One striking feature of the first debate featuring the top tier GOP presidential candidates was how many of them described Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Persian Gulf as “friends” of the United States. And clearly that is a bipartisan attitude. Obama administration officials routinely refer to Saudi Arabia as a friend and ally, and one need only recall the infamous photo of President Obama bowing to Saudi King Abdullah to confirm Washington’s devotion to the relationship with Riyadh.
It is a spectacularly unwise attitude. As Cato adjunct scholar Malou Innocent and I document in our new book, Perilous Partners: The Benefits and Pitfalls of America’s Alliances with Authoritarian Regimes, Saudi Arabia is not only an odious, totalitarian power, it has repeatedly undermined America’s security interests.
Saudi Arabia’s domestic behavior alone should probably disqualify the country as a friend of the United States. Riyadh’s reputation as a chronic abuser of human rights is well deserved. Indeed, even as Americans and other civilized populations justifiably condemned ISIS for its barbaric practice of beheadings, America’s Saudi ally executed 83 people in 2014 by decapitation.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/friends-saudi-arabia-united-states-doesnt-need-enemies
2015-09-12
2015-09-11
Cato: TSA’s Classified “Risk-Reduction Analysis”
Last month, our friends at the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed suit against the TSA because the agency failed to follow basic administrative procedures when it deployed its notorious “strip-search machines” for use in primary screening at our nation’s airports. Four years after being ordered to do so by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, TSA still hasn’t completed the process of taking comments from the public and finalizing a regulation setting this policy. Here’s hoping CEI’s effort helps make TSA obey the law.
The reason why federal law requires agencies to hear from the public is so that they can craft the best possible rules. Nobody believes in agency omniscience. Public input is essential to gathering the information for setting good policies.
But an agency can’t get good information if it doesn’t share the evidence, facts, and inferences that underlie its proposals and rules. That’s why this week I’ve sent TSA a request for mandatory declassification review relating to a study that it says supports its strip-search machine policy. The TSA is keeping its study secret.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/tsas-classified-risk-reduction-analysis
The reason why federal law requires agencies to hear from the public is so that they can craft the best possible rules. Nobody believes in agency omniscience. Public input is essential to gathering the information for setting good policies.
But an agency can’t get good information if it doesn’t share the evidence, facts, and inferences that underlie its proposals and rules. That’s why this week I’ve sent TSA a request for mandatory declassification review relating to a study that it says supports its strip-search machine policy. The TSA is keeping its study secret.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/tsas-classified-risk-reduction-analysis
Cato: After Another Failure, Time to Privatize TSA
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has another failure on its hands. In recent tests, undercover investigators smuggled mock explosives and banned weapons through U.S. airport checkpoints 96 percent of the time. According to ABC, “In one case, agents failed to detect a fake explosive taped to an agent’s back, even after performing a pat down that was prompted after the agent set off the magnetometer alarm.”
The unionized TSA has a history of inept management. Reports in 2012 by various House committees found that TSA operations are “costly, counterintuitive, and poorly executed,” and the agency “suffers from bureaucratic morass and mismanagement.” Former TSA chief Kip Hawley argued in an op-ed that the agency is “hopelessly bureaucratic.” And in 2014, former acting TSA chief Kenneth Kaspirin said that TSA has “a toxic culture” with “terrible” morale.
TSA has a penchant for wasting money on useless activities, leaving it less to spend on things that benefit travelers, such as more screening stations. A GAO report, for example, found that TSA continues to spend $200 million a year on a program to spot terrorists by their suspicious behaviors — yet the program does not work.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/after-another-failure-time-privatize-tsa
The unionized TSA has a history of inept management. Reports in 2012 by various House committees found that TSA operations are “costly, counterintuitive, and poorly executed,” and the agency “suffers from bureaucratic morass and mismanagement.” Former TSA chief Kip Hawley argued in an op-ed that the agency is “hopelessly bureaucratic.” And in 2014, former acting TSA chief Kenneth Kaspirin said that TSA has “a toxic culture” with “terrible” morale.
TSA has a penchant for wasting money on useless activities, leaving it less to spend on things that benefit travelers, such as more screening stations. A GAO report, for example, found that TSA continues to spend $200 million a year on a program to spot terrorists by their suspicious behaviors — yet the program does not work.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/after-another-failure-time-privatize-tsa
Cato: Event Monday: Is the FBI Creating Terrorist Plots to Stop Them?
This Monday at noon, Cato hosts “The Newburgh Sting and the FBI’s Production of the Domestic Terrorism Threat.” The event will consider how the FBI and others elements of our domestic security apparatus now generate a sense of the terrorist danger that they combat. David Heilbroner will show clips from his 2014 documentary on the Newburgh four terrorist case, which aired on HBO. Naureen Shah of Amnesty International and John Mueller of Cato and Ohio State will comment. RSVP here.
You can get a sense of the issue from this 2007 headline, from The Onion: “U.S. Counter-Counterterrorism Unit Successfully Destroys Washington Monument.” The counter-counterterrorism unit, the satirical article says, was “created in 2004 in response to the lack of terror activity since the Sept. 11 attacks,” and tasked with “raising awareness among the American public of the ‘myriad unknown threats’ that still face the country,” by demonstrating vulnerability to terrorism.
That’s make-believe, of course. No U.S. government agency has been bombing monuments, or anything else on U.S. soil. But still, like other good satire, the article gets at truth more effectively than conventional rendering of facts.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/event-monday-fbi-creating-terrorist-plots-stop-them-0
You can get a sense of the issue from this 2007 headline, from The Onion: “U.S. Counter-Counterterrorism Unit Successfully Destroys Washington Monument.” The counter-counterterrorism unit, the satirical article says, was “created in 2004 in response to the lack of terror activity since the Sept. 11 attacks,” and tasked with “raising awareness among the American public of the ‘myriad unknown threats’ that still face the country,” by demonstrating vulnerability to terrorism.
That’s make-believe, of course. No U.S. government agency has been bombing monuments, or anything else on U.S. soil. But still, like other good satire, the article gets at truth more effectively than conventional rendering of facts.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/event-monday-fbi-creating-terrorist-plots-stop-them-0
Cato: In Holding NSA Spying Illegal, the Second Circuit Treats Data as Property
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that section 215 of the USA-PATRIOT Act never authorized the National Security Agency’s collection of all Americans’ phone calling records. It’s pleasing to see the opinion parallel arguments that Randy Barnett and I put forward over the last couple of years.
Two points from different parts of the opinion can help structure our thinking about constitutional protection for communications data and other digital information. Data is property, which can be unconstitutionally seized.
As cases like this often do, the decision spends much time on niceties like standing to sue. In that discussion—finding that the ACLU indeed has legal standing to challenge government collection of its calling data—the court parried the government’s argument that the ACLU suffers no offense until its data is searched.
“The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures,” the court emphasized. Data is a thing that can be owned, and when the government takes someone’s data, it is seized.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/holding-nsa-spying-illegal-second-circuit-treats-data-property
Two points from different parts of the opinion can help structure our thinking about constitutional protection for communications data and other digital information. Data is property, which can be unconstitutionally seized.
As cases like this often do, the decision spends much time on niceties like standing to sue. In that discussion—finding that the ACLU indeed has legal standing to challenge government collection of its calling data—the court parried the government’s argument that the ACLU suffers no offense until its data is searched.
“The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures,” the court emphasized. Data is a thing that can be owned, and when the government takes someone’s data, it is seized.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/holding-nsa-spying-illegal-second-circuit-treats-data-property
Cato: Second Circuit Declares NSA’s Telephone Dragnet Unlawful
In a ruling certain to profoundly shape the ongoing debate over surveillance reform in Congress, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today held that the National Security Agency’s indiscriminate collection of Americans’ telephone calling records exceeds the legal authority granted by the Patriot Act’s controversial section 215, which is set to expire at the end of this month. Legislation to reform and constrain that authority, the USA Freedom Act, has drawn broad bipartisan support, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has stubbornly pressed ahead with a bill to reauthorize §215 without any changes. But the Second Circuit ruling gives even defenders of the NSA program powerful reasons to support reform.
McConnell and other reform opponents have consistently insisted, in defiance of overwhelming evidence, that the NSA program is an essential tool in the fight against terrorism, and that any reform would hinder efforts to keep Americans safe—a claim rejected even by the leaders of the intelligence community. (Talk about being more Catholic than the Pope!) Now, however, a federal appellate court has clearly said that no amount of contortion can stretch the language of §215 into a justification for NSA’s massive database—which means it’s no longer clear that a simple reauthorization would preserve the program. Ironically, if McConnell is determined to salvage some version of this ineffective program, his best hope may now be… the USA Freedom Act!
The Freedom Act would, in line with the Second Circuit opinion, bar the use of §215 and related authorities to indiscriminately collect records in bulk, requiring that a “specific selection term,” like a phone number, be used to identify the records sought by the government. It also, however, creates a separate streamlined process that would allow call records databases already retained by telephone companies to be rapidly searched and cross-referenced, allowing NSA to more quickly obtain the specific information it seeks about terror suspects and their associates without placing everyone’s phone records in the government’s hands. If the Second Circuit’s ruling is upheld, NSA will likely have to cease bulk collection even if Congress does reauthorize §215. That makes passage of the Freedom Act the best way to guarantee preservation of the rapid search capability McConnell seems to think is so important—though, of course, the government will retain the ability to obtain specific phone records (albeit less quickly) under either scenario. With this ruling, in short, the arguments against reform have gone from feeble to completely unsustainable.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/second-circuit-declares-nsas-telephone-dragnet-unlawful
McConnell and other reform opponents have consistently insisted, in defiance of overwhelming evidence, that the NSA program is an essential tool in the fight against terrorism, and that any reform would hinder efforts to keep Americans safe—a claim rejected even by the leaders of the intelligence community. (Talk about being more Catholic than the Pope!) Now, however, a federal appellate court has clearly said that no amount of contortion can stretch the language of §215 into a justification for NSA’s massive database—which means it’s no longer clear that a simple reauthorization would preserve the program. Ironically, if McConnell is determined to salvage some version of this ineffective program, his best hope may now be… the USA Freedom Act!
The Freedom Act would, in line with the Second Circuit opinion, bar the use of §215 and related authorities to indiscriminately collect records in bulk, requiring that a “specific selection term,” like a phone number, be used to identify the records sought by the government. It also, however, creates a separate streamlined process that would allow call records databases already retained by telephone companies to be rapidly searched and cross-referenced, allowing NSA to more quickly obtain the specific information it seeks about terror suspects and their associates without placing everyone’s phone records in the government’s hands. If the Second Circuit’s ruling is upheld, NSA will likely have to cease bulk collection even if Congress does reauthorize §215. That makes passage of the Freedom Act the best way to guarantee preservation of the rapid search capability McConnell seems to think is so important—though, of course, the government will retain the ability to obtain specific phone records (albeit less quickly) under either scenario. With this ruling, in short, the arguments against reform have gone from feeble to completely unsustainable.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/second-circuit-declares-nsas-telephone-dragnet-unlawful
2015-09-10
Cato: Japan’s Defense Budget Is Still Inadequate
The Japanese government and Western news outlets are highlighting Tokyo’s commitment to increase its military spending for the third straight year. Pundits and policy experts see the boost as a response to the spike in bilateral tensions with China—especially the bitter dispute concerning sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. But as with similar moves by the Baltic republics and Washington’s other NATO allies that reflect worries about Russia’s recent behavior, there is more symbolism than substance in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision.
Japan’s defense budget for the fiscal year beginning in April will be 4.98 trillion yen ($42 billion). The increase is quite modest—up from 4.84 trillion yen in the current year. Moreover, even the larger sum is less than half of China’s official military budget and less than one-third of what the Pentagon and most independent experts believe is Beijing’s actual level of spending. Although Japan’s “Self Defense Forces” already can deploy a significant amount of modern weaponry, such a large disparity in spending is cause for concern.
