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[Tom Clarke] Brian Doherty, Historian of the Libertarian Movement, Dead at 57 The longtime Re...

Tom Clarke — 3/15/2026 6:34:20 PM

Brian Doherty, Historian of the Libertarian Movement, Dead at 57
The longtime Reason senior editor accidentally fell to his death in a park along the San Francisco Bay.
Matt Welch
3.14.2026

Brian Doherty, a longtime Reason senior editor and the leading historian of the libertarian movement, was found dead Friday morning after a fall the night before in Battery Yates park along the San Francisco Bay. He was 57.

Doherty, who began working at Reason in 1994, was the author of six books, most notably the definitive 2007 study, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. Conservative writer Jonah Goldberg called Radicals an " extraordinary accomplishment"; libertarian economist Bryan Caplan dubbed it a " remarkable labor of love."

Doherty's other book-length treatments of libertarian phenomena included Gun Control on Trial: Inside the Supreme Court Battle Over the Second Amendment (2008), Ron Paul's rEVOLution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired (2012), and Modern Libertarianism: A Brief History of Classical Liberalism in the United States (2025).

"Brian was the historian of the libertarian movement," says Reason Foundation President David Nott. "He lovingly and comprehensively portrayed the colorful characters in the libertarian world."

Born in Brooklyn and raised mostly in Florida, Doherty first caught the libertarian bug at age 12 by gobbling up the Illuminatus! trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.

"One of the specific purposes of that work, according to Wilson, was to do to the state what Voltaire did to the church—that is, reduce it to an object of contempt for all thoughtful people," he recalled in 2018. "I wound up mail ordering a copy of the Principia Discordia, the founding religious document of the Discordian Church discussed in Illuminatus! I tracked down this volume in the rich, fascinating, and frightening catalog of the bookseller Loompanics. Afterward I delved deeper into its offerings of forbidden or hated ideas, eventually ordering a copy of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. That book's version of economics matched the ethical conclusion that felt undeniable to me after reading Illuminatus!: that shaping the human social order primarily by granting one set of people working under an institutional cover the poorly restricted right to rob, assault, and kill others at their will seemed like a bad idea."

Hazlitt led to Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and above all Murray Rothbard, the latter of whom, fittingly, was the subject of Doherty's last piece published before his death, " 100 Years of Murray Rothbard."

While majoring in journalism at the University of Florida, Doherty "met some congenial and hilarious people manning a booth for the…College Libertarians in the autumn of 1987," and was off to the races, mixing intense philosophical curiosity with an equally deep interest and participation in the more animal spirits of DIY music and expressive freedom.

Relocating to Los Angeles in the mid-'90s, he fell in with "a gang of arty pranksters you've likely never heard of" called the Cacophony Society, who "inspired or created phenomenon ranging from the novel/movie Fight Club to urban exploration, billboard alteration, the Yes Men, flash mobs, and 'Santa Rampages.'"

Cacophony's most lasting stunt was the one that evolved into the annual temporary art festival in Nevada called Burning Man. "I thought my deskbound, magazine-reporter, bedroom record label–running self would be destroyed by the pitiless desert," Doherty would later recall. "So I didn't go in '94. By 1995, I had heard so much about Black Rock City's functional anarchy that I had to go—anarchy being one of my primary intellectual interests."

Those words can be found in the prologue of Doherty's first book, 2004's This Is Burning Man: The Rise of a New American Underground, which grew out of a 2000 Reason cover story. He never stopped going to Burning Man, nor participating wholeheartedly in obscure art/music happenings that some of his bemused work colleagues would find almost as inscrutable as some of his counterculture pals viewed libertarianism.

"Brian's contributions to the art scenes in L.A. and San Francisco were monumental," says his best friend, the showman/experience designer Chicken John Rinaldi.* "His passing leaves so many people and so many systems impoverished."

Doherty's knowledge of pop culture, rock music, and comic books was encyclopedic, as evidenced not just by his heroically cluttered workspaces but by his 2022 book, Dirty Pictures: How an Underground Network of Nerds, Feminists, Misfits, Geniuses, Bikers, Potheads, Printers, Intellectuals, and Art School Rebels Revolutionized Art and Invented Comix.

"Libertarians talk a lot about freedom and responsibility. Brian embodied both," Reason Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward recalls. "His weird, colorful life—filled with comics and festivals and music and books—was a model of life lived freely and openly. And in his thinking, reporting, and editing, he was one of the most conscientious and responsible people I have ever met. A libertarian hero in every sense."

Spelunking in subcultures both libertarian and whimsical led to a lot of early discoveries that the normies only sussed out later. Doherty profiled New Hampshire's Free State Project way back in 2004, caught Seasteaders on their then-rise in 2009, and started covering Bitcoin in 2013. Though, as he ruefully admitted later, he knew about the groundbreaking crypto currency as early as July 2010 yet somehow neglected to cash in.

"Had I shelled out, say, $2,000 on this innovative, anti-inflationary currency even a lazy six weeks after I was introduced to it," he wrote, "today I would be sitting on 28,571 bitcoins, the equivalent at press time of over $212 million in cash." More like $2 billion now, but who's counting?

After news of his death broke, Doherty's work colleagues filled up a long Slack thread with fond memories of his deep-seated sense of tolerance, his garrulous laugh, his fury at personal technology, his sometimes elliptical prose style. A staffer once made a T-shirt from a typically verbose Dohertian Slack message: "I try not to assume that because crazy people with crazy beliefs believe or used to believe the things I believe for what I think are right and sane reasons, that that is a sign that I am crazy. But it's getting harder and harder I confess."

Doherty in recent years had suffered from a series of physical ailments and setbacks that left him walking with a cane. It is likely that condition contributed to his deadly tumble Thursday, as he took a stroll away from—of course!—an art gathering atop an abandoned World War 2 gun battery. More details are expected to emerge next week, though the (terrible) news remains the same.

What we're left with is a sui generis body of work. Explorations of " the hippie capitalism of the Grateful Dead." Massive oral histories of the Libertarian Party and Reason. A full-throated libertarian critique/condemnation of a man many of his fellow Rothbardians took a flier on, Donald Trump.

"He and his work will be missed," former Reason Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie tweeted Saturday. "And more important, remembered."

* CORRECTION: Was originally misspelled.

reason.com

[miraje] It is a shame, I had such high hopes for this party in my younger years. So did...

miraje — 1/25/2026 2:27:29 PM

It is a shame, I had such high hopes for this party in my younger years.

So did I, until I came to the realization that the way the US government was set up, there's really no room for minority parties, except perhaps in some local elections.

Although I still embrace most libertarian ideals, I'm seeing some issues from a slightly more conservative and populist point of view..

[Kevin Podsiadlik] Though I could definitely comment on the first post in this screenshot, I think ...

Kevin Podsiadlik — 1/25/2026 1:56:13 PM

Though I could definitely comment on the first post in this screenshot, I think the last says even more. When your state party's official position is determined by whoever logged into the social media account last, you've ceased to be a meaningful political party.

It is a shame, I had such high hopes for this party in my younger years.

[Selectric II] That's how I read it, too, but MSN and the rest of the media are deliberately mi...

Selectric II — 1/10/2026 4:29:27 PM

That's how I read it, too, but MSN and the rest of the media are deliberately misinterpreting, never missing an opportunity to take a jab at Trump even (especially) if 100% false. Google it.

A lie gets half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

[Thomas M.] He says "an attempt to be inclusive ends up excluding", so that's a clear, direc...

Thomas M. — 1/10/2026 11:21:52 AM

He says "an attempt to be inclusive ends up excluding", so that's a clear, direct shot at the left.

Tom

[Selectric II] Many media take this as a criticism of Trump, not Europe man crackdown on free s...

Selectric II — 1/10/2026 3:15:23 AM

Many media take this as a criticism of Trump, not Europe man crackdown on free speech.

[Thomas M.] Pope Leo calls for an end to "Orwellian" anti-free speech laws. [X] Breaking:...

Thomas M. — 1/9/2026 7:36:34 PM

Pope Leo calls for an end to "Orwellian" anti-free speech laws.

[X]

Breaking: Pope Leo calls for an end to "Orwellian" anti-free speech laws. pic.twitter.com/bKdfxmflQs
— Pope Respecter (@poperespecter1) January 9, 2026

[/X]

Tom

[miraje] I'm glad that the IJ has taken this case, as confiscating a $95,000 airplane ove...

miraje — 10/24/2025 4:15:16 PM

I'm glad that the IJ has taken this case, as confiscating a $95,000 airplane over three cases of beer is beyond outrageous, IMO. Another example of government theft, pure and simple. Whole article at the link..

foxnews.com

Alaska pilot seeks SCOTUS relief in case in which three beer cases led to forfeiture of $95K plane

An 82-year-old Alaskan bush pilot is seeking to take his fight over a $95,000 airplane and a few cans of beer to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to his lawyers.

With the help of the Institute for Justice, Kenneth Jouppi is appealing a ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court that upheld the forfeiture of his aircraft, a punishment that, according to a release shared on the institute’s website, he says violates the Constitution’s protection against excessive fines.

On April 3, 2012, Jouppi, an Air Force veteran and owner of KenAir LLC, was set to fly a passenger and her groceries from Fairbanks to Beaver, a small remote Alaskan village about 110 miles north.

Hidden in the passenger’s luggage, though, were three cases of beer, two Budweiser and one Bud Light, intended as a gift to her husband, who worked in Beaver as the local postmaster," the Institute for Justice’s release said.

Before Jouppi could take off, Alaska State Troopers searched the plane and found the beer. Jouppi insisted he had no knowledge of it, but prosecutors charged him with knowingly transporting alcohol into a dry village...

[Thomas M.] Rand Paul: "A few people may have noticed that I resisted an enthusiastic endor...

Thomas M. — 2/19/2025 8:51:16 PM

Rand Paul:

"A few people may have noticed that I resisted an enthusiastic endorsement of Donald Trump during the election.

But now, I’m amazed by the Trump cabinet (many of whom I would have picked).

I love his message to the Ukrainian warmongers, and along with his DOGE initiative shows I was wrong to withhold my endorsement.

So today, admittedly a little tardy, I give Donald Trump my enthusiastic endorsement!

(Too little too late some will say, but, you know, it is sincere, there is that.)

Don’t expect this endorsement to be fawning.

I still think tariffs are a terrible idea, but Dios Mio, what courage, what tenacity.

Go @realDonaldTrump Go!"

x.com

Tom

[Thomas M.] Donald Trump is officially endorsed by the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire fo...

Thomas M. — 11/4/2024 9:24:05 PM

Donald Trump is officially endorsed by the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire for President.

This was not a light decision. But we feel it is the right one for ourselves, for our children, and for the best future of a Free State of New Hampshire.

Donald Trump is not a libertarian. Nonetheless, Trump is the best candidate for libertarians. He has:

1. Promised to free Ross Ulbricht.
2. Started no new wars, a first in over three decades.
3. Pledged to end the importation of anti-liberty migrants.
4. Indicated he will appoint Elon Musk, Ron Paul, and Vivek Ramaswamy to shrink the federal government.
5. Received endorsements from the greatest libertarians in America, including Thomas Massie.
6. Committed to ending the Department of Education.
7. Endorsed Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
8. Flirted with ending the income tax entirely.

The list of Trump promises could continue. We don’t take them as a given. Trump promises much and we are skeptical of promises from politicians. However, we know for certain what the Democrat alternative is: more socialism, more censorship, more taxes, more authoritarianism.

There is, technically, a Libertarian on the ballot. This Libertarian spends his time supporting tax-funded trans surgery for prisoners, advocating for literal murderers, and trying to kick our members out of the Libertarian Party entirely. We cannot support him, and he cannot win.

Endorsing Donald Trump is in the best interests of our ultimate goal: creating a Free New Hampshire. As Free Staters, another term for libertarians who live in New Hampshire, our mission is to create a state so radically free that both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris look like communists.

