To promote their new book The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong With America, my former colleagues Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch took a bunch of questions yesterday from Facebook and Twitter users, then fired off a series of rapid-fire video responses, some serious, some fun.

Check out the full series here.

• So remember the off-duty cop who got off after killing a guy who “ding-dong ditched” his house? Turns out, regular citizens don’t get the same leniency. Not that they should. But still.
• Town mandates that all citizens provide town, law enforcement officials with keys to commercial properties, including apartment buildings.
• Obama administration argues that firing missiles at a foreign country does not meet the definition of “hostilities.”
• Lee Fang at ThinkProgress embarrasses himself. Again.
• Clarence Thomas’s hostility to criminal defendants.
• Federal judge smacks down the copyright trolls at Righthaven.
• LEAP protests on the 40th anniversary of the war on drugs.
• Obama vs. the rule of law.

Another week, another report of a botched drug raid.

A Bellevue man whose home was searched in an FBI-led drug raid — apparently in an effort to find someone who had moved away — filed a lawsuit today alleging constitutional violations.

Gary Adams and his family were distressed, embarrassed and humiliated when agents “battered down the door to his home and armed with assault rifles stormed into his house March 3 in a misguided attempt to serve an arrest warrant on a person who was not related to or who had ever resided with” them, according to a press release by Downtown attorney Timothy P. O’Brien, representing the family. “The lawsuit contends that law-abiding citizens’ constitutional rights are not, cannot and should not ever be ‘collateral damage’ in the government’s war on drugs.”…

Agents were searching for Sondra Hunter, one of 29 people charged that day with being members of the Manchester OGs drug gang. Ms. Hunter had lived at the address currently rented by the Adams family, but left months before they moved in.

The agents had an arrest warrant for Ms. Hunter, but not a search warrant for the premises.

There’s obviously a legal difference, but in terms of what happens once the door comes down, I’m not sure it matters much whether it was a search warrant or an arrest warrant. The police in Tucson say Jose Guerena was dangerous, thus necessitating the forced SWAT entry. But they had a search warrant for the residence, not an arrest warrant for Guerena. Here, it was the other way around. It’s guns and violence either way. And even if it’s an arrest warrant, it’s an arrest warrant for drugs. So they’re going to turn the place upside down, anyway.

You can now listen to the recording of my appearance on NPR’s “On Point” here.

I thought it was a good discussion, though there was very little disagreement. Even the police union rep they had on seems to have changed his mind about this issue.

What’s interesting—and unfortunate—is that despite the lopsided public support for the idea that citizens should be permitted to record on-duty cops, legislatures around the country still aren’t doing much to clarify the law, and the cops and prosecutors who violate the law by wrongly arresting, jailing, and charging people aren’t held accountable.

Politicians are usually way behind the public on this sort of thing, but this issue really isn’t even close. I think part of the problem is that Democrats tend to get a lot of support from police unions, and Republicans are still loathe to stake out any position that appears even vaguely in opposition to law enforcement. So there’s no really upside to taking a stand—except for good government, sound public policy, and respect for individual rights. But those generally aren’t the sorts of priorities that lead to success in politics.

UPDATE: Link fixed.

• Jonathan Adler says it isn’t clear that Gov. Scott Walker is to blame for the language in a Wisconsin law that would require craft brewers to use wholesalers.
• Most offensive political ad ever?
• Senate bill could make it a felony to embed some YouTube videos.
• Samuel L. Jackson narrates the faux children’s book Go the Fuck to Sleep.
• Koalas are kinda’ slutty.
• Most ridiculous Obama criticism this week.
• Surveillance video of Cleveland police beating a man during booking contradicts police reports. The police department also initially said the video didn’t exist. Now it claims its previous denials were due to a “glitch in the system.”

I’ll be talking about the arrests of citizens who record cops on “On Point.”

The show airs in most of the country at 9am ET, though some NPR stations may air it later.

Very interested to see the reader reaction to this one.

• So this is a pretty bizarre story.
• Also from the Reason criminal justice issue, Jacob Sullum takes on sex offender laws. Predictions on when the first “libertarians defend pedophiles!” critique will appear?
• Cop says he was punished for not granting “professional courtesy” to an intoxicated prosecutor at the scene of a crash.
• Photos photographed where they were photographed.
• Just so I have this correct: If you allow unpaid contributors to post articles on your profitable website—of their own free will—you’re basically using slave labor, because somewhere, there is probably someone who is willing to write for pay. That’s some interesting logic. You know what else? I’ll bet that no matter how much you’re paying your paid writers, you can probably also find someone who would be willing to write for more money. Sweatshop! (Obligatory disclosure: I work for Huffington Post. I am not working for free.)

