Issues
From Nixon to Biden: How the US Turned Banks into Spy Networks
“Americans do not have financial privacy, really at all. We have this illusion of financial privacy.” Cato policy analyst Nicholas Anthony summed it up bluntly in an interview with privacy advocate Naomi Brockwell. Beginning in 1970 the federal government passed a...
The Dragnet State: How Geofence Warrants Turn Everyone into a Suspect
Imagine drawing a box on a map and declaring that every person who was within that area during a given time is a suspect in a crime. That is the effect of a surveillance tool called a geofence warrant. In practice, a geofence warrant allows law enforcement agencies...
Executive Order 6102: A Deep Dive into FDR’s Gold Confiscation Program
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s gold confiscation order in 1933 attempted to remove most gold from private hands. But due to widespread noncompliance, it ultimately failed to accomplish that goal. Nevertheless, the order and the acts that followed still wreaked havoc on...
Virtual Home Invasions: We’re Not Safe from Government Peeping Toms
The spirit of the Constitution, drafted by men who chafed against the heavy-handed tyranny of an imperial ruler, would suggest that one’s home is a fortress, safe from almost every kind of intrusion. Unfortunately, a collective assault by the government’s cabal of...