Decriminalization cuts drug use in half in Portugal

According to an article in Forbes:

Ten years ago, Portugal decriminalized all drugs. One decade after this unprecedented experiment, drug abuse is down by half. . . Currently 40,000 people in Portugal are being treated for drug abuse. This is a far cheaper, far more humane way to tackle the problem. Rather than locking up 100,000 criminals, the Portuguese are working to cure 40,000 patients and fine-tuning a whole new canon of drug treatment knowledge at the same time.

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Electronic Frontier Foundation explains how the government looks at private email

Using the example of General Petraeus, the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains how the federal government looks at private email. What can be done about these abuses?

[The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA (1986)] is hopelessly out of date, and fails to provide the protections we need in a modern era. Your email privacy should be simple: it should receive the same protection the Fourth Amendment provides for your home. So why hasn’t Congress done anything to update the law? They’ve tried a few times but the bills haven’t gone anywhere. That's why [Electronic Frontier Foundation] members across the country are joining with other advocacy groups in calling for reform. This week, we’re proud to launch a new campaign page to advocate for ECPA reform.

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Annie Leonard: Stay home on Black Friday

Annie Leonard ("The Story of Stuff") urges us to stay home on Black Friday, offering us some stunning images in this one-minute video: What else is there to do? Fifty years ago, people would have thought you were an idiot to even ask this question. Although I have NEVER shopped on Black Friday, I signed Annie Leonard's Pledge.

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Itemize many hidden costs, not just the effect of Obamacare on omelets

John Metz, owner of many Denny's restaurants has decided to "add a 5 percent surcharge to customers' bills to offset what he said are the increased costs of Obamacare, along with reducing his employees' hours." More . . .

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U.S. competes with China and Russia for title of “Endemic Surveillance Societies”

In 2007, Privacy International conducted a survey to determine the extent to which countries conducted surveillance on their citizens. The U.S. was in the same category as China and Russia. Glenn Greenwald supplements this image with some stunning data:

The US operates a sprawling, unaccountable Surveillance State that - in violent breach of the core guarantees of the Fourth Amendment - monitors and records virtually everything even the most law-abiding citizens do. Just to get a flavor for how pervasive it is, recall that the Washington Post, in its 2010 three-part "Top Secret America" series, reported: "Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications."

For more on the ever-increasing U.S. surveillance state, view this excellent video by Glenn Greenwald:

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