by Erik Kain on January 16, 2012
Websites for the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and El Al, Israel’s national airline, were hit by anonymous hackers in what is being described as an escalating cyberwar Monday. A hacker who identified himself as oxOmar contacted Ynet overnight warning that a group called Nightmare planned to bring down the sites. oxOmar was responsible for posting [...]
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by Erik Kain on January 11, 2012
The NDAA passed both houses of Congress with flying colors and in spite of a veto threat from the president was signed into law just in time for 2012. Enshrined in this annual authorization of military funding are new rules which allow the indefinite detention of anyone suspected of terrorists – and yes, even US citizens if the government ever chooses.
When I write about this stuff I tend to get really angry and verbose. Fortunately, I have Stephen Colbert to make it all funny:
Well played, Colbert. Well played.
Come to think of it, I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry.
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by Erik Kain on November 19, 2011
Events like the one in the above video have been far too common in the police response to Occupy protests across the country. I do believe that Occupy is at a tipping point, and that it must grow beyond and evolve away from the tent city occupations, but this police response is absurd and excessive. [...]
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by Erik Kain on November 8, 2011
Liberals defend Obama on his political victories at home and abroad, but they should focus more on his Bush-era national security policies and other broken promises. In 2008, during the aftershocks of the housing market and financial collapse and the fall of Lehman Brothers, and amidst the increasingly frightening din of anti-Obama sentiment that was [...]
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by Erik Kain on September 30, 2011
I’m not surprised that Congressman Ron Paul of Texas has condemned the US Government’s assassination of American citizen and Islamic radical, Anwar al-Awlaki. This fits his general anti-interventionist framework. What amuses me is the headline at MSNBC where it’s being reported: Notice the scare quotes around the word assassinating. Because, you know, when the US [...]
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by Erik Kain on September 12, 2011
Jason Kuznicki has one of the most stirring 9/11 posts I’ve read. Forgive me a longer-than-usual excerpt: September 11 was the day “Orwellian” stopped being an argument against anything. It became a checklist. My country started collecting various-sized bits of Nineteen Eighty-Four like so many grim commemorative postage stamps. Constant surveillance. Constant warfare. Constant suspicion. [...]
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by Erik Kain on September 12, 2011
The Patriot Act was designed to fight terror, but as I mentioned earlier it has been used primarily to ramp up the War on Drugs. This chart should help illustrate the point: This is the number of “sneak and peak” raids issued between 2006 and 2009. These are search warrants executed with ‘delayed notification’. Targets [...]
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by Erik Kain on September 12, 2011
Ryan Sigel has a good piece in Wired noting the loss of privacy in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The Patriot Act gave law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, a great deal more leniency in how they can gather information. Using the fear of terrorism, the government has expanded its surveillance powers in ways [...]
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by Erik Kain on September 12, 2011
Police forces have grown increasingly militarized in the years following the September 11th attacks. In part, this is a response to new rules established in the PATRIOT Act. A surplus of decommissioned military equipment and weapons has also found its way into domestic police forces. SWAT teams have been used with increasing frequency, sometimes just [...]
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E.D. Kain is a blogger and freelance writer. Currently he serves as Editor-in-Chief of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen and writes a policy blog at Forbes. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The National Review, The Washington Examiner, and the now-defunct True/Slant.