We’re only part of the way there. The barbarians are at the gates. We must make sure that New Hampshire continues to repel progressives, socialists, communists, and leftists of all stripes. New Hampshire being the only red state in a blue New England helps achieve that goal.

For these reasons and more, the most popular Libertarian state affiliate in the country is endorsing Donald Trump for President.

Now get out there and vote!

x.com

Tom

[Thomas M.] Ron Paul would join Elon Musk to cut government waste in potential 2nd Trump ter...

Thomas M. — 11/1/2024 9:43:45 PM

Ron Paul would join Elon Musk to cut government waste in potential 2nd Trump term

Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) who ran twice for the Republican presidential nomination and once as a Libertarian said Thursday that he applauds Elon Musk’s likely involvement in a potential administration of President Donald Trump as a government efficiency commissioner and would freely offer his advice. Paul said in an interview with podcaster David Gornoski that he would welcome any opportunity to advise Musk on economic policy.

When asked if he would consider advising Musk on wasteful spending, Paul said, “Well I would ... Everybody would know what I believe and there’d be no secrets, but I wouldn't want an official position, you know, because I've sort of steered away from getting too involved in the politics of it all right now.”

thepostmillennial.com

Tom

[Thomas M.] China just arrested the founder of a messaging app for not moderating and censor...

Thomas M. — 9/5/2024 5:59:41 PM

China just arrested the founder of a messaging app for not moderating and censoring the content to their liking.

Iran is arresting their own citizens for posting opinions the Mullahs don’t approve of.

North Korea seized bank accounts of peaceful protesters.

Just kidding … that was France, England, and Canada.

Tom

[Thomas M.] "But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which imp...

Thomas M. — 8/5/2024 1:38:30 PM

"But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom".

"Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies, ‘Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.’"

- Alexis de Tocqueville

adamsmith.org

Tom

[Tom Clarke] Can you shout fire in a crowded theater? [youtube video]

Tom Clarke — 7/22/2024 4:08:05 PM

[Tom Clarke] I was a Democrat for a long time. I moved right in the 80s, but it took awhile t...

Tom Clarke — 5/2/2024 2:10:15 PM

I was a Democrat for a long time. I moved right in the 80s, but it took awhile to bring myself to vote Republican. Voted for Andre Marrou in 92. When 96 rolled around, I had no problem voting for Bob Dole.

Was never a registered Libertarian, but I went to several of their events. Made some good friends, enjoyed the camaraderie.

I sure miss Bill Bradford's Liberty magazine....

[miraje] Trump has much in common with libertarian principles. Although I consider my sel...

miraje — 5/2/2024 1:38:36 PM

Trump has much in common with libertarian principles. Although I consider my self a libertarian/conservative/populist, depending on the issue at hand, I'll have no qualms about voting for Republican Trump this year.

I was a registered Libertarian in the past and worked for some of their candidates until I finally came to accept that due to the way that our two party system is set up, minor party candidates have no chance in federal or state elections and never will. It is what it is..

[Tom Clarke] Trump To Make Highly Unusual Campaign Stop To Court Non-Republican Voters F...

Tom Clarke — 5/2/2024 1:22:48 PM

Trump To Make Highly Unusual Campaign Stop To Court Non-Republican Voters

Former President Donald Trump is set to make a highly unusual campaign stop and address the Libertarian Party at their national convention, according to a press release.

The Libertarian Party announced Wednesday that Trump will join the convention lineup, adding that it is the first time that a former president would be giving an address to its party “members, candidates, and executive committee.” Attendees who register to attend the convention will be able to cast their vote to decide which topics the former president will address, according to the press release.

Brian McWilliams, the communications director for the Libertarian Party, told the Daily Caller that Trump is the first major party presidential candidate to address the Libertarian Party’s convention.

Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, confirmed the appearance to the Daily Caller.

“Libertarians are some of the most independent and thoughtful thinkers in our Country, and I am honored to join them in Washington, DC, later this month. We must all work together to help advance freedom and liberty for every American, and a second Trump Administration will achieve that goal. I look forward to speaking at the Libertarian Event, which will be attended by many of my great friends. We all have to remember that our goal is to defeat the Worst President in the History of the United States, BY FAR, Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump said in a press release.

“If Libertarians join me and the Republican Party, where we have many Libertarian views, the election won’t even be close. We cannot have another four years of death, destruction, and incompetence. WE WILL WORK TOGETHER AND WIN!” the former president continued.

[X]

pic.twitter.com/t1ZZ9Ti5iX
— Libertarian Party (@LPNational) May 1, 2024

[/X]

“The theme for the 2024 Libertarian National Convention is ‘Become Ungovernable,'” the press release states.

Trump is leading former President Joe Biden in hypothetical matchups across key swing states, according to a recent poll by Emerson College and The Hill. Trump is ahead of Biden by five points in North Carolina, three points in Georgia, four points in Arizona and two points in both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the poll shows. The former president also has a one point lead in Michigan and Nevada, according to the poll.

“For 50 years, we’ve been trying to get our candidates on the main stage with major party POTUS candidates and we’ve finally succeeded in bringing one to our stage. We will do everything in our power to use this incredible opportunity to advance the message of liberty,” Angela McArdle, the chair of the national Libertarian Party, said in a press release.

dailycaller.com

[miraje] An important blow for freedom. Better late than never. And a 9-0 ruling at that....

miraje — 4/26/2024 9:05:27 PM

An important blow for freedom. Better late than never. And a 9-0 ruling at that. I'm amazed..

[Thomas M.] FISA exchanges real liberty for phantom security By Ron Paul House Speaker M...

Thomas M. — 4/24/2024 8:03:36 PM

FISA exchanges real liberty for phantom security

By Ron Paul

House Speaker Mike Johnson betrayed liberty and the Constitution by making a full-court press to get a “clean” reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Act through the House.

Section 702 authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreign citizens. When the FISA Act was passed, surveillance state boosters promised that 702 warrantless surveillances would never be used against American citizens. However, intelligence agencies have used a loophole in 702, allowing them to subject to warrantless surveillance any American who communicated with a non-US citizen who was a 702 target. Intelligence agencies could then also conduct warrantless surveillance on any Americans who communicated with the new American target. This Section 702 loophole has been used so often to subject Americans to warrantless wiretapping that it has been referred to as the surveillance state’s crown jewel.

A bipartisan coalition of Republican and Democratic House members worked to add a warrant requirement to the FISA bill. Speaker Johnson agreed to allow a vote on the House floor on an amendment requiring federal officials to get a warrant before subjecting any American to surveillance. However, he publicly opposed the amendment, as did President Biden. Prominent deep state operatives, such as former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, also lobbied against the amendment.

The case against adding a warrant requirement to FISA consisted of hysterical claims that forcing the surveillance state to obey the Fourth Amendment would make Americans vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Particularity, the claim was made that forcing national security operatives to get a warrant before spying on US citizens would cripple the ability to respond to a “ticking time bomb” situation.

Those claims were debunked by the heroic Edward Snowden, who made the American people aware of the extent of warrantless surveillance. Snowden, who worked as a government contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), posted in a message on X (formally known as Twitter) that the warrant amendment would not stop federal agencies from acting without a warrant in a “ticking time bomb” situation.

A vote was held Friday afternoon on the amendment requiring a warrant before Section 702 powers would be used to spy on American citizens. Despite the fearmongering by Mike Pompeo and others, as well as the opposition of both President Biden and Speaker Johnson, the amendment failed to pass by only one vote. The amendment would have passed had Speaker Johnson not cast a rare floor vote (speakers usually do not vote on legislation) against the amendment.

When the PATRIOT Act was rushed to the House floor in the fall of 2001 — weeks after 9-11 — and voted upon before members had a chance to read it, only three Republicans voted against it. One conservative representative told me he voted for it even though he agreed with my opposition to the bill. He told me, “I can’t go back home and tell my constituents I voted against the PATRIOT Act!”

While the failure to pass the warrant amendment was dispiriting, the fact that it failed by only one vote shows how much progress we have made. It should thus inspire us to keep encouraging Congress to refuse to take away real liberty in the name of promises of phantom security.

ocregister.com

ronpaulinstitute.org

Tom

[Tom Clarke] The Freedom Ratchet Only Goes One Way, And It's The Wrong Way [graphic] Fa...

Tom Clarke — 4/24/2024 6:36:07 PM

The Freedom Ratchet Only Goes One Way, And It's The Wrong Way

Facial Recognition. Digital IDs. Electronic Funds. License Plate Readers. Surveillance Cameras. Internet Usage Tracking. National Gun Database.

You name the technology program, and the odds are that it will reduce individual freedom. Where are the robust safeguards against government misuse of all of these data? They do not exist, except as a throwaway comment from a back-bencher to pacify the stoners over at Reason Magazine (even they don't believe it). The surveillance state is here, and it is by no means spectacular.

I went through two passport controls last week, and both used facial recognition to identify me. That's chilling, and not because of the reasonable need in the interest of national security at a border. It's that the data are instantly available to every department of our bloated, deep-state-controlled Leviathan. Sure, the Department of Agriculture probably won't use the data, but what's to prevent them if they just sort of feel like it?

Cops can now cruise around the streets while using automated license plate readers that will pick out all sorts of potential violations. But that sounds like unreasonable search! I thought there had to be an articulatable reason for a policeman to pull me over. And a search of my data for no reason other than he can does not satisfy that requirement.

How long until the Deep StateTM sets up facial recognition systems outside of Trump rallies? Or NRA meetings? Or the local range? Or the "Anytown Citizens For Limited Government" meeting?

Oh...our staunch defenders of freedom in the United States Senate just renewed Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and it wasn't along party lines. 60-34 means there are at least 60 senators who dream about jack boots and kicking down doors. Of course they were just following the lead of the House of Representatives!

This is all about power and control. Our government wants as much of it as they can accumulate, and its purpose is to make us obedient, and subservient to their needs and desires.

The United States of America was created because of exactly the same thing emanating from London, rather than Washington. We now have parliament and King George, only it is Congress and King Joseph.

Where is our Samuel Adams?

ace.mu.nu

[miraje] Another civil asset forfeiture case. Really raises my libertarian hackles. Pure ...

miraje — 4/14/2024 10:34:27 AM

Another civil asset forfeiture case. Really raises my libertarian hackles. Pure highway robbery by cops with guns. Looks like they robbed the wrong guy here..

foxnews.com

After police seized Marine vet's life savings, ruling brings him closer to saving others from civil forfeiture

The DEA returned his $87,000, but this Marine vet is continuing his fight to end civil forfeiture abuse

Stephen Lara was driving cross-country to see his daughters in California when a seemingly routine traffic stop ended with the Nevada Highway Patrol seizing his entire life savings of $87,000.

"I knew at that moment that wasn't the place to fight this battle," Lara, a 42-year-old Marine veteran, told Fox News. "I had to stay calm."

It took Lara seven months to get his money back from the government, but his fight to prevent law enforcement agencies from getting kickbacks for seizing suspected but untried Americans' property remains ongoing...

[Tom Clarke] Rick Scott said he wants to run for the position. I think he stands a pretty goo...

Tom Clarke — 3/2/2024 6:28:39 AM

Rick Scott said he wants to run for the position. I think he stands a pretty good chance this time.

[miraje] There's been talk of Rand Paul replacing Mitch McConnell as GOP Senate leader. W...

miraje — 3/1/2024 11:24:21 AM

There's been talk of Rand Paul replacing Mitch McConnell as GOP Senate leader. Won't happen, but I'd like to see it. The upcoming election will be pivotal for the country in many ways..

[Tom Clarke] Tulsi Gabbard to speak at Liberty Forum >>Our team was particularly excited to...