That is especially true since Abe’s government has adopted an increasingly assertive posture toward China on a range of issues. In one sense, U.S. officials have reason to be gratified by that move and Tokyo’s greater overall interest in East Asia’s security. Japan finally seems to be taking steps to become a normal great power regarding military matters instead of clinging to pacifism and relying on the United States to protect important Japanese interests. Abe’s efforts to “reinterpret” Article Nine of the country’s constitution, which officially places draconian restraints on the military, also reflect the shift in thinking.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/japans-defense-budget-still-inadequate
Japan’s defense budget for the fiscal year beginning in April will be 4.98 trillion yen ($42 billion). The increase is quite modest—up from 4.84 trillion yen in the current year. Moreover, even the larger sum is less than half of China’s official military budget and less than one-third of what the Pentagon and most independent experts believe is Beijing’s actual level of spending. Although Japan’s “Self Defense Forces” already can deploy a significant amount of modern weaponry, such a large disparity in spending is cause for concern.
That is especially true since Abe’s government has adopted an increasingly assertive posture toward China on a range of issues. In one sense, U.S. officials have reason to be gratified by that move and Tokyo’s greater overall interest in East Asia’s security. Japan finally seems to be taking steps to become a normal great power regarding military matters instead of clinging to pacifism and relying on the United States to protect important Japanese interests. Abe’s efforts to “reinterpret” Article Nine of the country’s constitution, which officially places draconian restraints on the military, also reflect the shift in thinking.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/japans-defense-budget-still-inadequate
Cato: President Proposes More War: Congress Should Say “No”
The Islamic State is evil. But that’s no reason for America to go to war again in the Middle East or for Congress to approve more years of conflict.
The president requested formal legal authority to war against ISIL—more than six months after dropping the first bomb on the self-proclaimed caliphate. The United States is defending a gaggle of frenemies from a far weaker foe unable to seriously threaten America.
The Obama administration long ignored the group’s gains, recognizing that ISIL was more about insurgency than terrorism, and was targeting Middle Eastern countries, not the United States.
The administration reversed course when the group’s advances threatened Kurdistan’s capital of Erbil and Iraq’s Yazidi community. Then the beheading of two American hostages transformed administration policy.
Now President Obama claims the Islamic State threatens “U.S. national security.” But how? How can a few thousand insurgents, locked in bitter combat with several Middle Eastern nations endanger the globe’s superpower?
The administration created yet another pseudo-coalition, with U.S. forces responsible for over 90 percent of the airstrikes, as of last week. “ISIL is going to lose,” declared the president. But Washington gave the group a recruiting bonanza. The Associated Press reported that foreign fighters continue to join “in unprecedented numbers.”
In seeking congressional authority, the administration is playing on emotions. Hostage Kayla Mueller’s killing “fueled congressional outrage and renewed calls to defeat” the organization, reported USA Today.
Yet her tragic fate demonstrates ISIL’s limited reach. The only U.S. citizens harmed by the Islamic State are those who voluntarily traveled to a war zone.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/president-proposes-more-war-congress-should-say-nopresident-proposes-more-war-congress-should
The president requested formal legal authority to war against ISIL—more than six months after dropping the first bomb on the self-proclaimed caliphate. The United States is defending a gaggle of frenemies from a far weaker foe unable to seriously threaten America.
The Obama administration long ignored the group’s gains, recognizing that ISIL was more about insurgency than terrorism, and was targeting Middle Eastern countries, not the United States.
The administration reversed course when the group’s advances threatened Kurdistan’s capital of Erbil and Iraq’s Yazidi community. Then the beheading of two American hostages transformed administration policy.
Now President Obama claims the Islamic State threatens “U.S. national security.” But how? How can a few thousand insurgents, locked in bitter combat with several Middle Eastern nations endanger the globe’s superpower?
The administration created yet another pseudo-coalition, with U.S. forces responsible for over 90 percent of the airstrikes, as of last week. “ISIL is going to lose,” declared the president. But Washington gave the group a recruiting bonanza. The Associated Press reported that foreign fighters continue to join “in unprecedented numbers.”
In seeking congressional authority, the administration is playing on emotions. Hostage Kayla Mueller’s killing “fueled congressional outrage and renewed calls to defeat” the organization, reported USA Today.
Yet her tragic fate demonstrates ISIL’s limited reach. The only U.S. citizens harmed by the Islamic State are those who voluntarily traveled to a war zone.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/president-proposes-more-war-congress-should-say-nopresident-proposes-more-war-congress-should
Cato: How the NSA Stole the Keys to Your Phone
A blockbuster story at The Intercept Thursday revealed that a joint team of hackers from the National Security Agency and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), broke into the systems of one of the world’s largest manufacturers of cell phone SIM cards in order to steal the encryption keys that secure wireless communications for hundreds of mobile carriers—including companies like AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint. To effect the heist, the agencies targeted employees of the Dutch company Gemalto, scouring e-mails and Facebook messages for information that would enable them to compromise the SIM manufacturer’s networks in order to make surreptitious copies of the keys before they were transmitted to the carriers. Many aspects of this ought to be extremely disturbing.
First, this is a concrete reminder that, as former NSA director Michael Hayden recently acknowledged, intelligence agencies don’t spy on “bad people”; they spy on “interesting people.” In this case, they spied extensively on law-abiding technicians employed by a law-abiding foreign corporation, then hacked that corporation in apparent violation of Dutch law. We know this was hardly a unique case—one NSA hacker boasted in Snowden documents diclosed nearly a year ago about “hunting sysadmins”—but it seems particularly poetic coming on the heels of the recent Sony hack, properly condemned by the U.S. government. Dutch legislators quoted in the story are outraged, as well they should be. Peaceful private citizens and companies in allied nations, engaged in no wrongdoing, should not have to worry that the United States is trying to break into their computers.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/how-nsa-stole-keys-phone
First, this is a concrete reminder that, as former NSA director Michael Hayden recently acknowledged, intelligence agencies don’t spy on “bad people”; they spy on “interesting people.” In this case, they spied extensively on law-abiding technicians employed by a law-abiding foreign corporation, then hacked that corporation in apparent violation of Dutch law. We know this was hardly a unique case—one NSA hacker boasted in Snowden documents diclosed nearly a year ago about “hunting sysadmins”—but it seems particularly poetic coming on the heels of the recent Sony hack, properly condemned by the U.S. government. Dutch legislators quoted in the story are outraged, as well they should be. Peaceful private citizens and companies in allied nations, engaged in no wrongdoing, should not have to worry that the United States is trying to break into their computers.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/how-nsa-stole-keys-phone
2015-09-09
Cato: New Minsk, Not Quite the Same as the Old Minsk
After a grueling seventeen hours of negotiation, German, French, Ukrainian, and Russian leaders emerged with a compromise agreement aimed at ending the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Although similar to last September’s failed Minsk accords, the new deal provides more details on timing and implementation, which may help a ceasefire to hold. After so many prior failures, strong skepticism is understandable. But if U.S. and European leaders actually commit to the specifics of the deal, it can provide Ukraine with much-needed time to rebuild, reform and address its dire economic problems.
The all-night negotiations between leaders in Belarus showed how far apart the parties were on a number of key issues, including whether the deal should rely on the boundaries laid out in the Minsk I ceasefire, or on the current situation in Eastern Ukraine. Since rebel forces have made substantial territorial gains since September, neither side is keen to concede on the issue. Other issues, including which side will control border crossings into Russia, and the withdrawal of foreign fighters and equipment, proved equally thorny.
Admittedly, the deal still leaves many issues unsettled. It calls for an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons and a demilitarized buffer zone in Eastern Ukraine. It also mandates constitutional reform to allow the eastern regions increased autonomy, as well as amnesty for those involved in the fighting. But the issue of boundary lines is left effectively unsolved, requiring Kiev to adhere to the current front lines when withdrawing weaponry, and the rebels to adhere instead to the boundaries agreed upon in September. There is also no real mechanism to ensure compliance, although the situation will be monitored by the OSCE.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/new-minsk-not-quite-same-old-minsk
The all-night negotiations between leaders in Belarus showed how far apart the parties were on a number of key issues, including whether the deal should rely on the boundaries laid out in the Minsk I ceasefire, or on the current situation in Eastern Ukraine. Since rebel forces have made substantial territorial gains since September, neither side is keen to concede on the issue. Other issues, including which side will control border crossings into Russia, and the withdrawal of foreign fighters and equipment, proved equally thorny.
Admittedly, the deal still leaves many issues unsettled. It calls for an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons and a demilitarized buffer zone in Eastern Ukraine. It also mandates constitutional reform to allow the eastern regions increased autonomy, as well as amnesty for those involved in the fighting. But the issue of boundary lines is left effectively unsolved, requiring Kiev to adhere to the current front lines when withdrawing weaponry, and the rebels to adhere instead to the boundaries agreed upon in September. There is also no real mechanism to ensure compliance, although the situation will be monitored by the OSCE.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/new-minsk-not-quite-same-old-minsk
Cato: FCC’s Net Neutrality Nuclear Option
Proponents of network neutrality regulation are cheering the announcement this week that the Federal Communications Commission will seek to reclassify Internet Service Providers as “common carriers” under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. The move would trigger broad regulatory powers over Internet providers—some of which, such as authority to impose price controls, the FCC has said it will “forbear” from asserting—in the name of “preserving the open internet.”
Two initial thoughts:
First, the scope of the move reminds us that “net neutrality” has always been somewhat nebulously defined and therefore open to mission creep. To the extent there was any consensus definition, net neutrality was originally understood as being fundamentally about how ISPs like Comcast or Verizon treat data packets being sent to users, and whether the companies deliberately configured their routers to speed up or slow down certain traffic. Other factors that might affect the speed or quality of service—such as peering and interconnection agreements between ISPs and large content providers or backbone intermediaries—were understood to be a separate issue. In other words, net neutrality was satisfied so long as Comcast was treating packets equally once they’d reached Comcast’s network. Disputes over who should bear the cost of upgrading the connections between networks—though obviously relevant to the broader question of how quickly end-users could reach different services—were another matter.
Now the FCC will also concern itself with these contracts between corporations, giving content providers a fairly large cudgel to brandish against ISPs if they’re not happy with the peering terms on offer. In practice, even a “treat all packets equally” rule was going to be more complicated than it sounds on face, because the FCC would still have to distinguish between permitted “reasonable network management practices” and impermissible “packet discrimination.” But that’s simplicity itself next to the problem of determining, on a case by case basis, when the terms of a complex interconnection contract between two large corporations are “unfair” or “unreasonable.”
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/fccs-net-neutrality-nuclear-option
Two initial thoughts:
First, the scope of the move reminds us that “net neutrality” has always been somewhat nebulously defined and therefore open to mission creep. To the extent there was any consensus definition, net neutrality was originally understood as being fundamentally about how ISPs like Comcast or Verizon treat data packets being sent to users, and whether the companies deliberately configured their routers to speed up or slow down certain traffic. Other factors that might affect the speed or quality of service—such as peering and interconnection agreements between ISPs and large content providers or backbone intermediaries—were understood to be a separate issue. In other words, net neutrality was satisfied so long as Comcast was treating packets equally once they’d reached Comcast’s network. Disputes over who should bear the cost of upgrading the connections between networks—though obviously relevant to the broader question of how quickly end-users could reach different services—were another matter.
Now the FCC will also concern itself with these contracts between corporations, giving content providers a fairly large cudgel to brandish against ISPs if they’re not happy with the peering terms on offer. In practice, even a “treat all packets equally” rule was going to be more complicated than it sounds on face, because the FCC would still have to distinguish between permitted “reasonable network management practices” and impermissible “packet discrimination.” But that’s simplicity itself next to the problem of determining, on a case by case basis, when the terms of a complex interconnection contract between two large corporations are “unfair” or “unreasonable.”
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/fccs-net-neutrality-nuclear-option
Cato: Bitcoin Regulation: “Assume the Existence of Public Interest Benefits!”
