James Bovard, a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation, is a frequent contributor to Playboy, American Spectator, and Investor’s Business Daily. He has also written for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Reader’s Digest, New Republic, Washington Post, Washington Times, and Newsweek.

Mr. Bovard is the author of five books: Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, The Fair Trade Fraud, The Farm Fiasco, Shakedown: How the State Screws You from A to Z, Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State & The Demise of the Citizen, and Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Power under Clinton-Gore, most of which can be purchased at Laissez-Faire Books and Amazon.com.

He was the 1995 co-recipient of the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought, and the recipient of the 1996 Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. His book Lost Rights received the Mencken Award as Book of the Year from the Free Press Association.

Since the Clinton administration took office, Mr. Bovard’s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI Director Louis Freeh, HUD director Henry Cisneros, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, the White House AIDS czar, former IRS commissioner Shirley Peterson, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, Equal Opportunity Commission, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The National Treasury Employees Union and the American Postal Workers Union have also added their condemnations.

A Wall Street Journal review of Freedom in Chains declared: “James Bovard has become the roving inspector general of the modern State… Never has so much theoretical error and concrete folly been collected and juxtaposed so well under a single cover. Mr. Bovard consistently illuminates the connection between faulty political ideals and specific policy disasters.” The Orlando Sentinel wrote: “James Bovard, the American government’s most unfavorite journalist, has done all who value liberty a great service. He has meticulously documented freedom’s demise in America and set it all in its proper philosophical framework. National Review declared: “Freedom in Chains… offers a principled and often eloquent vision of the minimalist state. There is an integrity to it, and it is always refreshing to find a man who takes his freedom straight.” The Orange County Register labeled the book “a modern-day libertarian classic.”

Mr. Bovard’s 1994 book, Lost Rights, continues to stir controversy. The Wall Street Journal said of the book: “Remarkable… astonishingly broad… excellent… Mr. Bovard’s unrivaled research has resulted in a virtual encyclopedia of modern government abuse.”

Mr. Bovard has been a regular contributor to FFF’s monthly journal, Freedom Daily, since 1996 and has delivered lectures at many FFF events.