My Country – Wiretapping Justice Douglas spends three days investigating wiretapping. He called wiretapping a “blight on the civil liberties of the citizen.” I cannot believe that Justice Douglas would have liked the PATRIOT...
My Country – You Don’t Have to Salute the Flag On June 3, 1940, the Supreme Court held that a Jehovah’s Witness must salute the flag if required by statute. In Pennsylvania, a state...
My Country – When Oregon Adopted Initiatives and Referendum On June 2, 1902, Oregon amended its Constitution to allow for the initiative and referendum process. It gave people the power to propose and enact...
My Country – Sterilization Laws In 1935, an Oklahoma law provided for sterilization of habitual criminals. A habitual criminal was as a person who was convicted two or more times for crimes “amounting to...
My Country – Copyright On May 21, 1790, President George Washington signed the first copyright law for the new United States. Originally, each state had its own laws, except Delaware. At the Constitutional Convention, several...
My Country – Treason The word treason gets thrown around way too often. But what exactly does the Constitution consider treason? Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them,...
My Country – When Rhode Island Ratified the Constitution Today, we take for granted the fact that many did not like the Constitution. We always paint the Founding Fathers with a broad brush as...
My Country – Suspension of Habeas Corpus The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 did not mention how the government could suspend the writ of habeas corpus. However, Article I, Section 9 of the US...
My Country – The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 In 1215, Article 39 of Magna Carta read: “No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor...
My Country – Douglas C. Macintosh Born in Canada, Douglas C. Macintosh went to the University of Chicago and then studied theology at Yale. During World War I, he served as a chaplain...