Tom Clarke — 3/1/2024 7:01:43 AM

Tulsi Gabbard to speak at Liberty Forum

>>Our team was particularly excited to break last week's news that Lieutenant Colonel Tulsi Gabbard, a 4-term Congresswoman and 2020 Presidential candidate, will address all Liberty Forum attendees!

In the 2020 Democratic presidential debates, Tulsi made a name for herself by challenging the pro-war consensus. After the election of Joe Biden to the White House, Tulsi left the Democratic Party in disgust with the war-mongering, race-baiting, and corruption that had taken over her party.

Tulsi Gabbard's address to the NH Liberty Forum comes at a time of great speculation that she is up for consideration as a Vice Presidential candidate on the Republican ticket.

(And who wouldn't love to see her skewer Kamala Harris — for a second time — in a head-to-head VP debate?)

As a recent article in the Union Leader, " Free Staters land VP short-lister," noted:

"The Free State Project has landed a big fish for its Liberty Forum Experience next month — former Hawaii Democratic congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard.

"Gabbard will be the keynoter on Saturday, March 16; the Nashua event runs from March 15-17.

"This news comes after the former Democrat was included on the short list of potential vice presidential candidates that GOP nominee-to-be Donald Trump name-dropped on Fox News last week.

"Gabbard became a Fox News analyst last
year. She had a very public break with the
Democratic Party after her presidential campaign in 2020.

"Her libertarian views on many key issues are simpatico with Free Staters."

We are also pleased to welcome my former employer, Young Americans for Liberty, as a gold-level sponsor for the event.

Secure your ticket today for the New Hampshire Liberty Forum!

Tulsi Gabbard, a former four-term Congresswoman and potential Vice Presidential candidate, will address the full body of the NH Liberty Forum on March 16.

freestateproject-1859136.hs-sites.com

[Glenn Petersen] This A.I. Subculture’s Motto: Go, Go, Go New York Times December 10, 2023 [gra...

Glenn Petersen — 12/10/2023 3:57:55 PM

This A.I. Subculture’s Motto: Go, Go, Go

New York Times
December 10, 2023

On a Monday night last month, a few hours after OpenAI held an event for developers in downtown San Francisco, hundreds of artificial intelligence aficionados packed into a three-story nightclub several blocks away to celebrate a looser, less corporate vision of the A.I. future.

Under colorful lights and screens showing anime images, the mostly young, mostly male crowd danced to a D.J. set by the musician Grimes, who is better known in tech circles as Elon Musk’s ex. A big banner on the wall read “Accelerate or Die.” Another sign showed a diagram of an A.I. neural network emblazoned with the motto “Come and Take It.” An A.I. start-up handed out promotional fliers that read “THE MESSENGER TO THE GODS IS AVAILABLE TO YOU.”

The party was called “Keep A.I. Open,” and it was a coming-out bash of sorts for Effective Accelerationism, one of the weirder and more interesting splinter groups that have emerged from the A.I. boom of the past year.

Effective Accelerationism (often shortened to “e/acc,” pronounced “e-ack”) is a loosely organized movement devoted to the no-holds-barred pursuit of technological progress. The group believes that artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies should be allowed to move as fast as possible, with no guardrails or gatekeepers standing in the way of innovation.

The group formed on social media last year, and bonded in Twitter Spaces and group chats over memes, late-night conversations and shared scorn for the people they call “decels” and “doomers” — the people who worry about the safety of A.I., or the regulators who want to slow it down. It has moved offline, too, with parties and hackathons in the Bay Area and beyond.

Effective Accelerationism began as a cheeky response to an older, more established movement — Effective Altruism — that has become a major force in the A.I. world. E.A., as the older group is known, got its start promoting a data-driven approach to philanthropic giving, but in recent years has been worrying about A.I. safety, and promoting the idea that powerful A.I. could destroy humanity if left unrestrained.

The battle between the e/accs and the Effective Altruists is one of many quasi-religious schisms breaking out in San Francisco’s A.I. scene these days, as insiders argue about how quickly the technology is progressing, and what should be done about it.

E/acc prefers the all-gas, no-brakes approach. Its adherents favor open-sourcing A.I. software rather than having it be controlled by big corporations, and unlike Effective Altruists, they don’t see powerful A.I. as something to be feared or guarded against. They believe that A.I.’s benefits far outweigh its harms, and that the right thing to do with such important technology is to get out of the way and let it rip.

Some of the ideas e/acc has adopted, like its opposition to regulation, are standard techno-libertarian gospel. Others resemble tenets of older Silicon Valley subcultures, like the Transhumanists and the Extropians, who also valued progress and resisted attempts to contain technology. The movement also borrows from the works of the British philosopher Nick Land, who wrote years ago that the accelerating forces of capitalism and A.I. would ultimately collide in a “techno-capital singularity,” a point at which technology would outstrip our ability to contain it. (More recently, Mr. Land has fallen out of favor after endorsing far-right ideas about race and authoritarianism.)

In a manifesto posted online last year, e/acc’s founders — all of whom used inside-joke pseudonyms like “Bayeslord” and “Based Beff Jezos” — described their goals in lofty, bombastic terms, writing that their goal was to “usher in the next evolution of consciousness, creating unthinkable next-generation lifeforms.”

Most people, of course, want to keep the life-forms we already have, and critics of e/acc chafe at the idea that we should roll over and let the robots overtake us. Peter S. Park, an A.I. researcher at M.I.T. and the director of Stakeout.AI, an A.I. safety advocacy group, told me he considers e/acc “a dangerous unaccountable ideology inspired by replacing humanity with A.I.”

I first heard about e/acc about a year ago. At the time, the movement seemed to consist mainly of bored tech workers who gathered late at night to have heady conversations about politics and philosophy, discuss the news and complain about the emerging narrative that A.I. was a looming threat to humanity.

“A lot of my personal friends work on powerful technologies, and they kind of get depressed because the whole system tells them that they are bad,” Guillaume Verdon, a 31-year old French-Canadian physicist who once worked in an experimental lab at Google, said in a Twitter Space earlier this year, which was transcribed by someone who attended. “For us, I was thinking, let’s make an ideology where the engineers and builders are heroes.”

Initially, I wrote the movement off as a fringe novelty — a bunch of Twitter-addicted techies with persecution complexes turning warmed-over Ayn Rand into edgy memes.

But a few months later, tech luminaries like Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, started showing up in e/acc’s Twitter Spaces, and proclaiming that he, too, believed in effective accelerationism. (Mr. Andreessen’s profile on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, now includes “e/acc,” and he listed Based Beff Jezos and Bayeslord as two of his “patron saints” in the techno-optimist manifesto he published in October.)

Garry Tan, the president of the influential start-up incubator Y Combinator, signaled his support for e/acc. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, replied to a Based Beff Jezos tweet and joked “you cannot outaccelerate me.” And the movement gradually broadened beyond A.I., with some leaders pushing for cryptocurrencies or nuclear fusion.

Soon, the movement was gaining steam in Silicon Valley, and officials in Washington were warning about its growing influence. It was a sure sign, to the e/acc crowd, that they had trolled the right people.

Last week, Forbes revealed that Based Beff Jezos was actually Mr. Verdon, who now runs an A.I. hardware start-up called Extropic. (Mr. Verdon, who has had enough media exposure for one week, declined to be interviewed for this column.) His unmasking took some of the mystique out of e/acc, but it didn’t seem to dampen followers’ enthusiasm.

I interviewed several e/acc supporters recently, ranging from early joiners to more recent converts. All of them praised the movement as a refreshing antidote to the pessimism of the A.I. safety crowd.

Amjad Masad, the chief executive of the A.I. coding start-up Replit (and an investor in Mr. Verdon’s start-up), told me that he liked e/acc “as a meme counterweight to all the A.I. doom and gloom.”

Julie Fredrickson, a start-up investor, said that e/acc is “a fun shorthand for a future that prioritizes progress and solutions.”

Rochelle Shen, a start-up founder and biohacker, said she was welcomed by the e/acc crowd after being turned off by the stuffiness and insularity of Effective Altruism.

“E.A. is so 2019,” she said. “You go to their parties, the guys don’t know how to dress, and the conversations are totally controlled by these one or two thought leaders.”

E/acc, she added, is “fun to be around.”

These are, of course, verdicts on e/acc’s vibes, not its ideas, some of which are still too extreme for many people to swallow. Critics have pointed to the fact that some of e/acc’s leaders, including Mr. Verdon, seem to actually agree with the Effective Altruists that a rogue A.I. could wipe out humanity, but aren’t bothered by the idea, since superhuman A.I. could represent a logical next step in evolution. And some have noticed that the movement has gotten more partisan and serious as it has grown.

“I liked it when it was an ironic countermovement instead of what seems to be transforming into an earnest libertarian movement,” said Aidan Gomez, the chief executive of the A.I. company Cohere.

Even Grimes, who played the e/acc party last month, has distanced herself from the movement, saying in a post on X that she was “dj-ing in enemy territory because I think healthy discourse is constructive!”

Like any good sect, e/acc has also spawned sub-sects. There is “ bio/acc,” for people who want to use technology to augment human biology. Grimes proposed “a/acc,” for “aligned acceleration,” a more human-friendly version of the original in which the robots would act in accordance with our values. Vitalik Buterin, the founder of the cryptocurrency Ethereum, favors “d/acc,” another split-the-difference compromise that tries to stay optimistic about technology while taking its risks seriously.

Will any of these movements amount to more than people arguing on the internet? Hard to say. What feels more certain is that we have entered a new era of A.I. tribalism, where grand pronouncements about unknowable futures are honed into homilies and passed down by techno-priests to their followers, who just want to know what lies ahead.

The post This A.I. Subculture’s Motto: Go, Go, Go appeared first on New York Times.

This A.I. Subculture’s Motto: Go, Go, Go – DNyuz

[Glenn Petersen] Support for Socialism: Polling Results In many western countries, including...

Glenn Petersen — 12/2/2023 6:28:03 AM

Support for Socialism: Polling Results

In many western countries, including Canada, Australia, the United States and United Kingdom, young people are expressing a preference for profound economic and social change including socialism, presumably due in part to their lack of real-world experience with genuine socialism and the misery it imposed. According to Perspectives on Capitalism and Socialism: Polling Results from Canada, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, support for socialism ranges from 46 to 53 per cent among Canadians, American, Britons and Australians aged 18-34 years old, but it drops to between 19 and 38 per cent among people over 55.

There’s also the question of what its 21st-century supporters actually mean by “socialism.” The traditional definition—government controlling the means of production—garners the least support among socialist supporters today who, instead, think of socialism as more government programs or even a guaranteed minimum income.

Perspectives on Capitalism and Socialism: Polling Results from Canada, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom | Realities of Socialism

[Tom Clarke] [graphic]

Tom Clarke — 11/6/2023 11:52:06 AM

[Glenn Petersen] Federal regulators are in the Supreme Court's crosshairs Sam Baker Axios Septer...

Glenn Petersen — 10/1/2023 2:27:25 PM

Federal regulators are in the Supreme Court's crosshairs

Sam Baker
Axios
Septermber 30, 2023

The Supreme Court has teed up two big opportunities to significantly curtail the federal government's regulatory power — to weaken or even dismantle agencies that have been in conservatives' sights for years.

The big picture: The Supreme Court's new term begins Monday. Some of the first cases on the docket have the potential to advance conservatives' years-long push to rein in the federal bureaucracy — and to undercut core Democratic priorities, from regulating Wall Street to combating climate change.

Driving the news: The justices are scheduled to hear oral arguments Tuesday in a suit that could gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a cornerstone of Congress' response to the 2008 financial crisis.

A group of payday lenders brought the case, which argues that the CFPB's funding mechanism is unconstitutional — and that everything it has done with that funding is therefore void.
A ruling in the lenders' favor would grind much of the agency's work to a halt. "All C.F.P.B. rules are now potentially vulnerable to constitutional attack," Boston College law professor Patricia McCoy told The New York Times last year.

