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Are Drone Strikes and Kill Lists The New Normal?

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Disturbed by extra-constitutional U.S. drone strikes in countries such as Yemen and Pakistan? Presidential "kill lists" of suspected terrorists and security threats raise endless ethical and constitutional concerns?

A decade-plus after the 9/11 attacks and the launching of a vaguely defined and expansive global "war on terror", Americans are grappling with appalling revelations that the president claims the right, without any sort of judicial or legislative review or approval, to assassinate individuals (even American citizens) and groups he believes are national security threats.

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Eli Lake, the senior national security correspondent for The Daily Beast/Newsweek (and an occasional Reason contributor) and discusses the effects of technological developments and power grabs by both President George W. Bush and Barack Obama on military action.

Lake believes that a tentative consensus has formed around the use of drone strikes and targeted killings. "I think there's a much better chance, if libertarians are worried about it," he says, "of introducing some sort of oversight...and some degree of transparency in that process than it is to say we can't do it."

About 6 minutes. Produced by Joshua Swain, with camera by Meredith Bragg, Jim Epstein, and Swain.

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3 Reasons Conservatives Should Cut Defense Spending Now!

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

The Congressional Budget Office projects that if we keep spending the way we have been, federal debt held by the public will grow from around 60 percent of GDP to a whopping 82 percent of GDP over the next decade, with no end in sight. That’s the sort of borrowing that can ruin a country's economy.

Conservative Republicans are happy to talk about cutting spending on the poor, education, and cowboy poetry readings, but they insist that spending on defense and homeland security be increased.

Given that spending on defense and homeland security accounts for a whopping 20 percent of the government’s budget, that’s a non-starter. As with every other legitimate function of government, we need to squeeze spending down to the lowest level possible that still gets the job done.

Here are three reasons conservatives – and all other red-blooded Americans – should cut defense spending now.

1. War is Over! Didn’t we just win – or at least end – the war in Iraq? And aren’t we winding down in Afghanistan? After World War II, Vietnam, and the end of the Cold War, military spending got cut, as it should have been.

More to the point, spending on the military and homeland security grew by 90 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars since 2000. If al Qaeda and most international terrorists groups have been largely vanquished, we should not just be bringing the troops home, but dollars too.

Unless, that is, conservatives want to seriously argue that nearly doubling outlays for the past decade haven’t yielded results that would allow us to dial down defense spending.

2. What price safety? The United States already accounts for about 45 percent of the planet’s military outlays – more than the next 14 countries combined. Most of those countries are our allies as well, so we should be able to stay safe while reducing our military spending.

It’s a conservative truism that government programs, even ones that are sanctioned by the constitution, tend to be bloated, inefficient, and incompetent. Surely that same logic applies to the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. In fact, Republican Reps. John Mica and Paul Broun marked the 10th anniversary of the Transportation Security Administration with a report that concluded that after spending $56 billion in security measures, flying is no safer now than it was before the 9/11 attacks.

If conservatives can’t find wasteful spending and useless programs in defense and homeland security to cut, they’ve got bigger problems than terrorists to deal with.

3. Attacking the Military-Industrial Complex is a Republican Virtue – And Good Politics. It was a Republican president – the war hero Dwight Eisenhower – who sounded the alarm about the military-industrial complex’s insidious ability to grow and grow like a cancer on the American body politic. And right now, it’s Democrats such as Defense Secretary Leon Panentta leading the cry for a blank check despite admitting that there are tons of duplicative programs in his department.

In his proposed 2011 budget, President Barack Obama actually calls for bigger spending on defense and homeland security than the Republicans do. Obama’s recent announcement that he may trim some planned increases over the next decade doesn’t change that.

Americans are rightly tired not just of dubious, inconclusive wars that have led to the death of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of others. A growing number of us are tired of out-of-control spending by a Washington elite that is totally out of touch with everyday Americans.

If conservatives want to push forward on reducing spending on Medicaid and other domestic programs, they should show that they take their own limited government philosophy seriously by pushing for defense cuts between now and the 2012 elections.

