Wendy Kaminer

I don’t imagine that he welcomed it, but September 11 was not a bad day politically for George W. Bush. It marked his transformation from a relatively unpopular, arguably unelected, and widely unrespected president to a “leader” with practically unanimous support. At least for the short term–and no one knows how long that will be–Bush’s […]

O n October 2, 2000, the European Convention on Human Rights will be incorporated into English law through the Human Rights Act. Britain ratified the international convention some 50 years ago, but did not codify it domestically and give English courts and English judges the power to enforce it. Litigants have had to travel to […]

Protecting civil liberties is an exercise in déjà vu. On March 20, 2001, for the third time in five years, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia seeking to enjoin a federal law aimed at protecting children from the ravages of the Internet. First, the ACLU […]

It is possible, of course, that computer-simulated images of virtual children having virtual sex may encourage pedophiles to act on their impulses or may assist them in seducing children. There is, however, little or no empirical evidence that these images have such dire effects. Congress criminalized virtual child porn anyway. The Child Pornography Prevention Act […]

nce women were considered disabled by pregnancy or the mere possibility of it. Before the modern civil rights era, women could be fired because they were pregnant or not hired because they seemed likely to become pregnant. From the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century, women were excluded, under law, from presumptively masculine occupations that […]

Terrorism was expected to bring back big government, but lately it seems that federal power isn’t growing so much as it is coalescing in the White House. Some in Congress have reacted to recent power grabs by the Bush administration with appropriate outrage. But the tendency of Congress to guard its own power shouldn’t obscure […]

T hree years ago, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley was abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered by two men, one of whom was allegedly a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), founded in 1978. Both of his assailants, Charles Jaynes and Salvatore Sicari, are now serving life sentences for murder. They have […]

Of all the lame excuses offered for the failures ofU.S. intelligence and security that facilitated the attacks on the World TradeCenter and the Pentagon, the most disingenuous was the repeated claim thatantiterrorism efforts have been restrained by respect for America’s freedoms.Tell that to the victims of harsh counterterrorism and immigration laws passed inthe aftermath of […]