A few new articles from the Reason special issue on the criminal justice system are now available online:

• Veronique de Rugy looks at the cost of incarceration to taxpayers.
• Alexandra Natapoff writes on the use of jailhouse informants.
• Jesse James deConto delves into the legal limbo world of immigration detention centers.

Alex Seitz-Wald:

Tucked into Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) much-discussed budget was a little-noticed provision to overhaul the state’s regulation of the beer industry. In a state long associated with beer, the provision will make it much more difficult for the Wisconsin’s burgeoning craft breweries to operate and expand their business by barring them from selling directly to restaurants and liquor stores, and preventing them from selling their own product onsite.

The new provision treats craft brewers — the 60 of whom make up just 5 percent of the beer market in Wisconsin — like corporate mega-brewers, forcing them to use a wholesale distributor to market their product. Under the provision, it would be illegal, for instance, for a small brewer located near a restaurant to walk next door to deliver a case of beer. They’ll have to hire a middle man to do it instead.

But more noteworthy than the provision itself is how it was enacted. The provision was quietly slipped in the massive budget legislation without any consultation from independent craft brewers, who are justifiably outraged by it.

These wholesaler requirements ought to be eliminated entirely, not expanded. I’ve explained in the past how they’re phony Prohibition-era artifacts that create state-sanctioned artificial middlemen who then get enormously wealthy (I’m looking at you Cindy McCain) by limiting consumer choice and inflating the price of alcohol.

I’d love to hear Walker try to explain how crushing microbreweries is consistent with his alleged free market principles.

At Slate, Michael Agger wonders why Google doesn’t create a search engine for kids. He’s right. It’s a great idea. And I’d be shocked if it actually happens.

Google makes money from advertising—highly targeted advertising. Which means “Google Kids” would not only feature ads made for and directed at kids, but ads tailored to individual kids, which means collecting information about a particular kid’s searches and web browsing.

So this idea, good as it is, would rope in advertising, marketing, collecting specific information about online habits, children, and the Internet. Those are prime ingredients for a piping hot stew of hysterical overreaction. Consumer groups would go nuts. Anti-advertising activists would be up in arms. And I’d imagine an outraged congresscritter or two would sense the opportunity to do some grandstanding with a public hearing. The last thing Google wants right now is more attention from the FTC and its counterparts in Europe.

So good idea? Yeah. Likely to happen? Probably not.

• Homophobic men most aroused by gay porn.
• Any story involving dope-smoking monkeys gets an Agitator link almost by default.
• Our drug war gravy train in Latin America.
• The ICE position on domain seizures is somewhere between tone-deaf, clueless, and incompetent.
• Keep this in mind next time someone accuses Cato or Reason of being corporate shills. More here.
• Portland cop reports partner for theft, abuse of power — gets forced out of the police department.

I spoke at a conference for journalism students all this week. On Wednesday, I talked to the students a bit about anonymous sourcing, and when it’s appropriate. There’s a time and place for anonymous sources, and that’s generally when they’re blowing the whistle on wrongdoing, and could face serious repercussions if named.

Unfortunately, anonymous sourcing is least appropriate when it’s most often used—in political reporting. Washington reporters routinely grant anonymity to political sources for absurd, banal, self-serving “insights.”

Which brings us to this Washington Post article about growing conservative disaffection with Mitt Romney.

“The fact that he doesn’t change his position . . . that’s the upside for us,” said one Romney adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the campaign. “He’s not going to change his mind on these issues to put his finger in the wind for what scores points with these parts of the party.”

Thank goodness WaPo reporters Philip Rucker and Peter Wallsten gave anonymity to this Romney adviser. If they hadn’t, we’d never have learned that Romney is a principled, honorable politician unswayed by fickle primary voters. Bold!

Remember Prince George’s County, Maryland County Executive Jack Johnson? When last we visited him, he was giving everyone involved a “pat on the back” for their role in the violent, disastrous drug raid on Cheye Calvo’s home.

Last year, Johnson and his wife were indicted on corruption charges, and has since admitted to taking some $400,000 in bribes and shaking down developers. And now we learn that just before he was indicted, Johnson spent $225,000 in public funds to print 275,000 copies of a glossy booklet celebrating . . . Jack Johnson. He was preparing to spend another $275,000 to send a copy to every household in the county. They’re now collecting dust in a county warehouse.

From the Washington Post:

. . . it describes a county guided by a visionary leader who built schools, attracted businesses and lowered the crime rate. The glossy pages are replete with photos and comments from Jack Johnson at venues throughout Prince George’s, overlaid with quotes from the Bible, Dostoevsky, Mary McLeod Bethune and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D).

There is a family photo of the Johnsons during happier times: Jack, Leslie, their three children, among them son Bruce, who was hired a few weeks before his father left office for a job in the county’s health department in a process that appeared to flout county hiring rules.

