Pro-Liberty News and Opinion | Libertarian Voluntaryist

Above is a great documentary put together by reason.tv that outlines the tragic case of Cory Maye.

Maye, who shot and killed a police officer during a raid of his Mississippi home, is now serving a life-sentence. The circumstances of the incident, however, are what make it intriguing.

According to reason:

The cops were looking for drugs and smashed through the back door. In the ensuing chaos, Maye hunkered down with his daughter in a bedroom and when the police broke down that door, he fired three bullets, one of which killed Officer Ron Jones. Maye testified in court that the police did not identify themselves until after they had entered his residence; indeed, he testified that they did not identify themselves until after he had fired his shots. Once they did, he said he put his weapon on the floor, slid it toward police, and surrendered.

The police are telling a different story saying that they identified themselves multiple times before kicking in the door.  Maye was asleep on the couch when he heard someone banging on the door, so he hid in the a bedroom where the rest of the incident ensued.

Oh, and what did the cops find in his house?  Nothing but a mostly smoked marijuana cigarette.  A roach.

Watch the video for the whole story.

H.R. 414 , cleverly named the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act, is sponsored by Peter T. King who is the representative for New York’s third district. The law would ensure every cellphone makes a sound when the camera function is being used.

If passed, the law will require “any mobile phone containing a digital camera to sound a tone whenever a photograph is taken with the camera’s phone. Prohibits such a phone from being equipped with a means of disabling or silencing the tone. Treats the requirement as a consumer product safety standard and requires enforcement by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).” In other words, the tone would be considered, by the government, as a safety feature and disabling it would violate safety standards set up by the CPSC.  

Judging by the name of the law, it may have been proposed as a measure to combat the recent trend of taking “upskirting” pictures with camera phones. 

Looking at recent cases of police brutality, however, might reveal a more sinister side effect that could occur if the proposed law is passed. 

Take, for instance, the San Fransisco Bay Area BART incident (video below) where a police officer shot a man, who was on the ground and possibly handcuffed, in the back. The officer’s excuse is that he meant to pull out his taser, but grabbed and fired his handgun instead. A gun, however, is much heavier than a taser, and he should have realized the difference. 

Later news came out revealing that the cops at the BART station were confiscating the phones of people whom were using them to take pictures of and video record the incident. Luckily, many of the people who were recording the incident were on the train and it left before the officers could collect their phones. 

If all of these cellphones were making clicking noises as they recorded it would have been much easier for the police to identify those that were being used to obtain evidence of the incident. 

Whatever the reason behind the proposed law it is clear that the House of Representatives should be focusing on more pressing issues like the state of the US economy.

Article originally published on digitaljournal.com

DEA agents raid medical marijuana dispensaries in California after Obama pledges to put an end to the practice.  Some are suggesting that this has occured because Bush’s cronies are still in power in the DEA.  I, on the other hand, do not see Obama making any real Changes with respect to the “War on Drugs.”  

Cop kills leashed dog while investigating a noise complaint.  Instead of knocking on the front door, he went around to the back yard where the dog supposedly attacked him.

County in Arizona ditches speed cameras.

South Carolina Bill bans profanity.  Wtf is up with that?

An interesting prospective on the future of air travel.

SWAT team raids drunk frat kids.

The first ever (to my knowledge) deep-sea webcam has been installed. 

Harry Browne, the former Libertarian Party presidential candidate, is no longer with us, but his ideas often prove to be timeless. Take, for example, an article he wrote on December 31, 1998 title “A Libertarian’s New Years Resolutions” which contains advice that all libertarians and anarchists alike can learn from. Read it on the website of the Advocates For Self-Government.