About 3 minutes long. Scroll down for downloadable versions of all our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive automatic notifications when new material goes live.

Nick Gillespie is editor in chief of Reason.com and Reason.tv, and the co-author of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong with America. Follow him on Twitter: @nickgillespie.

Meredith Bragg is a producer at Reason.tv, a 2010 finalist for digital National Magazine Award for his video work, and an active musician and performer.

Assassinations, Spying and The Constitution: ACLU President Susan Herman Talks Big Government Taking Liberties

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:10:00 EST

"All of our elected representatives have to hear from a broad cross section of liberals, libertarians, conservatives--people who just say, 'This is too much big government. We want our government back," says American Civil Liberties Union President Susan Herman, author of the new book Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy.

How much has the police state expanded since 9/11, and is there any way to stop it? Herman sat down with Reason.tv Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie to discuss the this and other questions surrounding the state of liberty in America. Herman notes that while there have been a few minor changes in policy, for the most part there's been a remarkable continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations in terms of their disregard for civil liberties. She also discusses the recent assassination of American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki and the ACLU's role in representing Al-Awlaki's father in court.

Interview by Nick Gillespie. Edited by Zach Weissmueller.

Approximately 17 minutes.

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Craig Shirley: How Pearl Harbor - and December 1941 - Made America a Global Power

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 08:00:00 EST

The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941 killed over 2,400 Americans and led directly to the entry of the United States into World War II.

In his powerful, thickly researched new book, December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World, Craig Shirley chronicles the day-by-day shifts in American culture, politics, and national identity through that horrible month. Before December, Shirley tells Reason's Nick Gillespie, a solid majority opposed entry into World War II and the "eminently respectable" America First movement was poised to help select the next president of the United States. Non-interventionism was so universal that Franklin Roosevelt himself had campaigned for his third term as president on a promise to keep "American boys" out of European wars.

By the start of 1942, says Shirley, the long tradition of isolationism was over, never to be seen again. The nation that had rejected the League of Nations after World War I helped create the United Nations and America quickly became not simply a global economic, political, and military power but the dominant player on the globe.

The author of many books, including two biographies of Ronald Reagan and a forthcoming book on Newt Gingrich, Shirley talks with Reason's Nick Gillespie about what was gained - and lost - in the historical hinge point that was December 1941.

Approximately 8 minutes.

Camera by Meredith Bragg and Jim Epstein; produced by Bragg.

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"Shut Up. You Don't Get a Lawyer!": The Defense Authorization Act Guts Civil Liberties

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:00:00 EST

"It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided to help Al Qaeda to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next," says Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) in support of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). "And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer.'"

No recent piece of legislation has been more controversial than the NDAA, which passed the Senate last week and includes provisions that apparently grant the president unlimited power to detain American citizens arrested in connection to terrorism. The House approved its version of the NDAA earlier this year, so the legislature must hammer out differences and present a final version to President Barack Obama. For his part, Obama has threatened to veto the legislation not because it tramples on civil liberties but because it subject executive actions to congressional oversight.

Earlier this fall, Reason's Matt Welch talked to Laura Pitter, counterterrorism adviser for Human Rights Watch. "The terms in the bill are so vague that it can really be applied to anyone the U.S. deems is an enemy,” says Pitter, who underscores that federal courts are far more effective and efficient when it comes to prosecuting terrorism-related cases. Since the 9/11 attacks, she notes, federal criminal courts have resolved over 400 terrorism-related cases while military commissions have prosecuted just six cases.

Approximately 5 minutes.

Camera by Meredith Bragg and Joshua Swain; produced by Swain.

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Matt Welch Talks Treament of OWS Protesters and Grades the TSA on Freedom Watch

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 EST

Reason Magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch appeared on Freedom Watch With Judge Napolitano to discuss the treatment of what guest host Elizabeth MacDonald calls, "OWS pests", the economics of security surrounding the TSA and how the super committee's failure may jeopardize payroll tax cuts. Air Date: November 22, 2011.

