Source: Reason
by Thomas J Powell

“The federal government built a system that records the lawful trading activity of tens of millions of Americans, invades their financial privacy, and makes investors pay for the surveillance. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) calls it the Consolidated Audit Trail, or CAT. Now the agency is considering ‘fundamental changes’ to the setup. It should eliminate the system instead. CAT, launched in 2020, records almost every order, modification, cancellation, and execution by tens of millions of investors. The SEC requires these records so regulators can search trading activity and reconstruct it long after a trade occurred. The records are collected before there is probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or even an allegation of wrongdoing.” (10/06/26)

https://reason.com/2026/10/06/the-sec-is-watching-american-investors-trades-thats-a-privacy-nightmare/

Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Angela C Erickson

“In June 1845, Cassius Marcellus Clay launched an anti-slavery newspaper in Lexington, Kentucky, one block from one of the largest slave markets in the United States. He called it The True American. Published by William L. Neale and edited by Clay, the paper openly challenged Kentucky’s slaveholding establishment. Its editor was a son of a Kentucky aristocrat; a cousin of the Great Compromiser, Henry Clay; and a man who understood that publishing against slavery in a slave state was not merely controversial. It was dangerous. … The office of The True American was not just a newspaper office. According to historian Herndon J. Evans, it was ‘armed with two brass cannons, iron barred windows, and an arsenal of Mexican lances and pikes.’ … Clay later said he had filled the four-pounder cannons with shot and nails.” (10/06/26)

https://www.bluegrassinstitute.org/cassius-marcellus-clay-brought-cannons-to-a-free-press-fight/

Source: Cato Institute
by Matthew Cavedon & Laura Bondank-Harmon

“ALPRs (which, again, stands for ‘automated license plate readers’) are omnipresent and, at this point, misnamed. Over 6,000 cities nationwide have ALPRs, each of which can scan up to 2,000 vehicles per minute. Over 130,000 of these devices have been deployed across the U.S. ALPRs are misnamed because they do not simply read license plates anymore. The leading ALPR manufacturer, Flock Safety, used to insist that this was all its technology could do. Yet according to August reporting by Wired, Flock ‘has now built … an artificial intelligence tool for police that can identify drivers and track vehicles by their patterns of movement alone.’ … Law enforcement is using tools that can tell officers who you associate with, where you sleep, and what you believe. They call it safety. The law should call it a search and impose the safeguards and remedies that accompany one.” (10/06/26)

https://www.cato.org/commentary/law-cant-keep-flocks-ai-surveillance

Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Rob Natelson

“Many years ago, Congress adopted a law that prohibits home whiskey distilling. That law is now under constitutional challenge. John Ream is a home whisky distiller. He points out that the Constitution grants Congress only certain enumerated (listed) powers and that regulating home distilling is not on the list. He lost in the lower courts but has filed a petition asking for Supreme Court review. … Mr. Ream’s case is not hopeless, but he is pushing uphill. In my Epoch Times series ‘How the Supreme Court Rewrote the Constitution,’ I described how, during the early 1940s, the justices converted the congressional Commerce Power (an amalgam of the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause) into general authority to regulate almost all human activity—at least all economic activity.” (10/06/26)

https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2026/10/06/what-a-hidden-supreme-court-case-tells-us-about-the-constitution/

Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis

“They will say anything to get a vote. They will lie endlessly with absolutely no conscience at all. These people are totally amoral, but in one sense, they are very smart. They can make their lies sound so good. And the sad thing is, there are millions upon millions upon millions of Americans who simply do not have the intelligence and perception to see through what is happening. And the rest of us have to suffer because of it. Here is Zohran Mamdani’s latest whopper, his most recent attempt to create a totalitarian city, state, and nation. For this is indeed a pure recipe for totalitarianism. He said, ‘It’s the government’s job to give you everything you need to lead a dignified life’. I wonder if he really believes that. I doubt it. The only thing that man cares about is himself. Like most politicians.” (10/06/26)

https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/10/06/government-gets-to-decide-what-you-need-for-a-dignified-life-n2684159