You’ve probably heard some version of the joke about the chemist, the physicist, and the economist stranded on a desert island. With a can of food but nothing to open it, the first two set to work on ingenious technical methods of accessing nutrition. The economist declares his solution: “Assume the existence of a can opener!”…
There are parallels to this in some U.S. state regulators’ approaches to Bitcoin. Beginning with the New York Department of Financial Services six months ago, regulators have put proposals forward without articulating how their ideas would protect Bitcoin users. “Assume the existence of public interest benefits!” they seem to be saying.
When it issued its “BitLicense” proposal last August, the New York DFS claimed “[e]xtensive research and analysis” that it said “made clear the need for a new and comprehensive set of regulations that address the novel aspects and risks of virtual currency.” Yet, six months later, despite promises to do so under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, the NYDFS has not released that analysis, even while it has published a new “BitLicense” draft.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/bitcoin-regulation-assume-existence-public-interest-benefits
There are parallels to this in some U.S. state regulators’ approaches to Bitcoin. Beginning with the New York Department of Financial Services six months ago, regulators have put proposals forward without articulating how their ideas would protect Bitcoin users. “Assume the existence of public interest benefits!” they seem to be saying.
When it issued its “BitLicense” proposal last August, the New York DFS claimed “[e]xtensive research and analysis” that it said “made clear the need for a new and comprehensive set of regulations that address the novel aspects and risks of virtual currency.” Yet, six months later, despite promises to do so under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, the NYDFS has not released that analysis, even while it has published a new “BitLicense” draft.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/bitcoin-regulation-assume-existence-public-interest-benefits
2015-09-08
Cato: Vaccination and the Social Contract
By Patrick J. Michaels
There are two distinct classes of vaccinations: those for communicable diseases like measles, rubella, and chicken pox, and those for non-communicable ones like tetanus.
There is no reason to be vaccinated against non-communicable diseases if you don’t want to. If you believe that your small chance of getting tetanus isn’t worth the (very, very) much smaller risk of crippling Guillan-Barre syndrome after the vaccination, that’s your business.
But vaccination for communicable diseases is part of a social contract that maintains civil society with a general ethic that no one has the right to harm someone without serious provocation. The fact that someone else may avoid vaccination gives no license to avoidably infect that person, however foolhardy he or she might be.
From http://www.cato.org/blog/vaccination-social-contract
There are two distinct classes of vaccinations: those for communicable diseases like measles, rubella, and chicken pox, and those for non-communicable ones like tetanus.
There is no reason to be vaccinated against non-communicable diseases if you don’t want to. If you believe that your small chance of getting tetanus isn’t worth the (very, very) much smaller risk of crippling Guillan-Barre syndrome after the vaccination, that’s your business.
But vaccination for communicable diseases is part of a social contract that maintains civil society with a general ethic that no one has the right to harm someone without serious provocation. The fact that someone else may avoid vaccination gives no license to avoidably infect that person, however foolhardy he or she might be.
From http://www.cato.org/blog/vaccination-social-contract
Cato: Does the Government Require Your Hotel to Spy on You?
If you’re a privacy conscious traveler, you may have wondered from time to time why hotels ask for ID when you check in, or why they ask you to give them the make and model of your car and other information that isn’t essential to the transaction. What’s the ID-checking for? There’s never been a problem with fraudsters checking into hotels under others’ reservations, paying for the privilege to do so…
Well, in many jurisdictions around the country, that information-gathering is mandated by law. Local ordinances require hotels, motels, and other lodgers (such as AirBnB hosts), to collect this information and keep it on hand. These laws also require that the information be made available to the police on request, for any reason or no reason, without a warrant.
That’s the case in Los Angeles, which not only requires this data retention about hotel guests for law enforcement to access at will or whim. It also requires hoteliers to check a government-issued ID from guests that pay cash.
Open access to hotel records may have been innocuous enough in the early years of travel and lodging. Reading through hotel registers was a social sport among the wealthy, who could afford long-distance travel and lodging. Today, tourism is available to the masses, and hotel records enjoy tighter privacy protections. Most people would quit a hotel that left their information open to the public, and many would be surprised that hoteliers’ records are open to law enforcement collection and review without any legal process.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/does-government-require-hotelier-spy-you
Well, in many jurisdictions around the country, that information-gathering is mandated by law. Local ordinances require hotels, motels, and other lodgers (such as AirBnB hosts), to collect this information and keep it on hand. These laws also require that the information be made available to the police on request, for any reason or no reason, without a warrant.
That’s the case in Los Angeles, which not only requires this data retention about hotel guests for law enforcement to access at will or whim. It also requires hoteliers to check a government-issued ID from guests that pay cash.
Open access to hotel records may have been innocuous enough in the early years of travel and lodging. Reading through hotel registers was a social sport among the wealthy, who could afford long-distance travel and lodging. Today, tourism is available to the masses, and hotel records enjoy tighter privacy protections. Most people would quit a hotel that left their information open to the public, and many would be surprised that hoteliers’ records are open to law enforcement collection and review without any legal process.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/does-government-require-hotelier-spy-you
Cato: Managing Sugar Markets Gets Even Messier
In a previous blog post I discussed the implications of the proposed agreement to settle the antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) cases brought by U.S. sugar producers against imports from Mexico. That article amounted to a lament on the difficulties of trying to balance sugar supply and demand by government fiat. Market managers employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Commerce (DOC) have a really hard job, as do their counterparts in the Mexican government. Not only do the supply, demand, and price of sugar tend not to stay quiet and well behaved, but important firms involved in the business also can prove (from the perspective of the program managers) to be vexing and disputatious.
Such is the case with Imperial Sugar Company and AmCane Sugar, both of which are U.S. cane refiners that rely on ample supplies of raw sugar to run their operations. Much of that raw sugar comes from other countries; in recent years Mexico has been the largest supplier to the United States. It now appears that U.S. cane refiners were not too happy with either the original proposed settlement that was announced on October 27, 2014, or the final suspension agreements announced December 19 that set aside the underlying AD/CVD investigations.
One source of that unhappiness seems to have been that the initial proposal would have allowed 60 percent of imports from Mexico to be in the form of refined sugar rather than raw. The U.S. and Mexican governments acknowledged that concern in the December 19 agreement by reducing the allowable level of refined sugar imports to 53 percent. Another issue bothering U.S. refiners likely was the relatively narrow spread between the original proposal’s import reference prices, which were 20.75 cents per pound for raw sugar and 23.75 cents per pound for refined. U.S. refiners may have feared suppression of their processing margins, if imported refined sugar from Mexico could have been sold at only 3 cents per pound above the price of raw sugar imports. The December 19 version increased that price spread to 3.75 cents (22.25 cents for raw and 26.0 cents for refined). From the standpoint of the refiners, that margin still may be uncomfortably narrow.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/managing-sugar-markets-gets-even-messier
Such is the case with Imperial Sugar Company and AmCane Sugar, both of which are U.S. cane refiners that rely on ample supplies of raw sugar to run their operations. Much of that raw sugar comes from other countries; in recent years Mexico has been the largest supplier to the United States. It now appears that U.S. cane refiners were not too happy with either the original proposed settlement that was announced on October 27, 2014, or the final suspension agreements announced December 19 that set aside the underlying AD/CVD investigations.
One source of that unhappiness seems to have been that the initial proposal would have allowed 60 percent of imports from Mexico to be in the form of refined sugar rather than raw. The U.S. and Mexican governments acknowledged that concern in the December 19 agreement by reducing the allowable level of refined sugar imports to 53 percent. Another issue bothering U.S. refiners likely was the relatively narrow spread between the original proposal’s import reference prices, which were 20.75 cents per pound for raw sugar and 23.75 cents per pound for refined. U.S. refiners may have feared suppression of their processing margins, if imported refined sugar from Mexico could have been sold at only 3 cents per pound above the price of raw sugar imports. The December 19 version increased that price spread to 3.75 cents (22.25 cents for raw and 26.0 cents for refined). From the standpoint of the refiners, that margin still may be uncomfortably narrow.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/managing-sugar-markets-gets-even-messier
2015-09-07
Cato: Expand Trade by Repealing Monopoly Unionism
Republicans say they favor cutting regulations to spur growth and create jobs. And they generally favor expanding international trade. They can attain those goals by reforming labor union laws.
America’s West Coast seaports are getting hammered by aggressive unionism. The damage spreads out across the economy during labor disputes, affecting billions of dollars worth of trade. It’s an economically absurd situation, and it’s hugely unfair to the millions of workers whose jobs depend on trade. It should not be happening in America in the 21th century.
In her official response to President Obama’s SOTU, new GOP senator Joni Ernst (Iowa) said, “Let’s tear down trade barriers in places like Europe and the Pacific. Let’s sell more of what we make and grow in America over there so we can boost manufacturing, wages, and jobs right here, at home.”
She’s right, and she should use her prestige and tough-gal credentials to push for change. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher broke the militant unions in Britain and she privatized most of that nation’s seaports. Senator Ernst has an opportunity to push for the same reforms here.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/expand-trade-repealing-monopoly-unionism
America’s West Coast seaports are getting hammered by aggressive unionism. The damage spreads out across the economy during labor disputes, affecting billions of dollars worth of trade. It’s an economically absurd situation, and it’s hugely unfair to the millions of workers whose jobs depend on trade. It should not be happening in America in the 21th century.
In her official response to President Obama’s SOTU, new GOP senator Joni Ernst (Iowa) said, “Let’s tear down trade barriers in places like Europe and the Pacific. Let’s sell more of what we make and grow in America over there so we can boost manufacturing, wages, and jobs right here, at home.”
She’s right, and she should use her prestige and tough-gal credentials to push for change. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher broke the militant unions in Britain and she privatized most of that nation’s seaports. Senator Ernst has an opportunity to push for the same reforms here.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/expand-trade-repealing-monopoly-unionism
Cato: Loretta Lynch’s Worrisome Answer on Civil Asset Forfeiture
Referring to the federal government’s forfeiture regime as “an important tool” in fighting crime, attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch staunchly defended the concept of civil asset forfeiture during the first day of her confirmation hearings.
After Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) questioned the “fundamental fairness” of Americans having their property taken by the government without any proof (or often even suspicion) of criminal wrongdoing, Lynch asserted that there are “safeguards at every step of the process” to protect innocent people, “certainly implemented by [her] office … as well as an opportunity to be heard.”
Even setting aside the litany of federal civil asset forfeiture abuses that have come to light recently across the country, Lynch’s reference to her own office’s handling of civil forfeiture is particularly concerning.
Lynch is currently the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and her office, despite its safeguards, is responsible for one of the more publicized and questionable uses of the asset forfeiture program. In May of 2012 the Hirsch brothers, joint owners of Bi-County Distributors in Long Island, had their entire bank account drained by the Internal Revenue Service working in conjunction with Lynch’s office. Many of Bi-County’s customers paid in cash, and when the brothers made several deposits under $10,000, federal agents accused them of “structuring” their deposits in order to avoid the reporting requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act. Without so much as a criminal charge, the federal government emptied the account, totaling $446,651.11.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/loretta-lynchs-worrisome-answer-civil-asset-forfeiture
After Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) questioned the “fundamental fairness” of Americans having their property taken by the government without any proof (or often even suspicion) of criminal wrongdoing, Lynch asserted that there are “safeguards at every step of the process” to protect innocent people, “certainly implemented by [her] office … as well as an opportunity to be heard.”
Even setting aside the litany of federal civil asset forfeiture abuses that have come to light recently across the country, Lynch’s reference to her own office’s handling of civil forfeiture is particularly concerning.