Approximately 20 minutes.

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Shipwrecks, Treasure and Cannon Fire: The True Story of an American Privateer

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:00:00 EST

Compared with better-known stories of the Founding Fathers who, author and regular Reason contributor Jackson Kuhl note, "don't do much,” the story of privateer Samuel Smedley is brimming with action. His new book, “Samuel Smedley, Connecticut Privateer,” delves into this true-life tale of revolution, shipwrecks, treasure and cannon fire.

Reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie sat down with the author to talk about Smedley, America’s fascination with Revolutionary War biographies and Kuhl’s desire for a film franchise.

Approx. 6 minutes.

Edited by Meredith Bragg. Camera by Meredith Bragg and Josh Swain.

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All The President's Wars: How Foreign Policy Became One Man's Prerogative

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EDT

As Barack Obama announces the beginning of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, a far bigger issue - one that goes to the heart of American history and government - remains unaddressed.

"That the President has the right to start a war at his pleasure is just completely divorced from the original meaning of the Constitution," says constitutional scholar Gene Healy.

President Bush declared a war on terror that could theoretically extend into any country accused of harboring terrorists, including the United States itself. President Obama not only expanded the war in Afghanistan soon after taking office, he decided to bomb Libya without consulting Congress.

Healy, author of The Cult of the Presidency and an analyst at the Cato Institute, offers a forceful critique of the increasingly expansive role of the president in not only conducting wars but in declaring them. While the Constitution delegates the declaration of war to Congress, Healy stresses that its members are usually more interested in "handing out the bacon and getting re-elected" than in being held accountable for the success and failure of military interventions.

Michael Ramsey, a constitutional scholar and law professor at the University of San Diego, believes that the Constitution grants the president fairly broad war powers, especially in response to attacks, but even he argues that President Obama's recent Libya intervention has no Constitutional justification.

Is this any way to run a country's foreign policy and military might?

Ramsey and Healy sat down with Reason.tv to discuss how presidential war powers have expanded over time - and whether that's a good thing for the United States and the rest of the world.

Produced and Edited by Zach Weissmueller; shot by Paul Feine, Josh Swain, and Jim Epstein.

About 9 minutes.

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Obama's War That Isn't a War

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:00:00 EDT

Since at least the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy has been drifting- comprising a series of ad hoc interventions absent a national consensus about when to use force and lacking an underlying set of reliable, core principles.

That drift continues with President Obama's speech about our war with Libya- and includes the simple fact that our commander in chief couldn't even acknowledge that we're in a war and that we've taken sides against someone he calls a "tyrant who murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized innocent people around the world -- including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents."

Dropping bombs, shooting missiles, deploying massive amounts of personnel and power - all of these are generally understood as acts of war. But Obama can't admit that we're waging war because then he would
have to acknowledge what his critics correctly underscore: Constitutionally, he doesn't have a right to do this sort of thing unilaterally when the country isn't facing a clear and present danger.

We know this because of Obama himself. In 2007, while a US senator and presidential candidate, he flatly told The Boston Globe, "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

No president was worse at foreign policy than George W. Bush, who came to power amid promises of a "humble foreign policy" and then mired us in two intractable conflicts that even supporters grant were poorly executed under his command.

Yet even Bush pushed to get a fig leaf of authorization from Congress before the shooting began. Obama's Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, instead brandished unanimity among NATO leaders as proof we were doing the right thing: "All 28 allies have...now authorized military authorities to develop an operations plan for NATO to take on the broader civilian protection mission under Resolution 1973." As if NATO, a Cold War alliance conceived to protect the free nations of Europe from a threat that went missing 20 years ago, is a substitute for, say, the American people and their elected representatives.

Who knows how long will be in Libya - whether under US or NATO command. It might be a few months or it might be many years. But this much is certain: Our actions there won't have been authorized by the American people. And they provide no guide to where we'll end up next.

Approximately 2.30 minutes. Written by Nick Gillespie. Shot and edited by Meredith Bragg.