Details: Critics argue it's unconstitutional that the CFPB gets part of its funding directly from the Federal Reserve, rather than an annual appropriation from Congress. The Justice Department notes that other federal programs, such as Medicare, are also funded directly.

Flashback: The court ruled in 2020 that the CFPB's leadership structure was unconstitutional, but allowed the agency to keep functioning under new rules.

The most important case on the docket so far may be Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.

On its face, it's a dispute over the finer points of federal oversight of herring fishing. But the case could be a major coup for the conservative legal movement.
That's because the herring fishers are asking the justices to overturn the doctrine known as "Chevron deference," which the Supreme Court devised in the 1980s, but the current conservative court has been chipping away at for years.

Chevron states, in short, that when part of a particular statute isn't clear, the courts will generally defer to the interpretation of the agency tasked with implementing that statute, as long as its interpretation is reasonable.

Federal agencies have relied on that doctrine to defend any number of policies — from Medicare cuts to extremely granular disputes over patent law.
It's an especially big issue for the EPA, which has — mostly unsuccessfully— asked the court to defer to its understanding of major environmental laws as it has tried to defend sweeping new regulations from industry lawsuits.

Why it matters: The court has put a stop to just about every major exercise of executive power the Biden administration has attempted. It blocked an eviction moratorium, vaccine mandates, student-loan forgiveness and limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Those rulings relied on a different doctrine, not Chevron, but it all pulls the law in the same direction: The executive branch will have a harder time doing a whole lot of things.

What's next: The court will likely take on bigger, more polarizing controversies as the term goes on.

The justices have already agreed to hear a major Second Amendment case. State laws banning gender-affirming care are on an accelerating path toward the high court, and abortion also might be back on the docket soon.

Between the lines: These may not all be blockbusters. Several of these cases could be good vehicles for the kind of incrementalism Chief Justice John Roberts favors.

The court could weaken Chevron deference without overturning it. It could use procedural maneuvers to duck the merits of big abortion or trans rights cases, at least for a while.
Yes, but: Roberts has often had a hard time building support for that go-slow approach on a 6-3 court.

The bottom line: If 5 justices want to keep moving quickly and decisively to the right on issues of great importance to the conservative legal movement, they'll have plenty of opportunities to do so — starting with the administrative state.

Go deeper:

Federal regulators are in the Supreme Court's crosshairs (axios.com)

[Glenn Petersen] Tim's presence is missed on a lot of boards. His posts were always on point and ...

Glenn Petersen — 10/1/2023 2:20:13 PM

Tim's presence is missed on a lot of boards. His posts were always on point and informative. He had strong opinions, but they were always well-informed and consistent with his core beliefs. He could be argumentative, but above all else, he was always civil, a trait that is increasingly absent from SI.

[miraje] This thread has gone quiet since Tim passed away. I miss his valuable contributi...

miraje — 9/24/2023 12:32:03 PM

This thread has gone quiet since Tim passed away. I miss his valuable contributions here..

There are very few "causes" that I find worth supporting financially. The Institute for Justice is certainly one. I especially appreciate their taking on civil asset forfeiture abuses where innocent citizens are robbed by government agencies.

Seems that no one is immune to this form of theft. Here's a current example (whole article at link)..

foxnews.com

FBI sued after allegedly losing hundreds of thousands in rare coins during raid

Two Americans are alleging the FBI lost or stole their property after seizing it through a "shady" process.

"All we know is that their property was in a box and safe before the FBI broke into the box," Joe Gay, an attorney with the nonprofit law firm Institute for Justice, told Fox News. "Once the FBI broke into the box, we honestly don't know exactly what happened."

"We don't know if they lost it. We don't know if somebody pocketed it and walked away," he continued. "We have no way to know."

[Glenn Petersen] India Gets Rid of its “Jones Act” by Alex Tabarrok Marginal Revolution Septem...

Glenn Petersen — 9/15/2023 6:15:54 AM

India Gets Rid of its “Jones Act”

by Alex Tabarrok
Marginal Revolution
September 14, 2023 at 7:25 am

India has been liberalizing its cabotage laws over the past decade and now appears ready to end them completely:

Splash: India is planning to completely remove its cabotage laws which will allow foreign registered and flagged ships to work along its coast without obtaining a permit from the country’s Directorate General of Shipping.

This is seen as a massive move by the Narendra Modi-led government as the only ships currently allowed to work on local routes for carrying cargo are registered in India. Foreign ships can work along the coast only with an appropriate permit. When it came into force, the law was intended to protect domestic shipowners.

According to local media, this is seen as the biggest reform yet in the shipping sector but also a topic that will undoubtedly rile up Indian fleet owners.

The US’s Jones Act continues to raise shipping costs, increase fuel usage and harm the environment. We should follow India’s example.

Reminds me that there is no such thing as development economics.

India Gets Rid of its "Jones Act" - Marginal REVOLUTION

[Tom Clarke] Can a Gonzo Libertarian Save Argentina? compactmag.com

Tom Clarke — 8/15/2023 5:22:28 PM

[Glenn Petersen] The Path to Abundant Air Travel Removing regulatory restrictions and other cons...

Glenn Petersen — 4/30/2023 3:11:51 PM

The Path to Abundant Air Travel

Removing regulatory restrictions and other constraints will result in more, cheaper and better options for air travelers

Gary D. Leff
Discourse
April 28, 2023

When it comes to air travel, we need more options. Image Credit: Moment
--------------------------------

More passengers fly within the United States each year than any other country. On many levels, this makes sense, given the size of the U.S. economy, the distances involved, and that aviation is an industry where the U.S. remains highly competitive, from the manufacture of aircraft to the making of jet engines. And supposedly, the industry is also a poster child for deregulation, culminating with 1978’s Airline Deregulation Act.

Yet while there are hundreds of brands of breakfast cereal, there is limited product differentiation from a limited number of U.S. airlines. Moreover, air travel isn’t becoming materially more reliable—the percentage of U.S. domestic on-time arrivals was no greater in 2022 than it was in 2002. We should have more options, and better performance. In short, we need air travel abundance.

The Problem

Contrary to the narrative that today’s airline industry is a deregulatory success story, commercial air travel remains one of the most highly regulated industries in the country. Effectively what changed after 1978 was that the federal government no longer told airlines where they’re allowed to fly, and how much they can charge. That’s no small deal. However, nearly every other element of the experience continues to be dictated—and even directly managed—by the government.

For example, unlike much of the world, such as in Europe and Australia, nearly every U.S. commercial airport is owned by a local government. What’s more, airport security isn’t just regulated to government standards; it’s also mostly carried out directly by the government through the Transportation Security Administration (TSA.) And from the time the plane pushes back from the gate to the time it arrives at its destination, it’s told exactly where to go by air traffic controllers, who are government employees.

Elsewhere in the world you’ll find nonprofit organizations conducting air traffic control, with better technology to direct planes more effectively and efficiently. You’ll also find private security services following government standards. In both cases, these arrangements have been shown to be best practices because the government isn’t simply regulating itself.

The U.S. government isn’t just overinvolved in important areas like air traffic control; it involves itself in mundane decisions as well, and in areas where it is clearly not needed. At the start of the pandemic, for example, when American Airlines wanted to hand out hand sanitizer to passengers, they had to seek buy-in from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). That involved both meetings with their local certificate office (there’s an office of the FAA just for regulating American Airlines) as well as higher-ups in Washington, D.C. You might think that makes sense—perhaps hand sanitizer is flammable—but the FAA had already studied the issue and found little risk.

The meetings were performative and completely unnecessary. But this kind of thing is very common; nearly every element of the customer’s air travel experience involves the government. This in turn can descend into farce. For instance, when airlines want to add doors to business class seats, they need to ask permission from the FAA because it requires an exemption to federal regulations. When American Airlines recently asked permission, the FAA refused to consider their submission—because the electronic letterhead the airline used in its request didn’t list its address.

This extensive and largely unnecessary regulation, layered on top of specific rules that limit entry into the market, constrains the availability of air travel. That means it’s less convenient and more expensive to travel—but even more than that, it means the products airlines offer us are much more limited.

So, what should we do? Here are a few simple suggestions that will lead to cheaper, better and more abundant air travel.

Legalize New Airlines

It’s nearly impossible to get approved for a new airline. That’s why new entrants usually buy up existing operating certificates from nearly defunct carriers.

For example, one of two significant airline startups to launch service during the pandemic was Avelo Airlines, founded by Andrew Levy, the former CFO of United Airlines and chief operating officer of Allegiant. But Levy didn’t just start a new airline, he took some of his financing and bought Xtra Airways, a shell of a carrier that had already sold off its fleet—save for one ancient Boeing 737-400, so it could retain its FAA Air Carrier Certification.

Even if you can start a new airline, you are limited in how much money you can take from foreign businesses and airlines. So long-established foreign carriers, like Air France and Japan Airlines, aren’t allowed to control U.S. carriers, or even operate flights within the U.S. As a result, the last major carrier to launch was Virgin America in 2007, since acquired by Alaska Airlines. And that startup was delayed by issues over whether it was really controlled by U.S. investors—or by Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson’s group in the U.K.

There hasn’t just been a failure to start new airlines. The number of airlines in the U.S. has shrunk markedly, declining by over 70% during the past 30 years as a result of mergers and bankruptcies. While the largest airlines today have significantly more reach than they did 20 years ago, and U.S. air travel has grown overall in the past two decades, small cities aren’t served by non-stop flights to nearly the same extent that they used to be. The share of airline trips under 500 miles has fallen in half, to just 14%, representing a loss of 30 million travelers. What’s more, many small cities have lost commercial service altogether.

Meanwhile, with ultra-low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines having entered into an agreement to be purchased by JetBlue, it would be great not to lose a low-fare competitor. So, we should welcome Ireland’s Ryanair, Britain’s easyJet or some other low-cost foreign carrier into the U.S. market. At the higher end, Singapore Airlines makes investments in foreign carriers. It would be great to see a prestige airline like Singapore or Emirates enter the U.S. market. The entrance of these and other low-cost and prestige airlines into the U.S. market would boost competition, which in turn would mean lower costs, better service and more options.

More Capacity

To grow airline capacity, we need to expand airports, move more aircraft through our airspace, and hire more people to fly the planes. Yet we don’t have the gates or runways to expand air travel. And, not surprisingly, the current limits favor incumbent airlines and the status quo, not innovation.

Airport construction is constrained by the same problems that plague so many other public infrastructure projects. Thanks to factors such as overregulation and NIMBYism it’s difficult to build a new airport (the last new major one built in the U.S. was Denver International—which opened in 1995) or even build a new runway. In the U.S. there are very few private commercial airports. Local governments could unlock over $130 billion privatizing the largest airports, but the path to do so is incredibly cumbersome.

The most congested U.S. airports, New York’s JFK and LaGuardia, and Washington’s Reagan National, have limits on the number of takeoffs and landings that are permitted. The government has given existing airlines “slots,” or takeoff and landing rights, and these are effectively subsidies for incumbent carriers that keep out competition. We should auction takeoff and landing slots, rather than granting property rights to airlines (that they can use or sell). Another idea is to use congestion pricing to allocate scarce resources to their greatest value use.

It can be difficult for airlines to enter a new market even without slot controls. Long-term gate leases and regulatory capture at government-controlled airports have allowed incumbent carriers to maintain their hold on major hubs.

Meanwhile, attempts to modernize air traffic control have floundered for 30 years. The FAA manages major projects badly, but the effort is also constrained by trying to make capital investments within annual congressional appropriations cycles, which stifles the kind of long-term spending plans that are needed for these types of projects. As a result, we still largely use radar rather than GPS and voice rather than digital communication, and we are only just now switching from paper flight strips (including changes to speed and altitude that are handwritten) to electronic data to manage traffic flow.

