Have you received one of these letters? " Washington State Uni notifies those affected by stolen hard drive   Posted by  Dissent  at 3:47 am   Education Sector ,  Theft ,  U.S.   Add comments Jun 10 2017   PULLMAN, Wash. ,  June 9, 2017  — Today,  Washington State University  (WSU) announced that it is addressing a security incident involving certain community members’ personal information. Though there is no evidence the personal information has been accessed or misused, WSU is notifying impacted individuals and offering free identity protection services to those individuals whose personal information may have been accessed. On  April 21, 2017 , WSU learned that a locked safe containing a hard drive had been stolen. The hard drive was used to store backed-up files from a server used by the university’s Social & Economic Sciences Research Center (SESRC). Immediately upon learning of th...

  What Making a Difference Looks Like “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you , then they fight you , then you win .” - often attributed to - Mahatma Gandhi As the Washington outreach coordinator with the Freedom Foundation, my job description is listed under “Freedom in Action” on the staff page of our website. What does “ Freedom in Action look like? Freedom in action looks like a small army going door to door across the state to inform union members of their constitutional rights to stop funding the political portion of their union dues or, in some cases, their ability to end paying dues altogether. It also looks like an aggressive legal team that b oth defends good ideas in practice and goes after bad ones . We will not sit by idly while good intentions are snuffed out and bad ideas are imposed unchallenged. But when you engage in a meaningful way to create change, especially when that change affects an existing power structure, those in position...

By Matthew Hayward The stronger our communities are, the less need for government exists. Conversely, the weaker and more disconnected our communities are, the greater the need for government assistance. The problem is that the more government grows, the more it takes the place of charity and community, the more disconnected and less likely we are to help one another. This is a vicious cycle. The only way to break it is to come together and help one another. Start with your friends, family, and neighbors, surely most of us could be doing much more for them than we are. Even if all you are doing is helping a family member with rides until they can get their car fixed, or helping with the 90-year-old neighbor's lawn, maybe you have a friend going through a hard time and they need a little more than a shoulder to cry on, they need some extra money to cover their bills. Going to the government for assistance should be the last resort. You should only ask for government assistance...

By Matthew Hayward In a free society, there is no need for "distracted driving" laws. No law should exist that attempts to socially engineer society; we do not need laws that attempt to prevent crimes from happening, and we do not need pre-crime laws. We need to enforce rational laws and punish real crimes. In today's Tri-City Herald article  Put the phone down and pay attention, or get a ticket , we learn that the Washington State Legislature has again passed another emotionally driven bill that violates our basic human rights. First, they tell us we are not allowed to make phone calls while holding the phone to our ear, and then they tell us we cannot text; now, this most recent "distracted driving bill,"  Senate Bill 5289 , prohibits us from holding various electronic devices.  We don't need more complex laws; common-sense laws should suffice. We don't need a law that addresses playing musical instruments while driving or reading a ...

The USA never has, and never will use its military solely for humanitarian purposes.* There are ample examples of atrocities that we have turned a blind eye to. Thousands of pro-democracy protesters were brutally massacred  in the 80s and another uprising in 2007 in  Burma/ Myanmar.  The people of America can be motivated to support military use by pictures of dead and dying women and children, but the government is driven by complex geopolitical strategy , military strategical positioning, control of resources, etc. If the government had not been caught lying about nearly every major military event in our history, maybe more people would believe the propaganda about chemical weapons and evil dictators. Chemical weapons may have been used, women and children may have been murdered by an evil dictator, but that is not what anyone of this is about. The public is never told the whole truth ; not now, not Benghazi , not Libya , not 9/11/2001 , not the USS Liber...