Click here for more on Obama's war that isn't.

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Remy: Why They Fought

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 08:00:00 EDT

As American warplanes patrol the skies of Libya and American boots win the peace in Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, Spain, Cuba, the Netherland Antilles, and more than 140 other countries, the international Interwebs recording sensation Remy unveils this timely song reminding all of us back on the home front about why they fight.

"Why They Fought" is the first of a series of collaborations between Remy and Reason.tv. To watch Remy's other videos, go here.

Download the mp3 here.

Music written and performed by Remy. Video produced by Austin and Meredith Bragg.

About 2 minutes.

Read Reason's foreign policy coverage here.

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"Why They Fought"

Since the birth of this great nation
Men and women have fought and died
To protect the very freedoms
In which we all have so much pride

And as they spilled their blood at Gettysburg
Saving freedom's what they sought
And if you asked a dying patriot
He'd tell you that they fought...

For random screenings at the airport
With the TSA all nagging
While we place our toiletries out in
Transparent plastic baggies

And if you asked them why they fought and died
They'd all give the same answer
So you could get pics taken of your junk
While slowly getting cancer

Ask any single one of them
it won't be no surprise
That's why they fought and died...

They braved the cold at Valley Forge
Facing sacrifice and pain, yeah
There was typhoid, measles, dysentery
Plus being in Pennsylvania

But they went off to fight the British
To save this independent nation
And with their final words they'd say
They died so our taxation

Could be on property and income
With withholding of our wages
With a silly complex tax code
Over 16,000 pages

And if you ask them why they gave their lives
They'd say their only wish is
So you could fill out seven forms
To prove that pencil was for business

Ask any single one of them
it won't be no surprise
That's why they fought and died...

Well they gave their lives
So we could save up for a mortgage, woo!
And they stormed that sandy beach
So we could pay our neighbors' too!

They fought and died in fields with pride
And gave us all we'd hope for
To save us all from tyranny--
And also from 4 Loko

Ask any single one of them
it won't be no surprise
That's why they fought and died...

Is Wikileaks a Force For Good? Four Experts on Our Wiki-Future

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:00:00 EST

Is Wikileaks a force for good, allowing journalists and ordinary citizens a glimpse at what diplomats and politicians are doing in our name? Or could the latest Wikileaks information dump be a net negative for open government advocates, resulting in tighter classification of future documents?

Reason.tv sat down with four experts on national security and government transparency—Aaron David Miller, a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, Eli Lake, National Security Correspondent at the Washington Times, Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, and Heather Hurlburt, Executive Director of the National Security Network—and asked if our Wikifuture is something to celebrate or lament.

Approximately 10 minutes.

Produced by Meredith Bragg and Michael C. Moynihan. Edited by Meredith Bragg.

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The Rise of America's Surveillance State: Q&A with "Watchers" author Shane Harris

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:00:00 EDT

In his new book The Watchers: The Rise of the America's Surveillance State , Washington, D.C., reporter Shane Harris chronicles 25 years of the intelligence community's efforts to "connect the dots" on terrorist threats in the United States.

Harris explains why we should have caught the Christmas Day bomber, how one promising electronic surveillance system was wiped out due to privacy concerns, and what it's like to be a spy in the age of Google.

In his day job, Harris covers electronic surveillance, intelligence, and counterterrorism for National Journal.

Reason Senior Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward interviewed Harris in February 2010. Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg; edited by Bragg.

Approx. 10 minutes. Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel for automatic notifications when new material goes live.

"Every Day is a Bonus": Veterans Day in Washington, D.C., November 2009

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST

On Saturday November 7, 2009 Reason.tv's Dan Hayes caught up with the Stars and Stripes Honor Flight from Wisconsin. Honor Flight is an organziation that provides World War II vets and terminally ill patients from other conflicts free travel to Washington, D.C. to tour memorials.