Lynch is currently the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and her office, despite its safeguards, is responsible for one of the more publicized and questionable uses of the asset forfeiture program. In May of 2012 the Hirsch brothers, joint owners of Bi-County Distributors in Long Island, had their entire bank account drained by the Internal Revenue Service working in conjunction with Lynch’s office. Many of Bi-County’s customers paid in cash, and when the brothers made several deposits under $10,000, federal agents accused them of “structuring” their deposits in order to avoid the reporting requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act. Without so much as a criminal charge, the federal government emptied the account, totaling $446,651.11.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/loretta-lynchs-worrisome-answer-civil-asset-forfeiture
Cato: To Vaccinate, or Not to Vaccinate: That Is the Question
With Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Rand Paul now having weighed in on the growing compulsory vaccination debate—Paul telling a radio host yesterday that most vaccines “ought to be voluntary”—the question arises whether there’s a “libertarian” position on the question. Rightly suspicious of government compulsion, a libertarian’s first instinct is to say that this is a question for individual parents to decide. But second thoughts suggest that the matter is more complicated. After all, it isn’t simply a matter of assessing the risk to one’s own child, about which the state is not entirely disinterested—enforceable parental obligations to one’s children come with becoming a parent. It’s also a question of how much risk one can impose, even through one’s children, on others. And on the matter of risk, the rights analyses that easily sort out so many other human conflicts start to break down—or, more precisely, require turning to values as well, about which reasonable people can have reasonable differences. Some people are risk averse, after all, others are risk takers, and between the two there is no principled line, which is why we often have to turn to public solutions through public line-drawing.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/vaccinate-or-not-vaccinate-question
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/vaccinate-or-not-vaccinate-question
2015-09-06
Cato: Frenemy Saudi Arabia Makes the World More Dangerous
Saudi Arabia is a medieval system whose horrid human rights practices match its antiquated political system. Official Washington breathed a sigh of relief at the smooth transition after King Abdullah died last week. President Barack Obama is visiting Riyadh to pay his respects.
Secretary of State John Kerry called the departed king a “man of vision and wisdom.” President Barack Obama declared that Abdullah “was always candid and had the courage of his convictions.”
U.S. officials long have celebrated their friendship with the Saudi royals, who sit atop vast oil reserves. Even more important, the American military continues to act as the Saudi royals’ bodyguard.
President George H.W. Bush inaugurated the first Gulf War as much to safeguard Saudi Arabia as liberate Kuwait. He left a garrison in Saudi Arabia later targeted by the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers barracks. America’s presence on sacred Saudi soil was one of Osama bin Laden’s grievances.
While American officials are conflicted by the tension between democracy and stability, the Saudis suffer no such indecision. Essentially a totalitarian dictatorship at home, the House of Saud favors whoever and whatever reduces threats to the monarchy abroad.
Saudi Arabia joined the U.S. against the Islamic State. Unfortunately, many of the Sunni insurgents/terrorists likely attended extremist mosques and were educated in radical madrassas funded by Riyadh.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/frenemy-saudi-arabia-makes-world-more-dangerous
Secretary of State John Kerry called the departed king a “man of vision and wisdom.” President Barack Obama declared that Abdullah “was always candid and had the courage of his convictions.”
U.S. officials long have celebrated their friendship with the Saudi royals, who sit atop vast oil reserves. Even more important, the American military continues to act as the Saudi royals’ bodyguard.
President George H.W. Bush inaugurated the first Gulf War as much to safeguard Saudi Arabia as liberate Kuwait. He left a garrison in Saudi Arabia later targeted by the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers barracks. America’s presence on sacred Saudi soil was one of Osama bin Laden’s grievances.
While American officials are conflicted by the tension between democracy and stability, the Saudis suffer no such indecision. Essentially a totalitarian dictatorship at home, the House of Saud favors whoever and whatever reduces threats to the monarchy abroad.
Saudi Arabia joined the U.S. against the Islamic State. Unfortunately, many of the Sunni insurgents/terrorists likely attended extremist mosques and were educated in radical madrassas funded by Riyadh.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/frenemy-saudi-arabia-makes-world-more-dangerous
Cato: Employers Aren’t Mind-Readers and Shouldn’t Be Forced to Pry Into Employees’ Religious Beliefs
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing federal laws against employment discrimination. Along with enforcing these laws—most notably, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which outlaws discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin—the EEOC tells employers how not to discriminate. For example, the EEOC’s Best Practices for Eradicating Religious Discrimination in the Workplace instructs that an employer should “avoid assumptions or stereotypes about what constitutes a religious belief” and that managers “should be trained not to engage in stereotyping based on religious dress and grooming practices.”
It’s passing strange, then, that the government is now arguing before the Supreme Court not only that employers can do these things, but that they must, or face liability under Title VII, in the context of reasonable accommodations that companies have to make for religious practice. Discerning when such accommodations are necessary can be difficult because people practice religion differently—and often in their own personal, non-obvious way.
Title VII has thus traditionally been understood to leave it to the employee to determine when a company policy conflicts with his or her religious practice and then to request an accommodation. This interpretation leaves employers free to pursue neutral policies up to the point that they have actual knowledge of such a conflict.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/employers-arent-mind-readers-shouldnt-be-forced-pry-employees-religious-beliefs
It’s passing strange, then, that the government is now arguing before the Supreme Court not only that employers can do these things, but that they must, or face liability under Title VII, in the context of reasonable accommodations that companies have to make for religious practice. Discerning when such accommodations are necessary can be difficult because people practice religion differently—and often in their own personal, non-obvious way.
Title VII has thus traditionally been understood to leave it to the employee to determine when a company policy conflicts with his or her religious practice and then to request an accommodation. This interpretation leaves employers free to pursue neutral policies up to the point that they have actual knowledge of such a conflict.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/employers-arent-mind-readers-shouldnt-be-forced-pry-employees-religious-beliefs
Cato: Ukraine’s Fight With Russia Isn’t America’s Business
Ukraine’s military has lost control of the Donetsk airport and the rebels have launched another offensive. Fortune could yet smile upon Kiev, but as long as Russia is determined not to let the separatists fail, Ukraine’s efforts likely will be for naught.
As I point out on Forbes online: “Only a negotiated settlement, no matter how unsatisfying, offers a possible resolution of the conflict. The alternative may be the collapse of the Ukrainian state and long-term confrontation between the West and Russia.”
Ukraine’s most fervent advocates assume anyone not ready to commit self-immolation on Kiev’s behalf must be a Russian agent. However, there are numerous good reasons for Washington to avoid the fight.
1) Russia isn’t Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya.
While the Obama administration has resisted proposals for military confrontation with Moscow, a gaggle of ivory tower warriors has pushed to arm Ukraine, bring Kiev into NATO, and station U.S. men and planes in Ukraine. These steps could lead to war.
Americans have come to expect easy victories. However, Russia would be no pushover. In particular, Moscow has a full range of nuclear weapons, which it could use to respond to allied conventional superiority.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/ukraines-fight-russia-isnt-americas-business
As I point out on Forbes online: “Only a negotiated settlement, no matter how unsatisfying, offers a possible resolution of the conflict. The alternative may be the collapse of the Ukrainian state and long-term confrontation between the West and Russia.”
Ukraine’s most fervent advocates assume anyone not ready to commit self-immolation on Kiev’s behalf must be a Russian agent. However, there are numerous good reasons for Washington to avoid the fight.
1) Russia isn’t Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya.
While the Obama administration has resisted proposals for military confrontation with Moscow, a gaggle of ivory tower warriors has pushed to arm Ukraine, bring Kiev into NATO, and station U.S. men and planes in Ukraine. These steps could lead to war.
Americans have come to expect easy victories. However, Russia would be no pushover. In particular, Moscow has a full range of nuclear weapons, which it could use to respond to allied conventional superiority.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/ukraines-fight-russia-isnt-americas-business
2015-09-05
Cato: Judges Shouldn’t Tell Businesses Which Products to Make and Market
New York State is standing athwart medical progress yelling “STOP!” In a move straight from the pages of Atlas Shrugged, the state sued Forest Laboratories, the subsidiary of pharmaceutical giant Actavis that makes the Alzheimer’s drug Namenda IR, to force the company to continue making the drug, which was being phased out in favor of the new Namenda XR (which, among other improvements, need only be taken once a day rather than twice—a not insignificant plus when dealing with Alzheimer’s patients!).
Why would New York’s attorney general want to interfere with medical progress and the development of a better drug that would improve the lives of potentially millions of Americans? Perhaps to reduce state drug costs—maybe the state feels that the marginal benefit from switching to XR isn’t worth the marginal cost—or to provide a competitive advantage to the generic pharmaceutical industry (under New York law, when a patent expires—as IR’s will in a few months—the remaining prescriptions automatically switch to generics).
The state’s claim relies on some very dubious antitrust law and seeks to force Forest Labs to keep producing and offering IR under the same “terms and conditions” as before XR came out. Not only would this keep patients using an older, inferior drug, it would effectively compel Forest to support its competitors’ business strategy. The generics were already set to benefit from the hundreds of millions of R&D dollars Forest Labs spent developing IR, but now they get free advertising too.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/judges-shouldnt-tell-businesses-which-products-make-market
Why would New York’s attorney general want to interfere with medical progress and the development of a better drug that would improve the lives of potentially millions of Americans? Perhaps to reduce state drug costs—maybe the state feels that the marginal benefit from switching to XR isn’t worth the marginal cost—or to provide a competitive advantage to the generic pharmaceutical industry (under New York law, when a patent expires—as IR’s will in a few months—the remaining prescriptions automatically switch to generics).
The state’s claim relies on some very dubious antitrust law and seeks to force Forest Labs to keep producing and offering IR under the same “terms and conditions” as before XR came out. Not only would this keep patients using an older, inferior drug, it would effectively compel Forest to support its competitors’ business strategy. The generics were already set to benefit from the hundreds of millions of R&D dollars Forest Labs spent developing IR, but now they get free advertising too.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/judges-shouldnt-tell-businesses-which-products-make-market
Cato: The Oil Price Plunge Won’t Cause Russia or Iran to Capitulate
The recent dramatic drop in global oil prices has significant geopolitical as well as economic implications. Consumers in the United States and other countries enjoy substantial savings, while marginal producers, both here and abroad, find their profit margins severely squeezed. As I discuss in an article at Aspenia Online, some of the oil-producing states that have been especially hard hit include Russia, Venezuela, and Iran. All of those countries are governed by regimes that are on bad terms with the United States, so there is a temptation among American political leaders and pundits to relish the current discomfort of those governments.
Greater restraint is warranted. The geopolitical benefits to the United States from the current depressed pricing environment are not trivial. Increased economic constraints appear to be one factor making Iran’s clerical regime more willing to negotiate seriously about that country’s nuclear program. Venezuela’s already substantial financial woes, caused by the leftist government’s chronic economic mismanagement since the late 1990s, has made that country a less appealing political model for the rest of Latin America. Washington’s worries about a leftist “Bolivarian” revolution sweeping the region, which were prominent just a few years ago, have faded considerably.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/oil-price-plunge-wont-cause-russia-or-iran-capitulate
Greater restraint is warranted. The geopolitical benefits to the United States from the current depressed pricing environment are not trivial. Increased economic constraints appear to be one factor making Iran’s clerical regime more willing to negotiate seriously about that country’s nuclear program. Venezuela’s already substantial financial woes, caused by the leftist government’s chronic economic mismanagement since the late 1990s, has made that country a less appealing political model for the rest of Latin America. Washington’s worries about a leftist “Bolivarian” revolution sweeping the region, which were prominent just a few years ago, have faded considerably.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/oil-price-plunge-wont-cause-russia-or-iran-capitulate
Cato: Cutting Spending Is the Best Approach
On Monday, the White House will release President Obama’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2016. The president is expected to reemphasize his previous fiscal approach of higher spending coupled with higher taxes, while completely ignoring the country’s long-term fiscal problems.
A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) provides evidence of the best way to solve those problems, should the president decide to tackle the nation’s fiscal mess. The study, by Alberto Alesina, Omar Barbiero, and others, tries to answer one central question: What is the best way for a country to rebalance policy to solve a fiscal crisis?
The study looked at Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development member countries and their response to the financial crisis from 2009 to 2013. Following the crisis, many of those countries became burdened by large amounts of debt and deficit as a result of rising spending and falling revenues. Government spending grew to an average of 43 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) within the European Union.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/cutting-spending-best-approach
A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) provides evidence of the best way to solve those problems, should the president decide to tackle the nation’s fiscal mess. The study, by Alberto Alesina, Omar Barbiero, and others, tries to answer one central question: What is the best way for a country to rebalance policy to solve a fiscal crisis?