The private nonprofit NavCanada (which rolled out electronic flight strips way back in 2002!) oversees not just Canadian airspace but also the North Atlantic. It operates much more cost efficiently than the FAA. And they’re way ahead technologically as well. In contrast, having one agency that is both regulator and service provider (self-regulation, but by government) was identified as a poor practice by the International Civil Aviation Organization, all the way back in 2001. The U.S. is one of just a few countries out of compliance with arms-length safety guidelines.

Spinning off air traffic control into a private entity would be better for accountability and allow for more targeted and consistent investment. Meanwhile the FAA’s Office of Inspector General has found that attempts to modernize air traffic control within the agency have wasted billions of dollars. And things aren’t likely to get better because FAA management and procurement problems are endemic.

More Pilots

It’s all well and good to remove barriers to starting an airline and to create more airport capacity, but there aren’t enough pilots because the government has instituted rules making it more difficult, time-consuming and costly to become a pilot—rules that have nothing to do with safety.

Up until 2013, pilots had to have a commercial license, which required 250 hours of flying, in addition to being type-rated for the specific aircraft they were flying. Following the 2009 Colgan Air crash, the requirement was increased for most candidates to 1,500 hours even though the two pilots involved in that crash already had over 1,500 hours. (The captain of the downed plane had 3,379 hours.)

Not everyone needs 1,500 hours. Military pilots are allowed to fly with 750 hours, those with a B.A. in aviation can fly with 1,000 hours, and those with an associate degree in aviation can fly with 1,250 hours. But even these requirements are onerous and unnecessary—certainly for a co-pilot.

Except for the hours of flight time, on top of a commercial license, pilots don’t have specific objectives or proficiency requirements. It’s just a time requirement. What’s more, there is absolutely no relationship between safety and the 1,500-hour rule—a rule that no other nation has adopted. And, of course, the U.S. allows pilots from nations without such a rule to fly here and depart from U.S. airports. There could be better training and testing with more structured flying instruction that’s easier, more meaningful and less expensive to accomplish. The only thing the 1,500-hour rule does is serve union interests by limiting entry into the profession.

Development of New Aircraft

We should ensure that new aircraft are safe—but we shouldn’t unnecessarily delay new technology in the name of safety. New aircraft in recent decades haven’t become substantially more advanced. Indeed, Boeing’s latest narrowbody, the 737 MAX, was designed to be as close as possible to earlier 737 models. And while materials and electronics have become more complicated, fundamental propulsion technology has remained the same. That could be about to change—if we don’t stifle innovation.

United, along with Mesa Airlines, ordered 200 small electric planes from Archer Aviation. These vertical takeoff and landing planes (eVTOLs), flying up to 150 mph for up to 60 miles, aim to whisk passengers from urban downtowns to United’s hubs in the next couple years. The estimated cost for the flight from Manhattan to JFK airport, for example, would be about $50.

American Airlines has pre-ordered 250 similar aircraft from Vertical Aerospace and taken options on 100 more planes that promise to “carry four passengers and a pilot and fly at speeds up to 200 mph over a range of over 100 miles.” These eVTOLs could be operational “as early as 2024,” according to the company. In reality, however, electric-powered planes may be further off than hoped for due to FAA regulatory hurdles.

As transportation researcher Bob Poole explains, the FAA has unnecessarily complicated the airplane certification process for these new types of planes: “[J]ust about everyone in the emerging eVTOL industry assumed that type certificates [which certify an airplane’s safety and airworthiness] were to be handled under… the same regulation used to certify conventional commercial airliners. FAA would have attached special conditions to the… regs to account for the ability of eVTOLs to take off and land vertically. Instead, FAA has decided to define these new aircraft as “powered lift” vehicles to be certified under… special class rules.” Since those don’t exist for aircraft like this, the government needs to create a set of rules before flight can be allowed.

In contrast, a more conventional regulatory process will be used in Europe, which means, in essence, that the U.S. is saying European safety regulators can’t be trusted (an odd thing after various Boeing debacles), and that manufacturers will have to pursue two completely distinct processes.

A Future Where Airlines Innovate

Today we see some startup airlines trying to find workarounds for rules that have limited innovation. For instance, JSX is an air carrier that operates regional jets with just 30 seats and flies in and out of private airports, allowing passengers to skip busy commercial airports and TSA checkpoints. More than one executive at a major airline has told me that as JSX grows and becomes more of a competitive threat to expect lobbying of Congress and the FAA to disallow their business model. The bulk of JSX flights occur between cities less than 500 miles apart, which have otherwise seen a significant decline in service.

If we allow the creation of more new airlines, if we allow foreign investment and expertise into the domestic airline business, and if we relax the restrictions that keep airports and airspace congested and create a scarcity of trained pilots, we’ll have more abundant and better air travel. Ultimately it’s about eliminating the artificial constraints to efficiency and new competition.

We can have a future where travel is an easier, cheaper and more pleasant experience—where we’re delayed less often and where commercial airlines genuinely compete with a host of different products so we can buy the one that suits us best instead of one size fits all. But to have this kind of abundance, we need a more open and competitive system that focuses on passengers and their needs rather than existing airlines and other special interests.

The Path to Abundant Air Travel - Discourse (discoursemagazine.com)

[Glenn Petersen] The Very Strange New Respect for Authoritarian Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. T...

Glenn Petersen — 4/30/2023 10:58:12 AM

The Very Strange New Respect for Authoritarian Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The enemy of your enemy is not your friend; he's a guy who might want to throw you in jail.

MATT WELCH
Reason.com
4.28.2023 4:00 PM

(Robyn Stevens Brody/Sipa USA/Newscom)
-------------------------

Ever since the 69-year-old conspiratorial activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination last week, a curious new category has appeared among the commentariat—libertarians and/or right-of-center journalists expressing strange new respect for a Hugo Chavez–admiring scion of the Establishment who has serially fantasized about throwing his political opponents in jail.

"I'm quite certain that I've never heard a more erudite speech in any political context," enthused Brownstone Institute President Jeffrey Tucker after attending Kennedy's announcement rally. "As [a] Democrat he must be bad on all sorts of things," tweeted Antiwar.com's Scott Horton, "But not the ones that matter the most." The Libertarian Party of Colorado tweeted (and then deleted) "Bravo and godspeed hero." Tablet, a publication not usually known for boosting overheated analogies to murderous 20th-century totalitarians, gave RFK Jr. an 18,000-word valentine with such soft-toss "questions" about his previous controversial statements (like terming the impact from childhood vaccines " a holocaust") as: "You activated an automated outrage machine that was looking for a gotcha."

The newly Kennedy-curious are intrigued by the rabble-rouser's potential to disrupt an otherwise rubber-stamped Democratic primary, sure, but also by him having the right enemies—the media, the military-industrial complex, and, most of all, a political class that backed COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates.

"Just as Donald Trump…retrieved political themes from the deep past of the Republican Party," National Review's Michael Brendan Dougherty mused, "so it must be that a Democrat should come along and try to revive left-leaning skepticism of government and corporate power, to denounce crony capitalism, censorship, and the CIA to boot."

Recasting RFK Jr. as a foe of censorship and potential tamer of government requires ignoring what he has been and imagining things he'll never be. Among a lifetime of eyebrow-raising public activities, Bobby Kennedy's son has repeatedly egged on government to punish those who disagree with his idiosyncratic understandings of science.

Here he is in a September 2014 interview, for example, arguing that billionaire industrialists/philanthropists/political donors Charles Koch and his then-still-alive brother David Koch (both of whom donated to the Reason Foundation over the years) "should be in jail…enjoying three hots and a cot at The Hague with all the other war criminals" and that politicians who agree with the Kochs about global warming are "contemptible human beings" of whom he "wish[ed] that there was a law that you can punish them under":

After this lock-'em-up interview drew criticism (including from National Review's Charles C.W. Cooke, who described it as "a sure sign of mental imbalance, and a gold-leafed invitation to be quietly excluded from polite society"), Kennedy came out with a clarification removing from his prosecutorial crosshairs most of the individual "climate-deniers," but stressing that "corporations which deliberately, purposefully, maliciously and systematically sponsor climate lies should be given the death penalty."

How would one pull off such a thoroughgoing trample of the First Amendment? Through the bold and vigorous exertions of government law enforcement. State attorneys general who have "particularly potent glands" and "the will, resolve and viscera to stand to up to the dangerous and duplicitous corporate propagandists," Kennedy wrote in a piece headlined " Jailing Climate Deniers," could "annul the charters of each of these mercenary merchants of deceit" and then "withdraw state operating authority from the soulless, nationless oil companies that have sponsored 'Big Lie' campaigns and force them to sell their in-state assets."

He then helpfully provided a kill list: Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, and the American Petroleum Institute, of course, plus

the Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation, Cooler Heads Coalition, Global Climate Coalition, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Americans for Prosperity, Heartland Institute, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), George C. Marshall Institute, State Policy Network, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

"These front groups," he charged, "are snake pits for sociopaths." (Kennedy's denunciations of his political adversaries, then, now, and a quarter century ago, have been nothing if not florid.)

Alas, this episode was not some momentary anti-speech glitch in RFK Jr.'s otherwise civil libertarian matrix. At Al Gore's 2007 Live Earth rally in New Jersey, he urged the audience to "get rid of all of these rotten politicians that we have in Washington D.C. —who are nothing more than corporate toadies for companies like Exxon and Southern Company, these villainous companies that consistently put their private financial interest ahead of American interest and ahead of the interest of all of humanity. This is treason and we need to start treating them now as traitors."

Treason in the United States is punishable by death. In his 2014 interview, Kennedy wished such a prosecution on the Kochs: "Do I think the Koch Brothers are treasonous? Yes, I do." At least when it came to notorious coal executive Don Blankenship in 2009, RFK Jr. limited his preferred sentencing to " jail…for all of eternity."

Yet in 2023, Kennedy can plausibly claim (to those with short memories) the mantle of anti-censorship, for having been on the receiving end of Big Social Media's often government-pressured pandemic speech-policing. He was banned from Instagram in February 2021 "for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines," and his anti-vaccine-mandate nonprofit Children's Health Defense was similarly booted by both Instagram and Facebook in August 2022. He published a book last year called A Letter to Liberals: Censorship and COVID: An Attack on Science and American Ideals. As Tablet's David Samuels wrote, in one of that piece's many eye-popping passages, "At this point, the fact that Robert F. Kennedy is the country's leading 'conspiracy theorist' alone qualifies him to be president."

So is the enemy of your enemy your friend? Depends on your tolerance for unlikely conspiracy theories, and your comfort level in Kennedy's proposed punishments for alleged perpetrators. Where Jeffrey Tucker sees an orator with a "command of facts, history, and issues," motivated both by "truth-telling in an age of nonstop lies" and a genuine urge to "heal" the political divide, I see someone whose presentation of facts—including grave accusations of criminality—have been repeatedly and persuasively found lacking.

When Kennedy alleged in a long 2006 Rolling Stone piece that the 2004 presidential election was stolen, for example, he accused the GOP of "outright fraud" and of employing "a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election," particularly in the critical swing state of Ohio. Election fraud is a serious federal crime, one that the Republican Party in this case was not guilty of, according to assessments of RFK Jr.'s case in U.S. News & World Report, Cleveland magazine, and Salon.com.

Wrote Farhad Manjoo at the latter: "I scoured his Rolling Stone article for some novel story or statistic or theory that would prove, finally, that George W. Bush was not the true victor. But nothing here is new…. If you do read Kennedy's article, be prepared to machete your way through numerous errors of interpretation and his deliberate omission of key bits of data."

