Frederick S. Lane | In my previous post, “The Napoleon of the Mailbags,” I talked about the enthusiasm of Christian nationalists for a re-invigoration of the 1873 Comstock Act. In the view of zealots like US District Court Judge Matthew Kaszmyrak (D. 19th Cent.), the law's long-dormant prohibition against the mailing of “(e)very article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion” amounts to a national ban of mifepristone and misoprostol, the two medications most commonly used to induce abortion. Read more →

By Frederick S. Lane | The name “Anthony Comstock” has been in the news a lot over the last few weeks. That’s really something of a surprise, given that Comstock died almost 109 years ago in his Summit, NJ, home. But he left behind a legacy of legislative and cultural activism that increasingly resonates with the country’s growing Christian nationalist movement.  Read more →

By Frederick S. Lane

Having spent a fair amount of time reading the writings of America's founding statesmen, I feel qualified to ask the following question: Is there anything that Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, or Washington would have found more ludicrous than the sight of thousands of Americans wandering around colonial Philadelphia trying to capture imaginary Japanese monsters known as Pokémon? Read more →

By Frederick S. Lane

As intrusive as data collection by private companies can be, the negative consequences (unwanted ads, commercial profiling, even credit redlining) pale in comparison to government power over our property, our liberty, and even our lives. As I wrote in American Privacy, we don’t have to look far back in our nation’s history to find instances of government misuse of personal information. Nixon, with his enemies list and abusive IRS practices, is the most well-known example, but similar abuses have flared up at all levels of government. (Among other things, there are numerous reports of investigating officers downloading and sharing nude photos and videos that they discovered while examining seized cellphones.) Read more →

The SCOTUS cellphone privacy ruling and the recent celebrity phone hack are two sides of the same coin, according to Frederick Lane, legal scholar and author of AMERICAN PRIVACY: The 400-Year History of Our Most Contested Right. Read more →

Edward Snowden's leaks revealed that the National Security Agency had far overstepped legal boundaries with their current data collection programs. But, claims legal scholar Frederick S. Lane, these intrusions into American privacy and civil liberty are as old as America itself. Read more →

You may not want to explain the details of Anthony Weiner's public disgrace to your kids, but if you keep mum, you may be missing a chance to teach your kids some valuable lesson. Read more →

“You Have the Right to Remain Silent” Read more →

Frederick S. Lane makes an immodest proposal for airline safety in the wake of the failed Christmas Day bombing. Read more →

Frederick S. Lane looks at the Constitutional issues posed by the group of politicians at 133 C Street, otherwise known as "The Family." Read more →

Frederick Lane looks at the history of anti-Census fervor. Read more →