The Costs and Benefits of Real ID

The Department of Homeland Security establishes 18 separate benchmarks that need to be met in order to be compliant with the Real ID act.  To date, Maryland has met less than half of those benchmarks.    The state is now grappling with the issue of meeting the remaining benchmarks — including verification of legal immigration status [...]

Please Protect Us From Our Protectors

Unanimity scares me.  Matters that are agreed upon without dissent usually reflect (a) populist passion, (b) a lack of thoughtfulness, or (c) the blindingly obvious.  The state Senate recently passed a bill 43-0, and I’m glad to see it’s in category (c).   It’s pretty unusual, to say the least, to have a bill co-sponsored by [...]

Cracking Down on the Vegetable Menace

Preadolescents in the area must be hoarse from cheering. It seems that MoCo health inspectors are raiding farmers’ markets, and shutting down vegetable vendors who are – gasp! – giving out samples.

“A whole tomato or cucumber is fine, we don’t regulate that or have fees associated with that,” said Clark Beil, a senior [...]

Distracting the Police from Crime

Our good friends at Help Save Maryland From People Who Look Different are at it again. Now they are seeking to implement racial profiling on a grand scale. They seek to divert police resources from rapes, murders, burglaries, and other actual crimes, to profile Hispanics as possible immigrants (gasp!). This is [...]

Update: Court Backs County Ban on Fortune Tellers

Nick Nefedro, the fortune teller who sued to gain back his business practice, has lost his case. Apparently, county law for over fifty years strictly prohibits predicting the future for a fee.
I mean, really.  Who doesn’t know that the crystal ball routine is just a gag?  And doesn’t the Office of the County Attorney [...]

They’re Making a List, and not Checking it Even Once

To the outrage and indignation over the revelations that Maryland State Police have been spying on peaceful protest groups, the police have responding by insisting that they never infringed on anyone’s rights to free speech or assembly.
Granted – perhaps.  When the State is looking over your shoulder, taking notes and naming names, it may not [...]

Calling Elliott Ness! Bring the Axes!

The next time someone tries to tell you that the needs of the poor would overwhelm society unless government steps in, think of the good works of the Mechanicsville Lions Club, or the Little Flower School in Great Mills. If they tell you that government acts to correct the greedy selfishness of society, think [...]

Fighting Crime: Choices and Priorities

The county divides crime into two categories. Here are the statistics for 2006:
Part 1 Crimes (more serious offenses) reported were up 5.4% over the previous year, including:
15 Murders
141 Rapes
1,166 Robberies
133 Aggravated Assaults
3,804 Burglaries
16,860 Cases of Larceny
2,493 Auto Thefts.
Part 2 Crimes reported were up 6.4% [...]

Vigilance Against a Police State

This blog is mostly devoted to examining the Leviathan of Montgomery County government, but also keeps an eye on Leviathan at the state level, too. Stephanie at Jousting for Justice takes Governor O’Malley to task for seeking a frightening expansion of state power.
The state keeps a database of DNA samples since 1994, when a [...]

Big Brother Gets a Pair of Super Eyes

Buried in a Gazette story about parking in Bethesda was a reference to a car-mounted surveillance system called Auto Vu. Driving down a street, Auto Vu can monitor and log in all the license plates it passes — up to one thousand plates per hour. In cities like DC, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Wilmington, [...]