In a long 2003 Atlantic article describing the murder conviction of his cousin Michael Skakel for the brutal golf-club beating of teenager Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut, as a "media lynching" and " miscarriage of justice," Kennedy said the state's case would have been "stronger" against a mentally ill drifter. In his 2016 book Framed: Why Michael Skakel Spent Over a Decade in Prison for a Murder He Didn't Commit," Kennedy straight-up accused two other men (one black, the other mixed-race) of having committed the murder as visiting teenagers from lower Manhattan because they were "obsessed" with Moxley's "beautiful blond hair" and so decided to go "cave man" on her.

"There is nothing as devastating as being called a murderer," one of them said in 2016 to reporter Leonard Levitt, who has reported on the case extensively. "I keep my curtains drawn so people can't look inside. I can't sit out in my backyard. My wife gets physically sick whenever this comes up. I don't want to be near anyone with a camera." Retorted RFK: "Let them sue me." (In his detailed takedown of Framed, Levitt concluded: "Where is it written that a person of privilege and entitlement with a famous name can write lies about innocent people without consequence?")

Kennedy's readiness to embrace baroque explanations for seemingly adjudicated events extends to the assassination of his own father: He doesn't think Sirhan Sirhan did it (much to his family's chagrin). This despite the Palestinian communist's admissions of responsibility and expressions of remorse, including to Kennedy himself, over the years. (Bobby Jr. believes the culprit was the late Thane Eugene Cesar, a right-wing, probably racist rent-a-bodyguard on the scene who "was also a CIA asset," Kennedy told Tablet.)

RFK Jr.'s tentative new cheering section on the right typically makes the rhetorical move of reducing his critics to anti-anti-vaxxers who feel anger at how he has discredited their cherished Lockdown Liberalism. For instance, The American Spectator's Daniel J. Flynn:

Journalists representing outfits with the strongest ties to the Biden administration look upon his quixotic bid as a real threat and act accordingly. In headlines, he morphed from a man into an "anti-vaccine activist" ( CNN) and "vaccine critic" ( Reuters). A headline in the New York Times on the eve of his announcement read: "Robert F. Kennedy, Soon to Announce White House Run, Sows Doubts about Vaccines."

Democrats, in their headlines, demonstrate the degree to which their party's cult of Kennedy became a cult of COVID.

Why yes, a man with a vaccine-skeptical nonprofit and a best-selling 2021 book titled " The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health" might indeed be described in journalistic shorthand as a "vaccine critic." But as the above examples, his past quarter-century of public life, and his daily behavior on the campaign trail illustrate, Kennedy is above all an activist who makes totalizing and not-infrequently bizarre statements about the awesome malevolent power of whatever forces he is lining up against.

So though there are a handful of obvious and multi-sourced reasons why Fox News decided to part ways with Tucker Carlson, RFK quickly found the real killer: "Fox fires @TuckerCarlson five days after he crosses the red line by acknowledging that the TV networks pushed a deadly and ineffective vaccine to please their Pharma advertisers," he tweeted. "Carlson's breathtakingly courageous April 19 monologue broke TV's two biggest rules: Tucker told the truth about how greedy Pharma advertisers controlled TV news content and he lambasted obsequious newscasters for promoting jabs they knew to be lethal and worthless."

Robert Kennedy Jr.'s candidacy is already a more serious proposition than those of former President Donald Trump's would-be 2020 challengers Bill Weld, Mark Sanford, and Joe Walsh. In two national polls released Thursday, RFK Jr. averaged 20 percent, with fringe 2020 Democratic candidate Marianne Williamson clocking in at an impressive-for-her 8.5 percent. Surely, incumbent President Joe Biden has significantly less hold on his party's electorate than Trump did on his; most likely, the recognizable last name hasn't hurt Kennedy.

As someone foursquare in favor of more political competition, I am heartened to see Old Joe get a run for his money. But it would take more than semi-alignment on a couple of issues to get me excited about anyone who has ever suggested countering political speech with prison.

The Strange New Respect for Authoritarian Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (reason.com)

[greg s] Mid-50's. Oh man, that's sad. We will miss him!

greg s — 3/23/2023 12:39:18 PM

[miraje] Yes, a really nice guy. You can read his obituary here.. Message 34233356 He w...

miraje — 3/23/2023 12:35:50 PM

Yes, a really nice guy. You can read his obituary here..

Message 34233356

He was born in 1968. Too young to go...

[greg s] This is so sad. Tim seemed like a very nice fellow. I don't have a facebook acc...

greg s — 3/23/2023 12:15:35 PM

This is so sad. Tim seemed like a very nice fellow. I don't have a facebook account. Does anyone know how old he was?

[miraje] Saw a notice that TimF has passed away. Message 34233311 He contributed many v...

miraje — 3/23/2023 10:10:25 AM

Saw a notice that TimF has passed away.

Message 34233311

He contributed many valuable articles here and will be truly missed. RIP to a fellow libertarian..

[TimF] The Ambiguous Word That Can Legally Bulldoze Neighborhoods | WSJ [youtube video]...

TimF — 3/10/2023 4:21:03 PM

The Ambiguous Word That Can Legally Bulldoze Neighborhoods | WSJ

youtube.com

[TimF] Lawsuit: Wayne County prosecutors retaliated against man after civil forfeiture ...

TimF — 3/10/2023 4:02:33 PM

Lawsuit: Wayne County prosecutors retaliated against man after civil forfeiture lawsuit
Kara Berg
The Detroit News

Detroit — A Detroit man is suing Wayne County, the county's attorney and a county prosecutor, alleging they retaliated by filing felony charges against him after he joined a class-action lawsuit pushing back against the county's civil forfeiture policies.

Police took Robert Reeves' car from him in 2019 after they stopped and questioned him about a skid steer they believed to be stolen, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Wayne County Circuit Court. The 32-year-old was unable to get his car back for more than six months and he joined a class-action lawsuit in February 2020 suing Wayne County over its vehicle seizure and civil forfeiture practices.

The day after the lawsuit was announced, prosecutors asked police to release Reeves' car, according to the lawsuit. He got a check for the $2,200 from cash that he had in his pocket when he was stopped by police, and picked up his car about two weeks later, according to the lawsuit.

A month later, prosecutors filed charges against Reeves and another man for two counts of concealing stolen property. The warrants and others had been requested by police five months prior, but they sat dormant at the Prosecutor's Office. But the day after Reeves filed the lawsuit, Assistant Prosecutor Dennis Doherty asked the officer in charge of the investigation for a clarification. Ten days later, Doherty received a new warrant request and recommended charges be filed, according to the lawsuit.

Prosecutors only pursued the charges against Reeves because he was a plaintiff in the forfeiture lawsuit, the complaint alleges. Reeves sued Wayne County, Assistant Prosecutor Dennis Doherty and Davidde Stella, the assistant corporation counsel for Wayne County's Department of Corporation Counsel.

Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller declined to comment due to the pending litigation. A spokesperson for the county did not immediately respond for comment.

"Wayne County prosecutors directed Michigan State Police to reopen that investigation and see that the charges were brought against Robert," said Reeves' attorney, Wesley Hottot. "The immediate response within the county when Robert sued them was to first direct MSP to return the property to him, which they did quickly, and to turn around and charge him with a crime. Those two things are inconsistent. ... They were designed to get the county out of federal lawsuit."

Hottot, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, said retaliation discourages people from speaking out against the government and makes it more likely government abuses will go unchecked.

"Wayne County has been so desperate to keep its forfeiture machine intact that it would rather throw Robert in jail than face his arguments in court," Hottot said. "The Institute for Justice has been litigating civil rights cases for 30 years and has never seen a government retaliate against one of our clients by filing charges."

Reeves is only asking for $1 in damages. The bigger picture is to make sure Reeves and all other would-be litigants are protected if they sue the government, to let governments know "you can't go after our clients without good cause," his attorney said.

"We're making sure prosecutors and policy makers in Wayne County understand that you can't ruin a person's life in this way. It's unconstitutional," Hottot said. "They're not allowed to baselessly charge someone to punish them."

Reeves did not get a hearing for nearly a year. When he finally sat for his preliminary exam in February 2021 to determine if there was enough evidence for the case to proceed, 36th District Court Judge Kenneth King dismissed the charges.

Less than a month later, prosecutors refiled charges against Reeves. It took nearly another year, until January 2022, before his second preliminary exam began, and King again dismissed it because of a lack of evidence. For charges to be dismissed not once, but twice, for a lack of probable cause is "virtually unheard of," Hottot said.

While Reeves' felonies were pending, the county filed a motion in federal court saying his claims couldn't be considered while the criminal case was pending, according to the lawsuit.

People should be upset that a multi-jurisdictional task force spent weeks investigating a rental equipment theft ring and one of the only people charged was Reeves, who was alleged to have the smallest role in the ring, Hottot said. Reeves had met with another person at a construction site who asked him to confirm that a skid steer was working, he said. Police alleged the skid steer was stolen from Home Depot, but Reeves had not known that it was stolen, Hottot said, and prosecutors never showed any proof that it was.

There is nothing stopping prosecutors from filing a third charge against Reeves except the 10-year statute of limitations, which runs out in 2029, Hottot said.

"The awesome power that prosecutors wield should be used against offenders," Hottot said. "It should not be used as a litigation tactic."

The lawsuit alleges the retaliation is part of a larger problem. One of the other plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit, Stephanie Wilson, was charged in a civil forfeiture case, which Hottot said is rare for courts to pursue. The forfeiture case was dismissed, reinstated by the Michigan Court of Appeals and is now being pursued to the Michigan Supreme Court.

"A few weeks after Stephanie joined the case, they started prosecuting that forfeiture case," Hottot said.

detroitnews.com

[TimF] [graphic] reddit.com

TimF — 3/9/2023 9:27:34 AM

reddit.com

[TimF] The FBI Hasn’t Said What This Couple Did Wrong, But Is Taking Their Savings Anyw...

TimF — 3/8/2023 2:57:28 PM

The FBI Hasn’t Said What This Couple Did Wrong, But Is Taking Their Savings Anyway
Class Action Challenges FBI’s “Take Now, Explain Never” Forfeitures

Linda Martin thought she found a safe place to store cash she and her husband Reggie were setting aside to purchase a home. That place was a safe deposit box company in upscale Beverly Hills that had been around for years and sported state-of-the-art security measures. But now her home savings are in the hands of the FBI and she may never see it again, even though she did nothing wrong.

Months after storing her savings at US Private Vaults, Linda found out by watching the local news that the FBI had raided the business. Linda, knowing she had done nothing wrong, initially hoped the FBI would quickly return her money. But months later, the FBI acted on its hidden plan to profit from the tens of millions of dollars in valuables customers had stored at the business.

It sent forfeiture notices to hundreds of box renters telling them the government wanted to take their property forever, even though they were not named in the indictment against the company and even though the FBI’s warrant explicitly directed agents to only open boxes for the purpose of identifying owners.

The notice Linda received was nearly identical to all the others sent out. It referred indirectly to hundreds of different federal laws that might give reason for the government to take the $40,200 in savings she had placed in her box. It did not say what the FBI thought Linda herself had done wrong, and she has not been charged with any crime.

Linda did not realize that by selecting the first option on the confusing form, “file a petition for remission,” she was leaving it completely in the hands of the FBI whether to return any of her savings. To this day, the FBI is keeping her money with no indication whether it will return a single dollar.

If the government wants to forfeit someone’s property, it should tell them what it thinks they did wrong. A federal judge has already found in another IJ case on behalf of US Private Vaults customers that the “anemic” forfeiture notices the FBI sends to forfeiture victims violate the due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. That’s why Linda has teamed up with the Institute for Justice to file a nationwide class-action lawsuit challenging the FBI’s forfeiture notices. Requiring the government to explain why it is forfeiting someone’s property is critical to preventing wrongful seizures and attempted forfeitures.

ij.org

[TimF] "Cops Ahead" Sign Protected by First Amendment, at Least Given Specific Connecti...