The study looked at Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development member countries and their response to the financial crisis from 2009 to 2013. Following the crisis, many of those countries became burdened by large amounts of debt and deficit as a result of rising spending and falling revenues. Government spending grew to an average of 43 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) within the European Union.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/cutting-spending-best-approach
2015-09-04
Cato: US Lifts Ban on Long Haul Truck Deliveries From Mexico
The United States has finally ended a ban on long haul truck deliveries from Mexico. The U.S. government promised to lift the ban twenty years ago as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, but caved in to pressure from the Teamsters union claiming that Mexican trucks would be a safety hazard on U.S. roads. Twenty years of data and two pilot programs seem to have been enough to convince your government that, in this case at least, Mexicans are just as good at doing things as other people.
But surely, you protest, the complaint could not have been that Mexicans are incompetent, but that Mexican safety standards and regulations are overly lax or poorly enforced. To be fair, the Teamsters union has claimed that Mexican trucks are subject to inadequate regulation and that their drivers are poorly trained. This argument would perhaps be meaningful if it weren’t so inexcusably misleading. The fact is that all Mexican trucks operating in the United States have to get permits that require prescreening and regular inspections.
In short, Mexican trucks operating in the United States are regulated by the U.S. government. The only difference is the nationality of the truck’s driver and owner.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/us-lifts-ban-on-long-haul-truck-deliveries-from-mexico
But surely, you protest, the complaint could not have been that Mexicans are incompetent, but that Mexican safety standards and regulations are overly lax or poorly enforced. To be fair, the Teamsters union has claimed that Mexican trucks are subject to inadequate regulation and that their drivers are poorly trained. This argument would perhaps be meaningful if it weren’t so inexcusably misleading. The fact is that all Mexican trucks operating in the United States have to get permits that require prescreening and regular inspections.
In short, Mexican trucks operating in the United States are regulated by the U.S. government. The only difference is the nationality of the truck’s driver and owner.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/us-lifts-ban-on-long-haul-truck-deliveries-from-mexico
Cato: Big Brother Wants to Watch You Drive
In 2008, the Washington legislature passed a law mandating a 50 percent reduction in per capita driving by 2050. California and Oregon laws or regulations have similar but somewhat less draconian targets.
The Obama administration wants to mandate that all new cars come equipped with vehicle-to-infrastructure communications, so the car can send signals to and receive messages from street lights and other infrastructure.
Now the California Air Resources Board is considering regulations requiring that all cars monitor their owners’ driving habits, including but not limited to how many miles they drive, how much fuel they use, and how much pollution or greenhouse gases they emit.
Put these all together and you have a system in which the government will not only know where your vehicle is at all times, but can turn off your vehicle if it decides you are driving too much or driving in a way that emits too many grams of carbon dioxide or is otherwise offensive to some bureaucratic imperative.
I sometimes think privacy advocates are a paranoid bunch, seeing men in black around every corner and surveillance helicopters or drones in the air at all times. On the other hand, if a technology is available–such as the ability to record cell phone calls–the government has proven it will use it.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/big-brother-wants-watch-driving
The Obama administration wants to mandate that all new cars come equipped with vehicle-to-infrastructure communications, so the car can send signals to and receive messages from street lights and other infrastructure.
Now the California Air Resources Board is considering regulations requiring that all cars monitor their owners’ driving habits, including but not limited to how many miles they drive, how much fuel they use, and how much pollution or greenhouse gases they emit.
Put these all together and you have a system in which the government will not only know where your vehicle is at all times, but can turn off your vehicle if it decides you are driving too much or driving in a way that emits too many grams of carbon dioxide or is otherwise offensive to some bureaucratic imperative.
I sometimes think privacy advocates are a paranoid bunch, seeing men in black around every corner and surveillance helicopters or drones in the air at all times. On the other hand, if a technology is available–such as the ability to record cell phone calls–the government has proven it will use it.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/big-brother-wants-watch-driving
Cato: Adam Smith on Infrastructure
I love Adam Smith. He didn’t get everything right, but he got the big things right. Oftentimes, he really nailed it.
Today, I woke up early and my newspaper had not arrived yet. So I cracked open The Wealth of Nations on the infrastructure section, Book V, Part III.
With the highway bill soon in front of Congress, and there being lots of agitation to increase federal funding, Smith had words of wisdom for policymakers. He advocated user-pays and decentralization.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/adam-smith-infrastructure
Today, I woke up early and my newspaper had not arrived yet. So I cracked open The Wealth of Nations on the infrastructure section, Book V, Part III.
With the highway bill soon in front of Congress, and there being lots of agitation to increase federal funding, Smith had words of wisdom for policymakers. He advocated user-pays and decentralization.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/adam-smith-infrastructure
2015-09-03
Cato: Final Hurdle to Keystone XL Pipeline Decision Lifted
Today, the Nebraska Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling and held that the power to approve a route for the Keystone XL pipeline through the state lay with the governor. Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman had previously approved the pipeline’s route, but his authority was challenged by a group of landowners (pipeline opponents) who claimed the authoritative power was held by the state’s Public Service Commission rather than the governor.
President Obama repeatedly referred to this pending decision as the reason why he could not made a final decision on whether to approve or deny the pipeline. As recently as earlier this week, when indicating the president would veto a measure to approve the pipeline that is currently making its way through Congress, Obama press secretary Josh Earnest referred to a “well-established process in place” for making such decisions. The Nebraska case was the last remaining part of that process, as the State Department has already given the pipeline a clean bill of environmental health.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/final-hurdle-keystone-xl-pipeline-decision-lifted
President Obama repeatedly referred to this pending decision as the reason why he could not made a final decision on whether to approve or deny the pipeline. As recently as earlier this week, when indicating the president would veto a measure to approve the pipeline that is currently making its way through Congress, Obama press secretary Josh Earnest referred to a “well-established process in place” for making such decisions. The Nebraska case was the last remaining part of that process, as the State Department has already given the pipeline a clean bill of environmental health.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/final-hurdle-keystone-xl-pipeline-decision-lifted
Cato: Community College Courtesy of the Federal Taxpayer? No Thanks
Word came out last night that in a speech in Tennessee today President Obama will propose that two years of community college be made free to all “responsible” students, primarily funded by federal taxpayers. But one look at either community college outcomes or labor market outlooks reveals this to be educational folly.
The fact of the matter, according to the federal government’s own data, is that community college completion rates are atrocious. The federal Digest of Education Statistics reports that a mere 19.5 percent of first-time, full-time community college students complete their programs within 150 percent of the time they are supposed to take. So less than 20 percent finish a two-year degree within three years, or a 10-month certificate program within 15 months. And that rate has been dropping almost every year since the cohort of students that started in 2000, which saw 23.6 percent complete. Moreover, as I itemize in a post at SeeThruEDU.com, even when you add transfers to four-year schools, the numbers don’t improve very much. Meanwhile, interestingly, the for-profit sector that has been so heavily demonized by the administration has an almost 63 percent completion rate at two-year institutions, and that has been rising steadily since the 2000 cohort.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/community-college-courtesy-federal-taxpayer-no-thanks
The fact of the matter, according to the federal government’s own data, is that community college completion rates are atrocious. The federal Digest of Education Statistics reports that a mere 19.5 percent of first-time, full-time community college students complete their programs within 150 percent of the time they are supposed to take. So less than 20 percent finish a two-year degree within three years, or a 10-month certificate program within 15 months. And that rate has been dropping almost every year since the cohort of students that started in 2000, which saw 23.6 percent complete. Moreover, as I itemize in a post at SeeThruEDU.com, even when you add transfers to four-year schools, the numbers don’t improve very much. Meanwhile, interestingly, the for-profit sector that has been so heavily demonized by the administration has an almost 63 percent completion rate at two-year institutions, and that has been rising steadily since the 2000 cohort.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/community-college-courtesy-federal-taxpayer-no-thanks
Cato: Dynamic Scoring in Congress
The House of Representatives voted this week to establish rules for the 114th Congress. One rule change requires that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) dynamically score legislation. The change is a much-needed reform to the federal budgeting process.
The current legislative scoring process completed by CBO and JCT is generally called static scoring. It currently incorporates some microeconomic behaviorial responses to projected changes in federal spending and taxes.
But static scoring misses a big piece of the puzzle. It assumes that the size of the economy is constant. It does not include an analysis of the economy-wide responses to policy changes. By constrast, dynamic scoring acknowledges the obvious fact that actions of Congress could affect gross domestic product (GDP).
Consider a hypothetical income tax increase from 35 to 40 percent. The tax increase may cause individuals to work fewer hours and businesses to reduce their capital investment. Those sorts of decisions will be made by millions of individuals and businesses in response to tax changes. In aggregate, these responses would affect GDP. Dynamic scoring includes these macroeconomic responses.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/dynamic-scoring-congress
The current legislative scoring process completed by CBO and JCT is generally called static scoring. It currently incorporates some microeconomic behaviorial responses to projected changes in federal spending and taxes.
But static scoring misses a big piece of the puzzle. It assumes that the size of the economy is constant. It does not include an analysis of the economy-wide responses to policy changes. By constrast, dynamic scoring acknowledges the obvious fact that actions of Congress could affect gross domestic product (GDP).
Consider a hypothetical income tax increase from 35 to 40 percent. The tax increase may cause individuals to work fewer hours and businesses to reduce their capital investment. Those sorts of decisions will be made by millions of individuals and businesses in response to tax changes. In aggregate, these responses would affect GDP. Dynamic scoring includes these macroeconomic responses.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/dynamic-scoring-congress
2015-09-02
Cato: Challenging President Obama’s Immigration Action Even Though It’s Good Policy
Our immigration system is broken and Congress has shamelessly refused to fix it. Of course, this unfortunate circumstance doesn’t give the executive branch the power to institute reforms itself. Yet through a recently announced policy known as Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA), President Obama has given partial legal status to more than four million illegal migrants, entitling them to work authorizations and other benefits.
This unilateral action is good policy, bad law, and terrible precedent. Perhaps most importantly, it violates the separation of powers and is thus unconstitutional.
In what is becoming a routine occurrence under this administration, 25 states have sued the federal government in response to this executive action. The case is now before a federal district judge in Brownsville, Texas, who is entertaining the plaintiffs’ motion to enjoin DAPA.
Cato, joined by law professors Josh Blackman, Jeremy Rabkin, and Peter Margulies, has filed an amicus brief supporting the motion. It’s highly unusual for Cato to file at the district court level—indeed amicus briefs of any kind are unusual in this forum—but this is a highly unusual situation.
To be clear, we support comprehensive reform that would provide relief to the aliens protected by DAPA (among many other goals), but it’s not for the president to make such legislative changes alone.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/challenging-president-obamas-immigration-action-even-though-its-good-policy
This unilateral action is good policy, bad law, and terrible precedent. Perhaps most importantly, it violates the separation of powers and is thus unconstitutional.
In what is becoming a routine occurrence under this administration, 25 states have sued the federal government in response to this executive action. The case is now before a federal district judge in Brownsville, Texas, who is entertaining the plaintiffs’ motion to enjoin DAPA.
Cato, joined by law professors Josh Blackman, Jeremy Rabkin, and Peter Margulies, has filed an amicus brief supporting the motion. It’s highly unusual for Cato to file at the district court level—indeed amicus briefs of any kind are unusual in this forum—but this is a highly unusual situation.
To be clear, we support comprehensive reform that would provide relief to the aliens protected by DAPA (among many other goals), but it’s not for the president to make such legislative changes alone.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/challenging-president-obamas-immigration-action-even-though-its-good-policy
2015-07-03
Cato: Big Governments Are Vastly More Dangerous to the Citizenry than Big Corporations
It’s hard to prove or disprove statements of broad social sweep, but we do know one thing: Nicholas Nassim Taleb will not defend his assertion that big corporations are “vastly more dangerous” than big governments.
