Antiwar.com Blog

Antiwar.com’s lawsuit against the FBI is going into its 7th year. Today, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard the appeal on the Privacy Act violations. The FBI failed to expunge the records of an investigation they found where Antiwar.com’s activities were completely covered by the 1st Amendment.

The co-plantiffs were Antiwar.com’s founders Justin (Dennis) Raimondo and Eric Garris.

ACLU attorney Vasudha Talla argued that the FBI had no reason to maintain the files when there was no criminality after the investigation concluded.

The case was filed in 2013, and Antiwar.com had victories on two issues in the case: the court ordered the FBI to amend their files when Antiwar.com co-founder Eric Garris was placed on a terror watch list in error; the FBI also agreed to give Antiwar.com access to all the records of the investigation without redaction, and paid $300,000 to the ACLU lawyers.

Today’s hearing went quite well, with the judges clearly hostile to the arguments by the FBI’s attorney. Below is the video of the one-hour hearing. It is worth watching.

In an unfolding scandal you won’t much hear about in the mainstream media, the US State Department has been caught funding NGOs that are attacking Americans who express opposition to the neocon policy of confrontation with Iran. This is beyond just propaganda and into the realm of actual attacks – exactly the tactics the US decries in authoritarian regimes overseas. On today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

"What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. …Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."

~ Elbridge Gerry,  Fifth Vice President of the United States

All too often, government-produced defense is discussed as an ideal – a force that protects people and their rights. Seldom does reality enter the picture. Standing armies, after all, often do not only practice defense.

Once established, a government’s military, its bureaucrats and leaders, as well as laymen all face a different set of incentives. Those with a job related to the military have an incentive to keep their job. In most cases, they probably also desire to see the scope of their power expanded and their pay increased. The support for war then, is the ideal policy for achieving those goals. These incentives may not transform a champion of peace into a war-loving bureaucrat, but they can have effects on the margins. It’s much easier to rationalize a war if your job depends on it.

Continue reading “The Standing Army: A Threat to Peace”

Afghanistan – the “good war” that never ends. Just when it seemed the US was making progress toward ending the longest war in its history, a new bad guy has emerged that, we are told, is far more threatening than the guys we’ve been fighting for 20 years. Forget the Taliban! We have to stay in Afghanistan to fight ISIS! Meanwhile, Trump has dropped more bombs on Afghanistan this year alone than Obama’s average over five years. War is good for business. On today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Six years ago undercover CIA officer and NSA contractor Edward Snowden came out from the shadows to reveal that he was responsible for the greatest leak of secret government information in US history. Americans learned that the government was not spying on terrorists to keep us safe, but was actually much more interested in spying on us. The revelations led to “reform” in the form of the “FREEDOM Act.” But have we recovered any of our privacy protections…or are we worse off…? Tune in to today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

24-minute overview film of StopWar.Today project. Released June 2, 2019.

Discusses costs of post-9/11 wars. Promotes peacebuilding rather than militarism. Promotes the work of Brown University’s Costs of War Project, with interviews of Prof. Linda Bilmes, Prof. Neta Crawford, Prof. Emeritus Andrew Bacevich, and Prof. Catherine Lutz. Promotes A Mighty Case Against War by Kathy Beckwith. See website: www.StopWar.Today. See also: Costsofwar.org.