against long...
5-minute Dakota War capital trials underline the need for eternal civil liberties vigilance
My public elementary school teachers taught us about "Honest Abe" Lincoln. None of my teachers ever taught me about Lincoln's approval for a mass hanging of thirty-eight Dakota Indians in 1862. Arising from the Dakota War, United States military commission trials of 392 American Indians...
September 11 fifteen years later
We cannot wait any longer to reverse all the civil liberties and human rights violations that have been perpetrated by the United States government post-September 11 in the name of fighting terrorism.
Policing is an undemocratic, militaristic culture
Policing is a necessary evil that is antithetical to a free, open and democratic society. Policing is a poison on society and the body politic when our society is overpoliced, which it has been for decades,
Virginian-Pilot Quotes Jon Katz On First Amendment – Violative City Council Rule
Sticking a thumb in the eye of open and transparent government, democracy, and First Amendment protection, a majority of the Portsmouth, Virginia, city council took it upon itself, in haste all the worse, to add the following abomination to the city council rules of order...