With notable frequency, people assume that I’m a reader of Taleb’s books. Evidently my thinking and his align in important ways. It’s made me mildly interested in reading him, though time constraints (or time mismanagement) have not yet allowed it.
My minor affinity with Taleb caused me to focus just a little more than I otherwise would have on a tweet of his the other day.
>Big corporations are vastly more dangerous to the citizenry than big government, but with good news: corps end up committing suicide.
>Nassim NicholÙ†Taleb (@nntaleb) April 15, 2015
That premise really caught my eye. What is the relative danger posed by governments and corporations? Are corporations “vastly more dangerous”?
I’d thought that the jury was pretty much in on that question. With hundreds of millions killed outright by government action in the 20th century alone, the quantum of death and destruction wrought by governments is almost certainly greater than corporations’ destructive work.
Like any tool, corporations are dangerous. Death and injury is a byproduct of their delivery of food, shelter, transportation, entertainment, and every other want and need of consumers, because they often miscalculate risk or just make stupid mistakes.
(I should note that corporations are just a way of organizing people. Their existence isn’t demanded by any principle, and they arguably violate libertarian principle by acting as government transfer of risk from owners to consumers. But by historical accident they do exist, and they are an organizational conduit through which much productive human action passes.)
Governments are dangerous, too, to the point where it sometimes appears that unpleasant byproducts are the intended product. According to liberal theory, we enter into political society for protection from each other and outsiders. The day-to-day operation of government in the United States is pretty good relative to other countries and other historical eras. But Americans today are caged in droves and killed with regularity as a byproduct of the war on drugs, for example. People around the world are episodically slaughtered in the millions by literal wars entered into by governments.
Is there any comparable danger produced by corporations?
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/proven-big-governments-are-vastly-more-dangerous-citizenry-big-corporations
With notable frequency, people assume that I’m a reader of Taleb’s books. Evidently my thinking and his align in important ways. It’s made me mildly interested in reading him, though time constraints (or time mismanagement) have not yet allowed it.
My minor affinity with Taleb caused me to focus just a little more than I otherwise would have on a tweet of his the other day.
>Big corporations are vastly more dangerous to the citizenry than big government, but with good news: corps end up committing suicide.
>Nassim NicholÙ†Taleb (@nntaleb) April 15, 2015
That premise really caught my eye. What is the relative danger posed by governments and corporations? Are corporations “vastly more dangerous”?
I’d thought that the jury was pretty much in on that question. With hundreds of millions killed outright by government action in the 20th century alone, the quantum of death and destruction wrought by governments is almost certainly greater than corporations’ destructive work.
Like any tool, corporations are dangerous. Death and injury is a byproduct of their delivery of food, shelter, transportation, entertainment, and every other want and need of consumers, because they often miscalculate risk or just make stupid mistakes.
(I should note that corporations are just a way of organizing people. Their existence isn’t demanded by any principle, and they arguably violate libertarian principle by acting as government transfer of risk from owners to consumers. But by historical accident they do exist, and they are an organizational conduit through which much productive human action passes.)
Governments are dangerous, too, to the point where it sometimes appears that unpleasant byproducts are the intended product. According to liberal theory, we enter into political society for protection from each other and outsiders. The day-to-day operation of government in the United States is pretty good relative to other countries and other historical eras. But Americans today are caged in droves and killed with regularity as a byproduct of the war on drugs, for example. People around the world are episodically slaughtered in the millions by literal wars entered into by governments.
Is there any comparable danger produced by corporations?
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/proven-big-governments-are-vastly-more-dangerous-citizenry-big-corporations
Cato: Indiana’s Religious Freedom Law Is Deja Vu All Over Again
This debate is so banal. Progressives shout “discrimination,” conservatives cry “liberty,” and it really all boils down to the difference between government and private action, which both sides misunderstand.
Progressives aren’t satisfied with state recognition of same-sex couples and want to bend the will of those private citizens who have religious objections to the only belief system that’s now allowed by MSNBC polite society. Conservatives are wrong to oppose the extension of state marriage licenses to same-sex couples – I’m against such licensing schemes, but states have no good reason to treat gay and straight people differently – and it’s that opposition that breeds distrust when they correctly argue that people should be free to live their lives according to their consciences.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/indianas-religious-freedom-law-deja-vu-all-over-again
Progressives aren’t satisfied with state recognition of same-sex couples and want to bend the will of those private citizens who have religious objections to the only belief system that’s now allowed by MSNBC polite society. Conservatives are wrong to oppose the extension of state marriage licenses to same-sex couples – I’m against such licensing schemes, but states have no good reason to treat gay and straight people differently – and it’s that opposition that breeds distrust when they correctly argue that people should be free to live their lives according to their consciences.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/indianas-religious-freedom-law-deja-vu-all-over-again
Cato: California Labor Commission: Uber Driver Is Employee
According to the California Labor Commission, a San Francisco-based Uber driver who filed a claim against the rideshare company is an employee and not, as Uber argued, an independent contractor. The ruling orders Uber to pay the driver about $4,000 for expenses.
The ruling, which Uber considers non-binding, could potentially have devastating implications for the rideshare company in California. If similar rulings are issued regarding other rideshare companies like Lyft or sharing economy players such as Airbnb, Instacart, and TaskRabbit, we could see the growth of these popular and innovative companies stifled as they cope with the costs associated with having providers classified as employees.
The California Labor Commission ruling states that Uber is “involved in every aspect of the operation.” It is true that Uber provides a technology and that it carries out background checks on drivers. But Uber does not provide vehicles or set any hours or for its rideshare drivers. In fact, according to research on Uber wages conducted by Princeton economist Alan Krueger and Uber’s Jonathan Hall, only 38 percent of Uber drivers rely on Uber as their sole source of income.
Regulators and lawmakers ought to realize that Uber drivers, who are often driving for Uber part-time while using their own vehicles on their own schedule, shouldn’t be treated the same as traditional workers.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/ca-labor-commission-uber-driver-employee
The ruling, which Uber considers non-binding, could potentially have devastating implications for the rideshare company in California. If similar rulings are issued regarding other rideshare companies like Lyft or sharing economy players such as Airbnb, Instacart, and TaskRabbit, we could see the growth of these popular and innovative companies stifled as they cope with the costs associated with having providers classified as employees.
The California Labor Commission ruling states that Uber is “involved in every aspect of the operation.” It is true that Uber provides a technology and that it carries out background checks on drivers. But Uber does not provide vehicles or set any hours or for its rideshare drivers. In fact, according to research on Uber wages conducted by Princeton economist Alan Krueger and Uber’s Jonathan Hall, only 38 percent of Uber drivers rely on Uber as their sole source of income.
Regulators and lawmakers ought to realize that Uber drivers, who are often driving for Uber part-time while using their own vehicles on their own schedule, shouldn’t be treated the same as traditional workers.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/ca-labor-commission-uber-driver-employee
2015-07-02
Cato: Making Sense of the Trade Negotiations Secrecy Debate
In Tuesday’s New York Times, law professor Margot Kaminski laid out a compelling case for increased transparency in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. On Wednesday, John Murphy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce offered a fairly convincing response in defense of confidentiality. The problem is that—as is common in trade policy “debates”—they’re not talking about the same thing. That’s frustrating to me because I think they’re both right.
Kaminski makes the point that the U.S. Trade Representative has been overbroad in what it deems classified material, that the current approach improperly privileges business lobbying over public interest groups, and that as negotiations cover more non-trade issues negotiators need more exposure and guidance from different people.
Murphy responds by noting that trade agreements are successfully increasing U.S. exports, that confidentiality in negotiations is both appropriate and helpful in achieving this outcome, and that systems are in place to ensure that all interested parties have input.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/making-sense-trade-negotiations-secrecy-debate
Kaminski makes the point that the U.S. Trade Representative has been overbroad in what it deems classified material, that the current approach improperly privileges business lobbying over public interest groups, and that as negotiations cover more non-trade issues negotiators need more exposure and guidance from different people.
Murphy responds by noting that trade agreements are successfully increasing U.S. exports, that confidentiality in negotiations is both appropriate and helpful in achieving this outcome, and that systems are in place to ensure that all interested parties have input.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/making-sense-trade-negotiations-secrecy-debate
Cato: Tim Cook’s Moral Confusion—and Intolerance
Few recent battles have seized the nation’s moral compass quite as emotionally as the one going on in Indiana right now, pitting defenders of religious liberty against opponents of discrimination based on sexual orientation. But Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook brings the moral confusion surrounding the battle to a head this morning with his op-ed in the Washington Post. Lumping together both legitimate and illegitimate “religious freedom restoration acts,” he writes, “they go against the very principles our nation was founded on.”
Really? Let’s see if that claim stands up. We find those principles in the nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence. And Cook himself invokes them: freedom and equality. Rightly understood, they hold that we’re all born free, with equal rights to remain free. That means—to cut to the chase—that we may associate with anyone who wishes to associate with us; but we are equally free to decline to associate with others, for any reason, good or bad, or no reason at all. That right to discriminate is the very essence of freedom. That’s why people came to this country, to escape forced associations—religious, economic, political, or otherwise.
Cook turns those principles on their head. He says religious freedom bills “rationalize injustice” by, for example, allowing a baker to decline to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. He would compel the baker to accept that request, by force of law. That’s the very opposite of the freedom of association—the right to be left alone—that the nation was founded on.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/tim-cooks-moral-confusion-intolerance
Really? Let’s see if that claim stands up. We find those principles in the nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence. And Cook himself invokes them: freedom and equality. Rightly understood, they hold that we’re all born free, with equal rights to remain free. That means—to cut to the chase—that we may associate with anyone who wishes to associate with us; but we are equally free to decline to associate with others, for any reason, good or bad, or no reason at all. That right to discriminate is the very essence of freedom. That’s why people came to this country, to escape forced associations—religious, economic, political, or otherwise.
Cook turns those principles on their head. He says religious freedom bills “rationalize injustice” by, for example, allowing a baker to decline to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. He would compel the baker to accept that request, by force of law. That’s the very opposite of the freedom of association—the right to be left alone—that the nation was founded on.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/tim-cooks-moral-confusion-intolerance
Cato: Airport Pirates Find Bounty in a College Student’s Life Savings
Today, our friends at the Institute for Justice launched a new challenge to yet another instance of egregious civil asset forfeiture abuse.
Charles Clarke is a 24-year-old college student who found out the hard way that government officials can confiscate property on the mere suspicion that it has a “substantial connection” to a crime or is the proceeds of a crime. No underlying conviction is required. Functionally, this means that officers can claim that “something was a little off” about your behavior, or that “something smells a little like drugs” and then have carte blanche to take whatever cash you have on you. After that, your cash is presumptively guilty, and it is up to you to prove its innocence.
In the winter of 2013, Charles was stopped at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport based on the officers’ assertion that his bag smelled like marijuana. Actually, it was based off of a drug dog’s “signal” that his bag smelled like marijuana. By claiming that a dog “alerted” an officer can obtain probable cause, but in reality the dogs are about as reliable as Clever Hans.
After searching his bag, the officers found no drugs or other illegal substances. They then asked him if he was carrying any cash. Charles volunteered that he was carrying $11,000–clearly thinking, not unreasonably, that in a just world there is no way the officers could just take his money. Charles’s mistake, however, was thinking that he lives in a just world, and the officers walked away with his life savings.
Charles had saved the $11,000 over the previous five years, from work, financial aid, educational benefits, and gifts from family. Now he must overcome the officers’ hunches by proving that his money came from legal sources.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/airport-pirates-find-bounty-college-students-life-savings
Charles Clarke is a 24-year-old college student who found out the hard way that government officials can confiscate property on the mere suspicion that it has a “substantial connection” to a crime or is the proceeds of a crime. No underlying conviction is required. Functionally, this means that officers can claim that “something was a little off” about your behavior, or that “something smells a little like drugs” and then have carte blanche to take whatever cash you have on you. After that, your cash is presumptively guilty, and it is up to you to prove its innocence.
In the winter of 2013, Charles was stopped at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport based on the officers’ assertion that his bag smelled like marijuana. Actually, it was based off of a drug dog’s “signal” that his bag smelled like marijuana. By claiming that a dog “alerted” an officer can obtain probable cause, but in reality the dogs are about as reliable as Clever Hans.
After searching his bag, the officers found no drugs or other illegal substances. They then asked him if he was carrying any cash. Charles volunteered that he was carrying $11,000–clearly thinking, not unreasonably, that in a just world there is no way the officers could just take his money. Charles’s mistake, however, was thinking that he lives in a just world, and the officers walked away with his life savings.
Charles had saved the $11,000 over the previous five years, from work, financial aid, educational benefits, and gifts from family. Now he must overcome the officers’ hunches by proving that his money came from legal sources.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/airport-pirates-find-bounty-college-students-life-savings
Cato: Postal Service Privatization
For more than a century, the federal government has pursued a misguided witch hunt against perceived monopolies in the private sector. But in a glaring hypocrisy, Congress has long protected one of the nation’s largest businesses against competition. The legal monopoly conferred on the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is a relic. Government-run mail makes no sense in our email-dominated economy, and other nations are showing that postal privatization works. If the centuries-old Royal Mail can be privatized, then so can our USPS.
In a new study, former Clinton administration economist Robert Shapiro provides useful input to the privatization debate. He looks at the subsidies that Congress confers on the USPS, as well as the extra costs.
Here are some background facts from Shapiro:
*With more than 600,000 workers, the USPS is the nation’s second largest civilian employer, after Wal-Mart.
*The USPS has three protected monopoly products: first-class mail, standard mail (bulk circulars, catalogs, etc.), and periodicals.
*Employee wages and benefits account for 78 percent of USPS costs. Average USPS worker compensation is at least 32 percent higher than comparable private-sector workers.
*Since the last time Congress supposedly fixed the USPS in 2006, the agency has been losing more than $4 billion a year.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/postal-service-privatization
In a new study, former Clinton administration economist Robert Shapiro provides useful input to the privatization debate. He looks at the subsidies that Congress confers on the USPS, as well as the extra costs.
Here are some background facts from Shapiro:
*With more than 600,000 workers, the USPS is the nation’s second largest civilian employer, after Wal-Mart.
*The USPS has three protected monopoly products: first-class mail, standard mail (bulk circulars, catalogs, etc.), and periodicals.
*Employee wages and benefits account for 78 percent of USPS costs. Average USPS worker compensation is at least 32 percent higher than comparable private-sector workers.
*Since the last time Congress supposedly fixed the USPS in 2006, the agency has been losing more than $4 billion a year.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/postal-service-privatization
2015-07-01
Cato: New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez Signs Civil Forfeiture Abolition Bill
A quick and happy update from New Mexico: Gov. Susana Martinez (R) has signed HB 560, which I detailed here, into law. New Mexico has thus effectively abolished civil asset forfeiture by requiring a criminal conviction before the government can seize property.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/new-mexico-governor-susana-martinez-signs-civil-forfeiture-abolition-bill
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/new-mexico-governor-susana-martinez-signs-civil-forfeiture-abolition-bill
Cato: Confused about the Middle East? So Is the United States
Since the Arab Spring, many Middle Eastern countries have fallen into political chaos like dominoes. This week’s explosion of conflict in Yemen is just the most recent example. Though many of these conflicts are based on local grievances, they are being exacerbated by the involvement of the region’s larger states, and by the United States.
America’s leaders denounce intervention by unfriendly states like Iran. Yet the United States ignores or even enables such actions by U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia. In doing so, America is simply contributing to the mess in the Middle East. Washington should back off and refuse to get more deeply involved in further Middle Eastern conflicts.
Yemen’s conflict is nothing new; the Houthi rebels have been active in Yemen for more than a decade, and captured the capital in January, forcing President Hadi to flee south. This week, as the rebels finally reached the southern city of Aden, Hadi fled, and apparently appealed to Saudi Arabia for help in combatting the Iranian-backed insurgency.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/confused-about-yemen-so-united-states
America’s leaders denounce intervention by unfriendly states like Iran. Yet the United States ignores or even enables such actions by U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia. In doing so, America is simply contributing to the mess in the Middle East. Washington should back off and refuse to get more deeply involved in further Middle Eastern conflicts.
Yemen’s conflict is nothing new; the Houthi rebels have been active in Yemen for more than a decade, and captured the capital in January, forcing President Hadi to flee south. This week, as the rebels finally reached the southern city of Aden, Hadi fled, and apparently appealed to Saudi Arabia for help in combatting the Iranian-backed insurgency.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/confused-about-yemen-so-united-states
Cato: Supreme Court Allows Texas to Offend the First Amendment
Today a narrow and unusual Supreme Court majority ruled that the DMV – of all government agencies! – is allowed to censor speech it considers to be “offensive.” To wit, the four “liberal” justices and Justice Clarence Thomas somehow found that the specialty license plates Texas drivers can choose to have on their vehicles actually constitute state speech – and of course the state can control its own messages, including rejecting a plate proposed by the Texas branch of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. This is so even though the specialty-license-plate program encourages Texans to come up with their own designs and slogans, which has resulted in around 400 plates that express support for a plethora of nonprofit organizations, commercial entities, affinity groups, and myriad other causes.
By this logic, Texas has long been endorsing Dr. Pepper, ReMax, and an assortment of burger and taco joints. Indeed, both Longhorns (UT-Austin) and Aggies (Texas A&M) will be dismayed to learn that the Lone Star State cheers for the Sooners (University of Oklahoma) and Cowboys (Oklahoma State). Surely at least one person is “offended” by each of the above examples, yet the DMV has refused to act in the face of such (macro)aggression. As the dissenting justices point out, it’s even more bizarre that, under the majority’s reading, “rather be golfing” is official state policy. It’s a wonder that the state has become America’s engine of economic growth!
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-allows-texas-offend-first-amendment
By this logic, Texas has long been endorsing Dr. Pepper, ReMax, and an assortment of burger and taco joints. Indeed, both Longhorns (UT-Austin) and Aggies (Texas A&M) will be dismayed to learn that the Lone Star State cheers for the Sooners (University of Oklahoma) and Cowboys (Oklahoma State). Surely at least one person is “offended” by each of the above examples, yet the DMV has refused to act in the face of such (macro)aggression. As the dissenting justices point out, it’s even more bizarre that, under the majority’s reading, “rather be golfing” is official state policy. It’s a wonder that the state has become America’s engine of economic growth!
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-allows-texas-offend-first-amendment
Cato: The United States Should Choose Allies That Benefit America
If America ends up at war, it almost certainly will be on behalf of an ally. Washington collects allies like most people collect Facebook “friends.” The vast majority of U.S. allies are security liabilities, as potential tripwires for conflict and war.
Yet American officials constantly abase themselves to reassure the very countries that the United States is defending at great cost and risk. For instance, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) recently worried: “What ally around the world can feel safe in their alliance with us?” The right question is with what ally can America feel safe?
Instead of relentlessly collecting more international dependents, Washington policymakers should drop Allies In Name Only (AINOs).
Contra the scare-mongering of hawkish politicians, the strategic environment today is remarkably benign for the United States. The world is messy, to be sure, but the number of big conflicts is down. More important, America faces no hegemonic threat or peer competitor and is allied with every major industrialized state other than China and Russia.
All of Washington’s recent wars have been—from America’s standpoint—iver unimportant, indeed, sometimes frivolous stakes.
Terrorism remains a genuine threat, but falls far short of the sort of existential danger posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Worse, terrorism typically is a response to foreign intervention and occupation. Washington has inadvertently encouraged terrorism by backing authoritarian regimes, joining foreign conflicts, and creating enemies overseas.
Adding unnecessary allies makes this problem worse. In Ukraine, for instance, the Obama administration is under pressure to treat a non-ally as an ally—arming and/or defending Kiev—thereby confronting Russia, a nuclear-armed state which considers border security a vital interest.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/us-should-choose-allies-which-benefit-america
Yet American officials constantly abase themselves to reassure the very countries that the United States is defending at great cost and risk. For instance, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) recently worried: “What ally around the world can feel safe in their alliance with us?” The right question is with what ally can America feel safe?
Instead of relentlessly collecting more international dependents, Washington policymakers should drop Allies In Name Only (AINOs).
Contra the scare-mongering of hawkish politicians, the strategic environment today is remarkably benign for the United States. The world is messy, to be sure, but the number of big conflicts is down. More important, America faces no hegemonic threat or peer competitor and is allied with every major industrialized state other than China and Russia.
All of Washington’s recent wars have been—from America’s standpoint—iver unimportant, indeed, sometimes frivolous stakes.
Terrorism remains a genuine threat, but falls far short of the sort of existential danger posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Worse, terrorism typically is a response to foreign intervention and occupation. Washington has inadvertently encouraged terrorism by backing authoritarian regimes, joining foreign conflicts, and creating enemies overseas.
Adding unnecessary allies makes this problem worse. In Ukraine, for instance, the Obama administration is under pressure to treat a non-ally as an ally—arming and/or defending Kiev—thereby confronting Russia, a nuclear-armed state which considers border security a vital interest.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/us-should-choose-allies-which-benefit-america
2015-06-30
Cato: Balanced-Budget Amendment to the Constitution
Presidential candidate Rand Paul has announced his support for a balanced-budget amendment (BBA) to the U.S. Constitution. This is an old idea, but a good idea. A BBA has been proposed in Congress as far back as 1936. In 1982 the Senate passed a BBA by a vote of 69-31, but it failed to get the needed two-thirds approval in the House. In 1995 a BBA passed the House by a 300-132 margin, but it fell one vote short of passage in the Senate.
Today we need a BBA more than ever. Historical budget data show that federal politicians have become increasingly irresponsible over the years. The bipartisan 19th century belief that balancing the budget was morally proper and economically prudent disappeared during the 20th century. As the chart below shows, from 1791 to 1929 the federal government balanced its budget in 68 percent of the years. But from 1930 to 2015, the government balanced its budget in just 15 percent of the years.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/balanced-budget-amendment-constitution
Today we need a BBA more than ever. Historical budget data show that federal politicians have become increasingly irresponsible over the years. The bipartisan 19th century belief that balancing the budget was morally proper and economically prudent disappeared during the 20th century. As the chart below shows, from 1791 to 1929 the federal government balanced its budget in 68 percent of the years. But from 1930 to 2015, the government balanced its budget in just 15 percent of the years.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/balanced-budget-amendment-constitution
Cato: Congress’s Archaic Information Practices
There have been more than 2,700 bills introduced so far in the current Congress. That’s more than 30 bills per day, every day this year, weekends included. Ordinary Americans have a hard time keeping up, of course. Congress does, too.
The controversy around the anti-sex-trafficking bill in the Senate last week illustrates this well. Debate around the formerly non-controversial bill fell into disarray when Democrats discovered language in the bill that would apply the Hyde Amendment to fines collected and disbursed by the government. (The Hyde Amendment bars government spending on abortion. Democrats argue that it has only applied in the past to appropriated funds, not disbursement of fines.)
How is it that it took until late March for Democrats to discover controversial language in a bill that was introduced in January?
Well, Congress is awash in archaic practices. For one, bills are written in “cut and bite” style—change this line, change that word, change another—rather than in a form that lays out what the law would look like if the bill were passed. That makes bills unreadable—a situation Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) has sought to remedy.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/congresss-archaic-information-practices
The controversy around the anti-sex-trafficking bill in the Senate last week illustrates this well. Debate around the formerly non-controversial bill fell into disarray when Democrats discovered language in the bill that would apply the Hyde Amendment to fines collected and disbursed by the government. (The Hyde Amendment bars government spending on abortion. Democrats argue that it has only applied in the past to appropriated funds, not disbursement of fines.)
How is it that it took until late March for Democrats to discover controversial language in a bill that was introduced in January?
