Sen. Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

“When Americans expressed outrage last week over the seizure and surveillance of Verizon’s client data by the National Security Agency, President Obama responded: “In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother . . . but when you actually look at the details, I think we’ve struck the right balance.” ”

“How many records did the NSA seize from Verizon? Hundreds of millions. We are now learning about more potential mass data collections by the government from other communications and online companies. These are the “details,” and few Americans consider this approach “balanced,” though many rightly consider it Orwellian.”

“These activities violate the Fourth Amendment, which says warrants must be specific—”particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” And what is the government doing with these records?”

Full column by Sen. Rand Paul @ The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324634304578537720921466776.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

McCarthy:”ACLU Sues the FBI on Antiwar.com’s Behalf”

The American Conservative magazine reports that The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Federal Bureau of Investigation on behalf of Antiwar.com, the well-known website devoted to opposing war and interventionism.

Daniel McCarthy writes that “…editors of Antiwar.com have known for some time that the FBI has had an eye on them. Naturally enough, they used the Freedom of Information Act to request bureau’s files on them and their organization—but the FBI hasn’t been forthcoming.”

The ACLU has sued to get the information that the FBI won’t provide voluntarily. Recent revealations of federal investigations of the Associated Press and Fox News provide a context for this lawsuit. Mr McCarthy writes that “Whereas the Justice Department’s investigations were meant to be in pursuit of national-security leaks, Antiwar.com seems to have been targeted based on nothing more than its name and mission: reporting critically on U.S. foreign policy.”

Full story from the American Conservative @ http://www.theamericanconservative.com/aclu-sues-the-fbi-on-antiwar-coms-behalf/

Renaissance Book Shop Profiled

The Riverside Press Enterprise has published a profile of the Renaissance Book Shop, the largest independent bookstore in Riverside, California.

‘Renaissance has carved a niche peddling books on history, science fiction, science, philosophy and foreign policy. “These are books for people willing to part with good money to learn things,” he said. That could be anything from “Forgotten Fatherland: The True Story of Nietzsche’s Sister and Her Lost Aryan Colony” to “The Rosa Luxemburg Contraceptives Cooperative: A Primer on Communist Civilization.” ‘

‘Dave Berndt, 67, a retired engineer and bibliophile, has been a Renaissance customer for 25 years. “There is nothing like this store in Orange and San Diego counties,” he declared, heading for the front counter, laden with a stack of science fiction.’

Read the full profile @ http://www.pe.com/business/local-profiles-headlines/20130522-retail-independent-riverside-bookstore-stays-the-course.ece