Hayes talks with veterans who recognize that this is not only their first visit to the World War II monument, but may well be their last trip away from home. "Every day is a bonus," is the motto of Honor Flight and it's a sentiment that rings true for the men who fought and those of us who continue to benefit from their service and sacrifice.

Thanks to Joe Dean, Jane Dean, Mark Grams, Liane Baranek, The Gebauers, Cindy and Dave Haupt, Nancy and Steve Hayes, and all the guardians and the vets we spoke with Saturday.

Music by Josh Christiansen.

For embed code, go to Reason.tv's YouTube channel here.

Earmarks

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:00:00 EDT

Taxpayers are shelling out over $17 billion for more than 11,000 Congressional earmarks in FY 2008. One such project is a $1.6 million earmark in this year’s defense spending bill. The money is going to the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), a program that searches for evidence of life elsewhere in the universe.

That alien pork project is just one example of how elected officials use earmarks to funnel federal tax dollars back to powerful interests in their districts. While politicians and a few of their most well-connected constituents benefit from earmarks, the costs fall on individual taxpayers. Since 1991, Americans have paid over $271 billion for pork projects.

In this new Reason.tv video, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla) - who is known as the Senate's "Dr. No" for his aggressive opposition to earmarks - explains how taxpayers are being fleeced by Washington's insatiable appetite for pork.

The Wall

Wed, 28 May 2008 05:00:00 EDT

At a time when pundits and politicians of all stripes endorse securing the border between the United States and Mexico, reason.tv travels south to see what's really going on—and what the human and monetary costs are of amping up border patrols.

Building a wall along the border with Mexico is a great idea—if America wants to be like China and the former East Germany. In the 13th episode of reason.tv's acclaimed and controversial Drew Carey Project, our host suggests there are better ways to ensure American security while also promoting free trade with our neighbor to the South.

"One way out of this mess would be to simply allow peaceful workers to enter our country through legal ports of entry," says Carey. "If we did that we could stimulate our economy, bring a huge underground labor market out into the open and we could put unscrupulous smugglers out of business. More importantly, we'd free up border patrol resources that could be used to fight criminals and terrorism."

Watch previous Drew Carey Project episodes here.

Grover Norquist: Leave Us Alone Already!

Fri, 02 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Americans for Tax Reform honcho Grover Norquist recently sat down with reason.tv's Nick Gillespie for a 45-minute conversation about Norquist's new book Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government's Hands of Our Guns, Our Money, Our Lives.

From the book's description at Amazon:

The modern Republican party is a coalition of groups and tendencies created during the political life of Ronald Reagan, based on principle rather than region and history. The new political movement that now controls much of the Republican party is one of Americans who simply wish to be left alone by the government. They are not asking the government for others' money, time, or attention. Rather, they want to be free to own a gun, homeschool their children, pray, invest their money, and control their own destiny.
They are the Leave Us Alone coalition, at the heart of the center-right, and Grover Norquist argues that it will grow in power and size during the next generation. Directly opposed to this coalition is the descriptively titled Takings Coalition, which is at the heart of the tax-and-spend left, and they will battle for control of America's future over the next fifty years. It is increasingly important to better understand these coalitions than it is the Republican or Democratic parties themselves.
In a compelling and powerful narrative, Norquist describes the two competing coalitions in American politics, how they are organized, what makes them stronger or weaker. What each can achieve and what they cannot do. And how you may fit into the contest as well as gain a deeper understanding of American politics—where it's been, where it is and particularly where it will go—through a series of eye-opening economic, demographic, and political trends that will shape these coalitions in the years to come.

In this wide-ranging, in-depth discussion, Norquist talks about splits among libertarians and conservatives, the many failures of the Bush administration and the GOP Congress, his trouble with Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the urgent need for reform in Social Security, health care, and education, and much, much more.

Wartime Propaganda from Disney

paul.feine@reason.tv (Paul Feine) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:50:00 EDT

April 15 is just around the corner, so don't waste your money on pleasurable pursuits; instead, save your money so you can pay your taxes to help our war efforts (waging war, it turns out, is expensive ). It's what Donald would do.