TimF — 3/5/2023 10:23:01 AM

"Cops Ahead" Sign Protected by First Amendment, at Least Given Specific Connecticut Statutory Scheme "Look out" vs. lookout.
Eugene Volokh | 2.28.2023

From Friend v. Gasparino, decided yesterday by Second Circuit Judge Steven Menashi, joined by Judges Gerard Lynch and Richard Sullivan:

On April 12, 2018, Plaintiff-Appellant Michael Friend responded to a distracted-driving enforcement operation conducted by Defendant-Appellant Sergeant Richard Gasparino and the Stamford Police Department. Friend stood down the street from where the police were stationed and displayed a sign reading "Cops Ahead." Gasparino twice confiscated Friend's signs and ultimately arrested him for interfering with an officer under Connecticut General Statutes § 53a-167a(a)….

A First Amendment violation, the court held (among other things):

Friend's speech would have lacked First Amendment protection if it were "integral to criminal conduct," a category of speech that historically may be restricted. The "constitutional freedom for speech and press" does not "extend[ ] its immunity to speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute." Thus, "the First Amendment is quite irrelevant if the intent of the actor and the objective meaning of the words used are so close in time and purpose to a substantive evil as to become part of the ultimate crime itself." "In those instances, where speech becomes an integral part of the crime, a First Amendment defense is foreclosed even if the prosecution rests on words alone." Thus, in some cases, speech that helps another person engaged in criminal activity evade detection by law enforcement may be subject to criminal penalties. See, e.g., United States v. Cassiliano (2d Cir. 1998) (affirming an obstruction-of-justice sentencing enhancement because the defendant contacted a "principal target[ ] of the government's investigation[ ]" to "alert[ ]" him "to the investigation and discuss[ ] whether they would lie to" investigators); United States v. Arzola (6th Cir. 2013) (affirming an enhancement because a defendant alerted a co-conspirator before law enforcement executed a search warrant).

Friend's speech does not fall within this category. Friend was not acting in coordination with lawbreakers such that he could be said to have been engaged in a conspiracy to commit violations and evade detection. Gasparino cannot identify a crime that Friend committed, let alone a crime to which Friend's speech was "integral." The only offense with which Friend was charged—and for which Gasparino arrested Friend—was interference with a police officer under § 53a-167a. But … Friend's conduct did not violate that statute. The Connecticut Supreme Court has long construed the statute "to proscribe only physical conduct and fighting words that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace." Because there is no predicate crime that Friend even arguably committed, Gasparino cannot show that Friend's speech was unprotected for being "integral to criminal conduct."

{Friend's conduct also did not constitute incitement or aiding and abetting. Friend's sign was not "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action" or "likely to incite or produce such action." Furthermore, § 53a-8 of the Connecticut Penal Code, which imposes criminal liability for aiding and abetting "an offense," does not extend to motor vehicle violations. The Connecticut Motor Vehicle Code does not include a complicity provision.} …

The mere fact that speech is protected by the First Amendment does not mean that it is always immune from regulation. But restricting such speech requires the government to satisfy a higher burden than the district court applied in this case….

Strict scrutiny permits the government to restrict speech "only if [it] proves that [its restrictions] are narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests." Narrow tailoring requires that the restriction on speech be "necessary to serve the asserted compelling interest, … precisely tailored to serve that interest, and … the least restrictive means readily available for that purpose." This is a "strict test" because "regulations of speech based on its content 'are presumptively invalid.'"

The district court concluded that, even assuming Friend's speech was protected by the First Amendment, Gasparino's actions satisfied strict scrutiny because those actions served a compelling state interest and were narrowly tailored to that interest. First, the district court held that "the police department's interest was in saving lives by stopping distracted drivers and issuing citations for their behavior" and that "this was a sufficiently compelling interest." Second, the district court determined that "the only way in which Gasparino could tailor punishment was to remove Friend and his signs from the adjacent area," that "[t]he operation could only effectively continue without Friend's interference," and that "there was no less restrictive alternative." Both conclusions were erroneous.

While we agree that the state has "an unqualified interest in the preservation of human life," the district court erred by defining the interest as "saving lives by stopping distracted drivers and issuing citations for their behavior." In so defining the relevant interest, the district court did what the Supreme Court has expressly disallowed: it took "the effect of the [restriction] and posited that effect as the State's interest." … [N]either Gasparino nor the district court explain why Connecticut has a compelling interest not simply in saving lives, or even in the enforcement of distracted driving laws, but specifically in doing so by "issuing citations" to distracted drivers. As noted above, a content-based restriction on speech must be narrowly tailored to a compelling interest. The district court here, however, tailored the compelling interest to the restriction by defining the compelling interest in "saving lives" in terms of the specific means of serving that interest—issuing citations—that Friend's protest made more difficult to accomplish. Defining the compelling interest so narrowly "eliminates the entire inquiry concerning the validity of content-based discriminations" because "[e]very content-based discrimination could be upheld by simply observing that the state is anxious to regulate the designated category of speech" through the means it has already chosen.

The compelling interest asserted in this case is properly defined as the state's interest in saving lives or perhaps in the enforcement of distracted driving laws. We do not question the seriousness of the state's interest in enforcing traffic laws, including laws regulating distracted driving. But we must ask whether Gasparino's arrest of Friend and confiscation of Friend's signs were narrowly tailored to advance those arguably compelling interests. As explained above, Connecticut has not enacted any law that proscribes conduct such as Friend's. As a result, Gasparino cannot establish that his discretionary restriction of Friend's speech was "necessary to serve" Connecticut's interests in saving lives or in enforcing traffic laws. Connecticut's legislature and state courts have concluded that restricting speech such as Friend's is not necessary to advance the state's interests, and yet Gasparino unilaterally decided to impose such a restriction. Gasparino identifies no exigency or emergency to justify his decision but argues instead that he could impose a speech restriction in his discretion based on arguments that the state itself has disclaimed. That cannot satisfy narrow tailoring.

{We need not decide whether a state could under any conceivable set of circumstances prohibit actions such as Friend's or what sort of showing it would need to justify such a law.}

This, of course, leaves open the question whether warning people about upcoming police enforcement might be constitutionally unprotected if such conduct were aiding and abetting a traffic offense under state law. (To be sure, "Cops Ahead" encourages people to follow the law, not violate it; but it in the process aids people in avoiding detection for their violations, much as would be the case with a "Police Are Coming" warning to gang members or burglars who are about to commit a felony.)

Congratulations to Dan Barrett & Elana Bildner (ACLU Foundation of Connecticut), who represented Friend.

reason.com

[TimF] [graphic]

TimF — 3/1/2023 11:09:59 PM

[miraje] Critics of civil asset forfeiture quite rightly refer to the practice of swiping...

miraje — 3/1/2023 1:37:36 PM

Critics of civil asset forfeiture quite rightly refer to the practice of swiping cash and property from people accused (but not convicted) of crimes as "legalized theft."

That, along with speed traps, could be more accurately referred to as "highway robbery". Law enforcement agencies that indulge in this are what gives cops a bad name.

[TimF] Any of These Supreme Courts Cases Could Crush the InternetThe Court’s decisions ...

TimF — 3/1/2023 12:56:59 PM

Any of These Supreme Courts Cases Could Crush the InternetThe Court’s decisions in Gonzalez and subsequent cases could lead to impossible, incompatible consequences.
Nicole Saad Bembridge | 2.24.2023

The Supreme Court just heard arguments in Gonzalez v. Google, a case which news outlets across the ideological spectrum agree will determine the future of free speech on the internet. The headlines are not wrong; a decision against Google could devastate the critical speech-enhancing statute that provides websites the protection they need to host user speech. But Gonzalez is only one of a few online speech cases facing the Court this year. The Court may soon grant review of two lawsuits brought by my employer, NetChoice— NetChoice & CCIA v. Moody and NetChoice & CCIA v. Paxton—which concern state-level efforts to control online speech. The cases will determine if 50 separate state governments can each decide what content is available to their residents online. While an anti-speech judgment in any of these three cases will have destructive consequences, the sum of these judgments could be catastrophic for online free speech.

To understand why, we need to begin with some history. From Ravelry and Roblox to Twitter and Truth Social, the diverse fora for expression and commerce on the internet today are the result of two actions the federal government took to protect speech in the mid-1990s.

First, in 1996, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, which included Section 230. Section 230 ensured that only users, rather than the online services that host them or other users, may be held liable for the content they host online. Without its protection, websites large and small would likely remove users' constitutionally protected speech to avoid potential lawsuits.

Second, in 1997, the Supreme Court held in Reno v. ACLU that the First Amendment applies with full force to online speech and media. Reno established that the government cannot compel, censor, or otherwise infringe speech the First Amendment protects just because the speech is made on the internet. This includes services' editorial discretion over what user content to host and how to present it. Until recently, courts and legislatures alike respected Reno's principle that it doesn't make sense to treat offline speech differently than online speech.

Today, Gonzalez asks whether Section 230's immunity against lawsuits over other users' speech applies when online services personalize the presentation of that speech to other users. The plaintiffs argue that when platforms suggest content to users, such as in YouTube's "Up Next" section, those suggestions go beyond the act of hosting and fall outside of the law's protection. So while a service would remain immunized for merely hosting content under the plaintiffs' theory of the statute, it could be liable for highlighting it.

But highlighting certain content (and not others) is necessary for any service because of the vast amounts of user-generated content today. If future plaintiffs could evade Section 230 by targeting how websites sort content or by trying to hold users liable for liking or sharing articles, the internet would devolve into an incomprehensible mess and a litigation minefield. Most of the justices appeared spooked by such a possibility during Tuesday's oral arguments. Their reactions are promising but shouldn't inspire total confidence.

NetChoice & CCIA v. Paxton and NetChoice & CCIA vs. Moody will determine whether the First Amendment will continue to apply to the internet. The laws at issue in these cases are two state efforts by Texas and Florida to control private services' editorial discretion over the content they host, discretion which the Supreme Court established the First Amendment protects almost 50 years ago. Though the laws at issue in these cases differ in material ways, both cases ask whether the government has the power to decide what speech appears on popular social media services. (As I've previously written, the answer is no.)

The First Amendment and Section 230 are distinct bodies of law, but they work in tandem to advance important policy goals related to free speech. The Court's decisions in Gonzalez and the subsequent cases could lead to impossible, incompatible consequences. Free speech online will be the collateral damage. There are three outcomes to consider.

First, if the Court decides against Google in Gonzalez, services could conceivably be sued over curating any content that anyone could take offense over. As Justice Elena Kagan explained during oral arguments on Tuesday, "Anytime you have content, you also have these presentational and prioritization choices that can be subject to suit."

Online services large and small—but especially small—will respond by scrubbing views that may offend to avoid litigation-induced bankruptcy. As Justice Amy Coney Barrett mentioned during oral arguments, a finding for Gonzalez would also mean that users themselves could be sued for retweeting or liking other users' tweets. In short, a finding for Gonzalez is bad news for free discourse online.

Second, if the Court decides against Google and upholds the laws at issue in the NetChoice cases, things get weird. Both laws in these cases ban online services from engaging in the kind of proactive content removal Gonzalez would require of them to stay afloat. Texas' law explicitly bans online services from removing content based on the "viewpoint" it expresses.

This means cyberbullying or terrorism recruitment material, which are offensive because of the viewpoint they express, are illegal to remove. Indeed, Texas specifically rejected an amendment to its law that would have allowed platforms to lawfully remove terrorist content. Likewise, Florida's law forces services to host any content posted by a "registered political candidate," however tortious. If the Court sides in favor of Gonzalez and against NetChoice, popular online services will become sitting ducks waiting for costly litigation over the content the government forces them to host.

The only way for services to avoid this fate under a ruling against Google and against NetChoice would be to ban all content on topics that might provoke controversial viewpoints. This means no content about social movements, religion, guns, COVID-19, or beauty routines to avoid lawsuits over negligence or product liability.

