Today's Washington Post contains a shocking (and breathtakingly thorough) investigative piece, worth reading in its entirety, which reveals how the FBI has been using its surveillance powers—greatly expanded under the USA PATRIOT Act—even more aggressively than we feared:
The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters...

As we've noted before, the DMCA has increasingly been used to block competition, rather than to stop "piracy." First it was printer toner cartridges, then garage door openers, and today, in Storage Technology v. Custom Hardware Engineering, it's being used in an effort to tie...

For years now, copy-restriction software has been a looming threat to those who purchase music and want to make fair uses such as space-shifting it from one device or computer to another. Fortunately, early versions of the software were so cumbersome and easy to work around that consumers whole-heartedly...

Today the Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard argument in the case of Doe v. Gonzales, considering whether National Security Letters (NSLs) are unconstitutional. NSLs are secret subpoenas for communications logs, issued directly by the FBI without any judicial oversight. These secret subpoenas allow the FBI to demand that online...

Apologists justified the broad, civil-liberties corroding powers granted to the government under the USA PATRIOT Act by arguing that they would be used to put terrorists behind bars. Yet several provisions can be used against Americans in a wide range of investigations that have nothing to do with terrorism....

Printing presses are the prized platform of a public lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel, and invective. Their potent allies in this pursuit include Ben Franklin and John Hancock.
Take the tea tax. Revenue was coming, providing much needed funding to help with his Majesty's benevolent aims...