The words in the booklet, which Johnson and his staff pored over for months, revising and then revising again, are now fraught with no small amount of irony.

“We visualized and shaped our own destiny,”Johnson says alongside a photo that shows him with arms extended under a highway sign pointing to National Harbor, the sparkling shopping and dining destination on the Potomac River that opened during Johnson’s tenure.

At the beginning of the booklet, Johnson extolled public service. “We are only here for a short time to make a difference. The positions we hold belong to the people. You, the citizens, have given us the awesome responsibility to serve.”

Hell, they’re already printed. I think the county should send them out anyway—but along with an insert of Jack Johnson’s mug shot, seen here.

Headline courtesy of the great H.L. Mencken.

• Senate report says drug war spending can’t be justified. Obama administration predictably blows it off.
• Mike Rowe’s double entendres.
• “Spy glasses” transmit video to offsite network in real time.
• Obama: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” Except, it turns out, for about four million of you.
• Cop kill your dog? Odds are, nothing will happen to him. “Tease” a police dog? You could be looking at 60 days in jail.
• More debunking of that cell phones/cancer study.
• Man suing cops for mistaking his cerebral palsy for drunkenness.
• Interesting ruling from the Ohio State Supreme Court on prosecutorial discretion and statutory rape.

Dubrovnik, Croatia.

This NY Times article on an emerging city in India is hilarious on many levels. But this quote in particular is wonderful:

In Gurgaon and elsewhere in India, the answer is that [economic] growth usually occurs despite the government rather than because of it.

But only in India!

• Mapp v. Ohio turns 50. I’d put more credibility in conservative objections to the Exclusionary Rule if they offered plausible alternative policies to prevent law enforcement from violating the Fourth Amendment.
• Connecticut decriminalizes marijuana.
• Texas police conduct search based on a tip from a psychic.
• Shame on you, Apple.
• The word total means they’re really, really serious this time.
• Tennessee posts a strong entry in the “most moronic law about the Internet” competition.
• Good op-ed by Cato’s David Rittgers on police militarization.
• Fun collection of on-set movie photos.
• This is a pretty remarkable decision. More, please.

It’s here.

Note that there’s zero mention of any violent crime, or any potential for violence. This was entirely a white collar crime investigation. For that, we got the government-initiated violence of forced-entry, a SWAT team, and guns pointed at children.

Rovinj, Croatia.

I have new article up at Huffington Post looking at three cases in Illinois in which a citizen has been charged with one or more felonies for recording police officers.

The piece also contrast the state’s treatment of these people with its treatment over the years of misbehaving cops.

. . . is now available online. It looks at the case of Tennessee’s Paul House, then gets into some broader discussion about how wrongful convictions happen and what should be done about them.

But there’s a particularly cruel twist in this one. During House’s 22 years in the Tennessee prison system, he was diagnosed with M.S.

By the time House was diagnosed with M.S. in 2000, his symptoms were already severe, although it took his mother, and not a prison doctor, to notice something was wrong. “I was visiting him, and I brought along some microwave popcorn,” Joyce House recalls. “He asked me to heat it up, and I said, ‘No, you heat it up.’ When he got up, he had to prop himself up and drag along the wall to get to the microwave. He couldn’t even stand up straight.” According to Joyce House, her son’s doctors today say that the Tennessee prison system’s failure to diagnose House’s M.S. earlier—then treat it properly after it was diagnosed—may have taken years off his life. (M.S. is also exacerbated by stress.) The disease has also significantly diminished the quality of the life House has left.

Under Tennessee’s compensation law for the wrongly convicted, if House is formally exonerated—and that’s still a big if—he will be eligible for $50,000 for each year he was in prison, up to $1 million. But there’s a catch. The compensation is given in annual $50,000 installments over 20 years. If House dies before then, the payments stop.

Most of the 27 states with compensation laws similarly pay the money off in installments. Last October, A.P. ran a story about Victor Burnette, a 57-year-old Virginia man who served eight years for a 1979 rape before he was exonerated by DNA testing in 2006. Burnette actually turned down the $226,500 the state offered in compensation in 2010 because he was offended by the stipulation that it be paid out over 25 years. Even after the DNA test confirmed his innocence, it took another three years for Burnette to officially be pardoned, which finally made him eligible for the money. The installment plans make it unlikely that many exonerees—especially long-timers, who are arguably the most deserving—will ever see full compensation for their years in prison . . .

Paul House has yet another predicament ahead of him. Even if he does win an official exoneration, and even if he somehow lives long enough to receive all of his compensation, he’ll have to lose his health insurance to accept it. House’s medical care is currently covered by TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicare program. If he accepts compensation for his conviction, he will be ineligible. His $50,000 per year in compensation for nearly a quarter century on death row will then be offset by a steep increase in what he’ll have to pay for his medical care.