Third, if the Court sides against Google in Gonzalez but for NetChoice in the NetChoice cases, the First Amendment victory will ring hollow. This is because the modern internet is one of intermediaries; few users operate their own servers or websites. Instead, they rely on social media platforms to host their speech.

If Section 230 no longer ensures early and quick dismissals from courts post-Gonzalez, online services will respond by removing content that could foreseeably give rise to a tort claim, restricting publication access exclusively to uncontroversial and low-risk authors. Fewer voices would be heard online—and those voices would reflect and reinforce majoritarian privileges.

Conversely, if the Court publishes a favorable opinion for Google this summer, it will be tempting to cheer victory. Yet hundreds of federal and state bills continue to try and chip away at First Amendment protections on the internet.

The Supreme Court is not done with online free speech after Gonzalez. If the Court does not uphold the First Amendment in the NetChoice cases, states will rush to control what speech may and may not appear online. This will create a domestic "splinternet," where the information available to users—on services of all sizes and ideological leanings—will become regionally divided based on which content local politicians prefer.

The stakes for the future of free speech could not be higher.

reason.com

[TimF] Sheriff's Employee Embezzled Funds in Keeping with the Spirit of Civil Asset For...

TimF — 3/1/2023 12:42:04 PM

Sheriff's Employee Embezzled Funds in Keeping with the Spirit of Civil Asset Forfeiture
One guy with gambling debts is a news story, but a formal policy of legalized theft is a national scandal.
J.D. Tuccille | 3.1.2023

Critics of civil asset forfeiture quite rightly refer to the practice of swiping cash and property from people accused (but not convicted) of crimes as "legalized theft." That enrages law enforcement types who insist they're just abiding by the law, never mind that the law is contemptible. But there are times when forfeiture clearly crosses over into outright robbery, such as when John Cox, an Albany County, New York, sheriff's department employee, used seized proceeds to cover his lousy luck with cards or horses. It's simultaneously awful and thoroughly in keeping with the policy of civil asset forfeiture.

"The head of the Albany County Sheriff's Office business office was charged with grand larceny and five counts of forgery after he allegedly siphoned more than $68,000 from the department's federal forfeiture funds account and forged Sheriff Craig Apple's name to cover it up," Albany's Times-Union reported last week. "Apple said he believes Cox was using the money to pay off gambling debts."

The case was highlighted by the Institute for Justice (I.J.), which works to end asset forfeiture.

"The misuse of forfeiture funds is shockingly common because civil forfeiture is inherently abusive and non-transparent," said I.J. Senior Legislative Counsel Lee McGrath. "In just the past few years, we've seen a Pennsylvania deputy steal $200,000 from a safe, a Michigan prosecutor embezzle $600,000 in funds, and widespread problems with forfeiture reports in states like Kansas and Oklahoma."

Notably, Cox's personal redirection of forfeited assets was discovered in the course of a U.S. Justice Department audit of money acquired through civil asset forfeiture by the Albany County Sheriff's Department and the Albany County District Attorney. That is, the feds suspected that the departments as a whole were misusing seized property and cash and accidentally discovered the business office manager's personal pilfering in the process.

The Justice Department got involved only after county Comptroller Susan Rizzo issued an earlier audit finding the office of District Attorney David Soares was "not compliant with regulations that govern the expenditure of" both state and federal forfeiture funds. Soares's office was found to have withheld roughly $365,000 in seized assets it was supposed to turn over to New York's Office of Addiction Services and Supports.

A few months later, another audit by Rizzo found a similar "failure to comply with legal requirements in the processing of forfeited funds by the office of Sheriff Craig Apple. In addition, she said, "several expenses processed with forfeited funds were impermissible" under the law.

One guy paying off his gambling debts was just the cherry on top.

Unfortunately, as I.J.'s Lee McGrath points out, this is all too common. Many law-enforcement agencies seize assets from unfortunate people, allegedly on suspicion that it's the proceeds of crime or about to be used in criminal activity. That even the cops don't believe this is apparent from the fact that many of those whose funds are taken are never charged—they're just stuck with the thankless task and expense of suing to regain what was (legally) stolen from them.

"Civil forfeitures often occur without any judicial proof aside from vague assertions that assets are 'likely' connected to criminal activity. In many states, prosecutors don't even need to file criminal charges to seize cash, cars or homes," David Safavian pointed out in a 2021 piece for Governing. "But the most perverse issue with civil forfeiture is that it turns the presumption of innocence on its head by requiring owners to somehow prove their property was not related to criminal activity. Because proving a negative is nearly impossible, most give up."

Sometimes the threat of criminal charges is used to coerce people into surrendering their property.

"They could face felony charges for 'money laundering' and 'child endangerment,' in which case they would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care," Sarah Stillman wrote in a 2013 piece for The New Yorker of the options offered by authorities to a family passing through Tenaha, Texas. "Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road."

Tenaha officials so often crossed the line into overt highway robbery that they were eventually forced by litigation to rein in their excesses. But prosecutors around the country still extort money from people by threatening criminal charges if they don't sign away assets.

With property and cash lifted from the public and flowing through so many law-enforcement agencies, the opportunities for embezzlement are many. That results in cases like that of Cox and also of the Pennsylvania narcotics detective and the Michigan prosecutor cited by I.J.'s McGrath who both make the Albany County gambler look like a piker.

But the audits in Albany County reveal that the problem goes beyond freelance pilferage. Officials in charge are also prone to misusing assets they nab from unfortunates who fall into their grasp. That includes diverting funds to pet projects, like Apple and Soares. Or it might involve the purchase of expensive cars, as Reason's C.J. Ciaramella reported in 2018 of then-Gwinnett County, Georgia, Sheriff Butch Conway. That's pretty much inevitable when billions of dollars are available to cops and prosecutors in return for a little arm-twisting. Yes, billions.

"Since 2000, states and the federal government forfeited a combined total of at least $68.8 billion," I.J. revealed in a 2020 report. "And because not all states provided full data, this figure drastically underestimates forfeiture's true scope."

To their credit, some officials concede that civil asset forfeiture is inherently unjust. In 2021, Arizona began requiring criminal convictions prior to forfeiture in most cases. More jurisdictions, including the federal government, should follow suit. As it is, the feds too often help local police bypass reforms by "adopting" forfeiture cases and then "sharing" funds back to the originating agency.

It's natural to marvel when you read about somebody like John Cox, an employee of a law enforcement agency, acting like any other crook and embezzling funds. But don't forget that he was caught only because the offices of the sheriff and the D.A. were already under investigation for their own shenanigans, and that's part of the much larger problem with civil asset forfeiture.

One guy with gambling debts is a news story, but a formal policy of legalized theft is a national scandal.

reason.com

[TimF] When the Government Makes Poverty Worse A Pennsylvania survey suggests that tax...

TimF — 2/28/2023 9:58:40 AM

When the Government Makes Poverty Worse
A Pennsylvania survey suggests that taxes are often a major barrier to economic security, ranking ahead of credit card debt and student loans.
Eric Boehm | 2.27.2023

For individuals struggling to make ends meet, the government might be causing more problems than it is solving.

As part of a new report released Monday, a survey of more than 1,000 low-income Pennsylvanians found that taxes are often a major barrier to economic security—ranking ahead of more commonly discussed problems such as credit card debt and student loans. Among those surveyed, all of whom have incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level (about $53,000 annually for a family of four), the average respondent reported paying $4,575 per year in taxes.

Elizabeth Stelle, director of policy analysis for the Commonwealth Foundation, the pro-market think tank that published the report, says the data should prompt officials to rethink some of the root causes of poverty in the state and across the country.

"Before we start talking about more ways to alleviate the symptoms of poverty," Stelle says, "we need to take a step back and think about what obstacles the government has in place right now that are holding back people that are limiting prosperity."

That's not the only common myth that the new report aims to bust. Here's another: Most poor Pennsylvanians (63 percent) work or are currently seeking a job. Meanwhile, the report also found that poverty is not exclusively a crisis for cities and other urban areas. In fact, of the five Pennsylvania counties with the highest poverty rates, four are found in sparsely populated rural areas (the fifth is Philadelphia).

Poverty in Forest County—deep in the wilderness of the Allegheny Mountains southeast of Erie—is far different from poverty in Philadelphia. Stelle sees that as an argument against one-size-fits-all government-based poverty reduction schemes, which can fail to take into account the needs of individuals in such diverse economic environments.

Though the report surveys only a single state, Pennsylvania is a useful political and economic microcosm for the country as a whole. It has urban pockets, sprawling and prosperous suburbs, an industrial legacy, and widespread rural areas that are often overlooked. It remains a crucial swing state and a political bellwether—its state legislature is currently enduring a weeks-long crisis that makes Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy's election look tame by comparison. As such, it's an important laboratory of democracy and a state where shifting views on policy can have national implications.

Pennsylvania has increased spending on social welfare programs over the past few decades, but the poverty rate in the state has remained stubbornly flat, the report shows. The paper asks officials to consider a counterfactual history: If Pennsylvania had enacted a rule in 2003 that capped future government spending increases at a combination of inflation and population growth (and had returned the surplus to taxpayers), the average low-income resident of the state would have an extra $20,000 in the bank today, simply due to the lower tax burden.

That's a messier solution to poverty than drawing up government programs that specifically target people living in certain conditions. But it's one that would empower every individual in the state to make their own decisions about how to pursue prosperity.

"Governments are not so good about customizing programming and figuring out what's going to help you and your individual situation," she says. "If you want to help everybody, just give them more economic freedom."

reason.com

[TimF] Qualified immunity shields another abusive police department from accountability...

TimF — 2/28/2023 9:43:46 AM

Qualified immunity shields another abusive police department from accountability
By Thomas Knapp

Over the last few decades, we’ve seen numerous bad actors escape punishment for their bad acts — ranging from theft to sexual misconduct to summary execution — for no better reason than that they were government employees, under the doctrine of “qualified immunity.”

Now the U.S. Supreme Court appears to have dropped the “qualified” part in favor of just plain immunity, full stop.

On February 21, the court rejected an appeal from Anthony Novak, who was arrested and jailed for four days in 2016, before being acquitted on a charge of “disruption of police operations.”

Novak subsequently sued for damages, and his case seemed airtight: The supposed “disruption” consisted of a Facebook page parodying the Parma, Ohio police department.

The “qualification” for immunity claims, per the Supreme Court’s 1982 ruling in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, is that a government employee’s conduct must not “not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”

Related: Qualified immunity has produced a police accountability train wreck

Like, for example, the rights to free speech and freedom of the press enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

A “reasonable person” — in particular a “reasonable cop” from Ohio, where high school students must complete a semester of coursework on “US government,” and where police officers are required by law to swear or affirm that they will “support the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America” — couldn’t have missed knowing about those clearly established constitutional rights.

Parma police officers Kevin Riley and Thomas Connor had no plausible claim of confusion as to whether they were violating Anthony Novak’s rights when they arrested him for saying things they didn’t like.

Related: Supreme Court to decide if police can enter your home and steal from you

The immunity they’ve been granted first by a federal judge, then by the Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals, and now by the US Supreme Court, isn’t “qualified.” It’s just a free pass for people with badges.

Come to think of it, why should such people receive any immunity at all, “qualified” or otherwise, for committing crimes?

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, right? I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere. “But Your Honor, how was I to know bank robbery was illegal?” won’t likely bring a judge down on your side of things.

The people who make their livings enforcing the laws should be held to a higher standard, not a lower standard — and certainly shouldn’t be allowed to play a get out of jail free card — when they violate those laws.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

ocregister.com

[TimF] Prof. Davies: Wired is WRONG - Billionaires are not Bad for the Economy [youtube...

TimF — 2/24/2023 12:00:11 PM

Prof. Davies: Wired is WRONG - Billionaires are not Bad for the Economy

youtube.com