Russ McBee

I missed a couple of stories this week on the shoddy, ineffective, and inaccurate compilation of federal ''terrorism'' watch lists, and the consequences of unfettered government surveillance without appropriate oversight. First, this story details two reports by the inspectors general of the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the ...

In 1999, Scott McNealy, the notoriously arrogant and self-absorbed chairman of Sun Microsystems, said, ''You have no privacy. Get over it.'' His profits come first. Your privacy is a remotely distant second. His greed trumps your rights; after all, he does represent a corporation, and we all know that corporate rights trump individual ...

Yesterday, the Tennessee state House and Senate voted unanimously to ignore the REAL ID Act. This makes Tennessee the 16th state to do so. If it were implemented, the REAL ID Act would force the states to issue what amounts to a national ID card. The database behind it would be more susceptible and attractive to hacking, putting ...

States are refusing to comply with the Real ID Act, two Senate resolutions seek to repeal it, liberal and conservative groups are pronouncing it a failure, and James ''Tex'' Sensenbrenner is spitting nails in frustration, angry that his totalitarian proclivities are slowly being disavowed. I can't wait to see it repealed.

Finally. The Senate Judiciary Committee started hearings yesterday examining the implications of the Real ID Act, which would turn state drivers' licenses into de facto national ID cards. If committee chairman Patrick Leahy has his way, this ridiculous piece of security theater will be repealed: Critics argue that it's a $23 billion unfunded ...