The SRU Young Amerians for Liberty Create a "Graveyard of Civil Liberties!"

With Halloween approaching, the SRU Young Americans for Liberty wanted to recapture the scary and frightening aspects of not just ghouls and goblins, but Washington’s equally disturbing disrespect of the Constitution and American freedom.

To bring attention to Washington's horrendous attempts to strip American freedom and liberty, The SRU Young Americans for Liberty hosted an event that demonstrated the scary truth that American liberties are being taken away by Washington. The table was set up during common hour in front of Bailey Library, a high traffic location. Curious students walking by were lured by a table full of free books, stickers, magizines, and a favorite past-time candy, warheads.

Joel Hills from the Leadership Institute lent a hand and created a video about the event:

Is this how we imagined it?

Ten years have passed since the warm September morning that became the most devastating day in the history of the United States. It is hardly possible to bring ourselves back to that moment and remember exactly how we felt. We recall where we were, to be sure. Who we were talking to. What we had for breakfast that morning, and what plans we cancelled that evening. But ten years removed from the abject horror we faced that day, the fact is that the terror, grief, and overpowering vulnerability we experienced have, to our relief, faded into memory.

Still, imagine what was on your mind as we watched those terrible events unfold and began the long process of picking up the pieces. For many Americans, retribution was high on the list, and justifiably so. Out of the literal and figurative dust emerged one man who came to embody all the evil of September 11: the man who choreographed the massacre and rejoiced in its aftermath, Osama bin Laden. Many of us had never heard his name before, and many of us didn’t care. The crosshairs of a nation had descended upon him, and he deserved all the wrath we could muster.

Imagine now that you were given the chance to see into the future, to glimpse the moment when victory was achieved and Osama was finally dispatched. What would this moment look like?

A Quicker Way to Violate your Civil Liberties

If you’re a frequent flyer, you’re probably fed up with having to go through security each time you want to get on a plane and travel, especially when that security involves the potential for X-rays or pat-downs. Don’t you wish there was a quicker way of going through security? Well, the good people at the TSA sympathize with you, and are offering express security screenings to get you on the plane faster if you fly frequently.

This fall, the TSA will be testing out express security in Atlanta, Detroit, Miami, and Dallas. Intended for those who fly often, it will allow certain people to go through security without needing to take off your shoes or taking your laptop out of your bag, saving travelers a fair bit of time, and enabling passengers to zip right through security while everybody else fiddles around with their belongings.

However, this program comes with a catch. To qualify for the program, you need to give the TSA some “added personal information,” such as personal contacts and your travel history, to make sure terrorists aren’t “gaming” the system. What the trade-off comes down to is you give up more of your private information in exchange for speed, and you still might be subject to a pat-down. If this plan goes into effect, travelers will be faced with two options: go through the traditional pat-down x-ray security that takes forever, or go through the speedy, more invasive security that swaps privacy for convenience. It’s better than having just one option, but when the TSA is providing those choices, you’re merely choosing which is the more preferable assault on your civil liberties.

H/T Campaign for Liberty. Originally published at www.silverunderground.com.

The Death of Freedom at LSU

There are disturbing trends developing at Louisiana State University. The first unnerving development was reported in The Reveille on March 9th. LSU’s Police Department has used federal tax dollars to purchase a License Plate Reader to scan for violations and mark the positions of cars on campus. I am all for police using constitutional means for law enforcement, but scanning all license plates until you find a criminal hardly seems to fit any interpretation of the Constitution. 

Secondly, just yesterday, LSU announced it would be the first public university to partner with City Year. This may seem like a wonderful development for LSU, many of our classes already contain service-learning components. More importantly, federal tax dollars need not be spent to encourage volunteering. 

Lastly, and perhaps most egregious of all, LSUPD is bringing Homeland Security's “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign to campus. We are now encouraged to spy on our fellow students for seeming out of place or running from a building. Watch out! That lost-looking freshman could be a terrorist! The student running to take a test or make it to class on time may be a criminal!

LSU already receives a red flag from FIRE for its restrictions on free speech. Now, LSU deserves a similar rating for its abuses of civil liberties and waste of money. Freedom lovers beware:   You are no longer welcome in Baton Rouge.