“Daylight Saving Time (DST) transitions,” researchers wrote in Brain Sciences earlier this year,  “act as a population-wide circadian stressor, leading to sleep disruption, cognitive impairment, emotional dysregulation, and short-term increases in psychiatric symptoms, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality. … At the population level, findings support growing calls to reconsider or eliminate seasonal clock changes …”

We already knew that, though, didn’t we? Twice a year, every year, for more than a century now, most Americans “spring forward” or “fall back,”  pretending that an hour has been deleted from, or inserted into, our sleep schedules.

Our bodies spend weeks adjusting to each “new normal,” leading to, among other things, measurable increases in traffic fatalities.

The practice never made much sense, even back before cheaper, more reliable lighting in factories and higher daytime productivity on farms. It stopped making any sense at all decades ago as shift and store schedules moved further and further away from “9 to 5” and toward “24/7/365.”

US president Donald Trump wants the government to knock off its weird time-shifting magic routine. Some Trump-watchers even suggest that he cares enough to make it one of his “loyalty test” issues, punishing politicians who don’t toe the line.

Therefore, Congress will likely vote on something called the “Sunshine Protection Act” later this summer.

Here’s where the usual quibbling starts:

The Sunshine Protection Act would put the United States permanently on “Daylight Saving Time” rather than “Daylight Standard Time,”  meaning the sun would be out “later” rather than “earlier” according to our clocks.

Some people (for example, those who enjoy, or have businesses catering to, outdoor activities that people tend to do after, not before, work) want it that way.

Others (for example, people who don’t want their kids leaving home for school in the dark, and some doctors who think darker wake times are worse for circadian rhythms in those who have to be up early) want it the other way around.

My own preference: Pick one — either one is fine — and stick to it year-round.

Let America’s 340 million people work the rest out for ourselves, just like we do with pretty much everything else.

There’s no reason employers and employees, schools and parents, doctors and patients, stores and customers can’t adapt to whatever schedules meet their mutual needs … and change those schedules from time to time (see what I did there?), if it makes sense TO THEM, with no need for the government’s input at all.

It’s bad enough that we tolerate the US government’s existence. It’s even worse that we allow the US government to tell us what time it is. Let  it hop back and forth on the matter? Just no.

Thank you,  President Trump, for your attention to this matter!

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On June 11, the US House voted down — on a bipartisan basis, with 19 Republicans joining most Democrats — the latest attempt to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Absent some kind of mid-June legislative miracle, Section 702 will expire on June 12.

Good! FISA itself is a terrible law, and Section 702 in particular legalizes insane levels of government spying — not just on foreigners, but on Americans. Here’s how it works:

First, FISA gives the government very broad surveillance permission where foreigners are concerned. While warrants are theoretically required, such warrants are secretly issued, by a secret court, and seemingly never denied.

Which is bad enough, but FISA also allows the government to spy on Americans who communicate with those foreigners … and to “chain” such surveillance at least two or three (some say six) “hops” out.

So if your spouse’s boss communicates with a foreigner who’s under surveillance, the US regime can collect data not just on the foreigner but also on your spouse’s boss,   on anyone your spouse’s boss communicates with (like, say, your spouse), and on anyone that second person communicates with (like, say, you).

All without going to a real, identifiable judge, from a non-secret court, to issue a warrant based on probable cause that anyone down that chain has committed any kind of crime.

FISA was always terrible, and section 702 always made it even worse. I’m glad it failed of re-passage. It needs to die in a fire, permanently.

But there’s nothing really to celebrate here, because we’ve known — since at least as far back as 2013 — how the US regime operates with regard to its surveillance powers.

If the US regime doesn’t like the law, it breaks the law.

If US regime figures are asked (under oath) about breaking the law, they deny (under oath) breaking the law.

If a whistleblower outs the evidence that the US regime is breaking the law, the US regime charges the whistleblower with espionage and chases him out of the country, while the perjurers continue their skulduggery without penalty or punishment.

If you’re unfamiliar with the 2013 case I’m talking about here, look up the name “Edward Snowden.” If you prefer your information in movie form, consider watching the documentary “Citizenfour,” or the dramatization “Snowden,” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Both films are available on popular streaming platforms.

Big Brother is indeed watching you, and he’s doing so in ways and to extents that Orwell never dreamed possible.

While I’m glad to see Congress resisting demands for renewal of Section 702, it’s all just a bunch of meaningless theatrics unless they actually prosecute the evildoers who spy on Americans, then lie about it, then persecute whistleblowers because they know they can get away with doing so.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House,” US president Donald Trump claimed the day after an armed would-be assassin attempted to charge through a security barricade at the Washington Hilton. “It cannot be built fast enough!”

US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) agreed: “America has a problem. That problem is, it is very difficult to have a bunch of important people in the same place unless it is really, really secure.”

I partly agreed with Trump, Graham, and other prominent Republicans at the time: By all means, I wrote, make the White House as secure as possible, and even build a ballroom and other amenities … so long as the other half of the deal is that the president enters the White House grounds immediately upon his or her inauguration and doesn’t leave them for the four years of his or her term in office.

I was sincere in that suggestion, but it turns out Trump was less worried about the whole “security” thing than he and his supporters pretended.

On June 8, less than two months after the Hilton incident, Trump traveled to New York City so that he could grab a nap. At Madison Square Garden. During game three of the National Basketball Association finals. In front of 20,000 screaming fans.

The fans weren’t just screaming for their favorite teams (the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs). They were screaming at — and communicating via hostile hand signals with — Trump himself.

Why all the negativity, b-ball aficionados?

Statistically, any New York crowd will likely lean “anti-Trump” on politics, policy, and personality grounds, but even MAGA diehards had good reason to rage over this particular event … and that reason had a lot to do with my ballroom proposal.

The Secret Service locked down Madison Square Garden, and the surrounding streets, hours before Trump’s arrival.

Public events scheduled for the area were canceled or moved.

People who had already paid outrageous prices to attend — tickets averaged nearly $5,000 each — had to arrive hours earlier than normal so they would have time to stand in line and get screened (read “harassed”) by Secret Service agents before the game.

They eventually got the event they paid to see, but probably didn’t enjoy the last-minute addition of a circus to the schedule.

Then the source of their annoyance fell asleep, right in front of them.

Anyone with the bad luck to have things to do when and where a president or other Very Special Important Politician decides to go (I’ve been through several such incidents myself), or even lives along a presidential motorcade route, knows what a hassle all of that is.

Thus my proposal that presidents spare America such inconveniences while in office through mandatory (if necessary) sequestration on the White House grounds for the durations of their terms.

Trump clearly didn’t believe his own claims concerning presidential security, or he wouldn’t have decided to catch 40 winks in front of thousands of angry basketball fans.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY