Author: Nat Hentoff

Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, was a nonviolent, direct-action enabler of social justice whom I was privileged to know. In New York City she organized the first civil-disobedience protest against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and I was there protesting. Carrying on the late activist’s unflinching spirit is the Los Angeles...

Among the chief celebrators of the Presidential reelection of the most voracious Big Brother in our history was the FBI, Barack Obama’s tireless partner in putting this country under ubiquitous surveillance. But like the master spy in the White House, the FBI’s head honcho has yet to be satisfied. Robert Mueller’s zeal has not waned...

My most exciting memory of growing up in Boston during the Great Depression was learning how our independence was born. A pivotal event occurred in 1761 in a Boston courtroom. Lawyer James Otis Jr. spent nearly five hours arguing against extension of the “writs of assistance,” which British officials drew up themselves—like today’s FBI does—so...