Well, Congress is awash in archaic practices. For one, bills are written in “cut and bite” style—change this line, change that word, change another—rather than in a form that lays out what the law would look like if the bill were passed. That makes bills unreadable—a situation Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) has sought to remedy.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/congresss-archaic-information-practices
Cato: The Patent & Trademark Office Has a Slanted View of the First Amendment
Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling regarding Confederate-flag license plates isn’t the last word on First Amendment protection for “offensive” speech. Indeed, it doesn’t even resolve all the issues related to government-insinuated expression. One case working its way through the lower courts regarding a controversial trademark – but not this one! – illustrates some of the pitfalls inherent in allowing the government to act as censor, for whatever reason.
A musician named Simon Tam wanted to “take back” and “own” what had previously been used as an ethnic slur by calling his Asian-American rock band “The Slants.” The Patent and Trademark Office found that this trademark was disparaging to Asians, however, so refused to register it under § 2(a) of the Lanham Act. This provision says, among other things, that the PTO may refuse to register a trademark that “[c]onsists of … matter which may disparage … persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.”
This refusal to register the trademark was affirmed by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. But then the entire Federal Circuit—without being asked!—decided to erase that decision and consider whether § 2(a), or at least its application here, violates the First Amendment.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/patent-trademark-office-has-slanted-view-first-amendment
A musician named Simon Tam wanted to “take back” and “own” what had previously been used as an ethnic slur by calling his Asian-American rock band “The Slants.” The Patent and Trademark Office found that this trademark was disparaging to Asians, however, so refused to register it under § 2(a) of the Lanham Act. This provision says, among other things, that the PTO may refuse to register a trademark that “[c]onsists of … matter which may disparage … persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.”
This refusal to register the trademark was affirmed by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. But then the entire Federal Circuit—without being asked!—decided to erase that decision and consider whether § 2(a), or at least its application here, violates the First Amendment.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/patent-trademark-office-has-slanted-view-first-amendment
Cato: When It Comes to Police Body Cameras, Federalism Is Key
Last week, Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced legislation that would create a pilot grant program to assist state and local police agencies in leasing or purchasing body-worn cameras. The bill requires states, “units of local government,” and Indian tribes wishing to receive a full grant to commit to a range of reforms related to privacy, police practice, and data storage.
The bill presents something of a dilemma for libertarians like me, who want increased accountability and transparency within law enforcement but are also hesitant to support federal policy prescriptions for issues such as policing, which are often best handled at the local level. Given the worrying body camera legislation that has been proposed by some state lawmakers, it is tempting to think that a conditional federal police body camera grant program might be the best way to ensure that local government agencies implement worthwhile body camera policies. Yet Paul and Schatz’s legislation shows that police body camera policy ought to be addressed at the state and local level.
This is not to say that the legislation does not contain some good policy requirements. If the bill were to be enacted as written, an entity (state, unit of local government, or Indian tribe) interested in receiving a full grant would have to demonstrate a commitment to implementing some sensible policies before officers use the body cameras.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/when-it-comes-police-body-cameras-federalism-key
The bill presents something of a dilemma for libertarians like me, who want increased accountability and transparency within law enforcement but are also hesitant to support federal policy prescriptions for issues such as policing, which are often best handled at the local level. Given the worrying body camera legislation that has been proposed by some state lawmakers, it is tempting to think that a conditional federal police body camera grant program might be the best way to ensure that local government agencies implement worthwhile body camera policies. Yet Paul and Schatz’s legislation shows that police body camera policy ought to be addressed at the state and local level.
This is not to say that the legislation does not contain some good policy requirements. If the bill were to be enacted as written, an entity (state, unit of local government, or Indian tribe) interested in receiving a full grant would have to demonstrate a commitment to implementing some sensible policies before officers use the body cameras.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/when-it-comes-police-body-cameras-federalism-key
2015-06-29
Cato: Rebuttal of Sen. Sessions’ Anti-Legal-Immigration Op-ed
Senator Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) Washington Post op-ed calls “for an honest discussion on immigration.” He then lays out his case against legal immigration.
Although I appreciate Sessions’ honesty in calling for large reductions in legal immigration–a level of candor too often shrouded by immigration-restrictionists’ political correctness (“I’m only against illegal immigration”)–his op-ed makes a poor case for more government regulation of international labor markets.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/rebuttal-sen-sessions-anti-legal-immigration-oped
Although I appreciate Sessions’ honesty in calling for large reductions in legal immigration–a level of candor too often shrouded by immigration-restrictionists’ political correctness (“I’m only against illegal immigration”)–his op-ed makes a poor case for more government regulation of international labor markets.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/rebuttal-sen-sessions-anti-legal-immigration-oped
Cato: Kudos to the New Mexico Legislature for Abolishing Civil Asset Forfeiture
Good news from out west. A New Mexico bill, HB 560, to restrict civil asset forfeiture has cleared the legislature - receiving unanimous support in the State House and State Senate - and awaits the signature of Governor Susana Martinez to become law.
Among other things, the New Mexico bill requires a criminal conviction for forfeiture actions, bolsters the “innocent owner” defense by requiring that the owner know that his/her property was being used illegally, requires that all forfeiture proceeds be deposited into the general fund rather than into the seizing agencies, and limits the ability of state and local law enforcement agencies to circumvent state law by utilizing the federal equitable sharing program.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/kudos-new-mexico-legislature-abolishing-civil-asset-forfeiture
Among other things, the New Mexico bill requires a criminal conviction for forfeiture actions, bolsters the “innocent owner” defense by requiring that the owner know that his/her property was being used illegally, requires that all forfeiture proceeds be deposited into the general fund rather than into the seizing agencies, and limits the ability of state and local law enforcement agencies to circumvent state law by utilizing the federal equitable sharing program.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/kudos-new-mexico-legislature-abolishing-civil-asset-forfeiture
Cato: The South China Sea Is Not Worth the Risk of War
Contrasting Chinese and American perspectives were on display at the recent Shangri-La Dialogue, during which Defense Secretary Ashton Carter challenged Beijing over its island expansion program. Privately the possibility of war has emerged as a serious topic in Washington. Both nations should draw back from their increasingly dangerous game of chicken.
China’s territorial claims involve a complex mix of control, historical practice, international law, and treaty. In the view of most observers, Beijing’s claims are extravagant. Yet they are not unprecedented.
The early American republic made aggressive claims against both Canada and Mexico. The United States won its claims in the first case through conquest and in the second instance through negotiation. Great Britain’s decision to accommodate the United States yielded long-term peace and future friendship.
As territory most of the islands are worthless rocks. However, they carry with them control over surrounding waters and underlying resources.
While Washington lays claim to no land, it insists on free transit in surrounding waters. Equally important, with China expanding many Americans want the United States to contain Beijing.
Indeed, there is increasing comment among the chattering classes about the importance of making China “pay a price” for its aggressive behavior. The administration is more vigorously advancing claims than the claimants themselves. The United States created particular controversy flying over islands claimed by China, courting a corresponding challenge from the latter.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/south-china-sea-not-worth-risk-war
China’s territorial claims involve a complex mix of control, historical practice, international law, and treaty. In the view of most observers, Beijing’s claims are extravagant. Yet they are not unprecedented.
The early American republic made aggressive claims against both Canada and Mexico. The United States won its claims in the first case through conquest and in the second instance through negotiation. Great Britain’s decision to accommodate the United States yielded long-term peace and future friendship.
As territory most of the islands are worthless rocks. However, they carry with them control over surrounding waters and underlying resources.
While Washington lays claim to no land, it insists on free transit in surrounding waters. Equally important, with China expanding many Americans want the United States to contain Beijing.
Indeed, there is increasing comment among the chattering classes about the importance of making China “pay a price” for its aggressive behavior. The administration is more vigorously advancing claims than the claimants themselves. The United States created particular controversy flying over islands claimed by China, courting a corresponding challenge from the latter.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/south-china-sea-not-worth-risk-war
Cato: Supreme Court Reinforces Jones Conception of 4th Amendment
In a per curiam opinion this week, Grady v. North Carolina, the U.S. Supreme Court reinforced recent 4th Amendment decisions in holding that when the government physically occupies private property for the purpose of obtaining information, it engages in a search under the 4th Amendment.
The State of North Carolina subjects certain repeat offenders to a lifetime of satellite-based monitoring (SBM) after they complete their sentences. The plaintiff, Torrey Dale Grady, argued that such a program represents a violation of his 4th Amendment rights under recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions, including a 2012 case called United States v. Jones (installing a GPS tracker on a suspect’s car represents a search) and a 2013 case called Florida v. Jardines (using a drug-sniffing dog on a suspect’s porch represents a search).
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-reinforces-jones-conception-4th-amendment
The State of North Carolina subjects certain repeat offenders to a lifetime of satellite-based monitoring (SBM) after they complete their sentences. The plaintiff, Torrey Dale Grady, argued that such a program represents a violation of his 4th Amendment rights under recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions, including a 2012 case called United States v. Jones (installing a GPS tracker on a suspect’s car represents a search) and a 2013 case called Florida v. Jardines (using a drug-sniffing dog on a suspect’s porch represents a search).
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-reinforces-jones-conception-4th-amendment
2015-06-28
Cato: The Court Today: At Once Deferential and Activist
A few additional broader thoughts on the Court’s King v. Burwell ruling today. First, technically, this is not an administrative law ruling. That is, the Court did not apply so-called Chevron deference and thereby uphold the IRS’s reading of the relevant Affordable Care Act’s provision. But practically, it comes to the same thing. In both cases, a provision that makes tax credits available to eligible individuals who buy insurance on exchanges “established by the State” is read to mean that those credits are also available to individuals who buy on exchanges established by the federal government.
Rather, this is a statutory ruling—as if the IRS had never interpreted that provision and the Court were doing so as a matter of first impression. And the tangled web the Court weaves in reading “established by the State” as meaning “established by the State or by the federal government” is reduced to shreds by Justice Scalia’s devastating dissent. It is a tour de force that must be read.
Toward the end of his dissent, however, Scalia waxes more broadly, on the proper roles of Congress and the Court. “Our task,” he writes, “is to apply the text, not to improve upon it.” “Rather than rewriting the law under the pretense of interpreting it, the Court should have left it to Congress to decide what to do about the Act’s limitation of tax credits to state Exchanges.” “The Court’s insistence on making a choice that should be made by Congress both aggrandizes judicial power and encourages congressional lassitude.” And he concludes this important section of his dissent with Hamilton in Federalist No. 78: “What a parody today’s decision makes of Hamilton’s assurances [that the Court has] ‘neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judgment.’”
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/court-today-once-deferential-activist
Rather, this is a statutory ruling—as if the IRS had never interpreted that provision and the Court were doing so as a matter of first impression. And the tangled web the Court weaves in reading “established by the State” as meaning “established by the State or by the federal government” is reduced to shreds by Justice Scalia’s devastating dissent. It is a tour de force that must be read.
Toward the end of his dissent, however, Scalia waxes more broadly, on the proper roles of Congress and the Court. “Our task,” he writes, “is to apply the text, not to improve upon it.” “Rather than rewriting the law under the pretense of interpreting it, the Court should have left it to Congress to decide what to do about the Act’s limitation of tax credits to state Exchanges.” “The Court’s insistence on making a choice that should be made by Congress both aggrandizes judicial power and encourages congressional lassitude.” And he concludes this important section of his dissent with Hamilton in Federalist No. 78: “What a parody today’s decision makes of Hamilton’s assurances [that the Court has] ‘neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judgment.’”
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/court-today-once-deferential-activist
Cato: John Roberts Rewrites Obamacare Yet Again
“If we give the phrase ‘the State that established the Exchange’ its most natural meaning, there would be no ‘qualified individuals’ on Federal Exchanges.” You’d think that I pulled that phrase from Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion in today’s big Obamacare ruling—it makes clear that Congress said what it meant in the ACA, giving states the incentive to create exchanges by making their citizens eligible for tax credits if they do—but you’d be wrong.
It comes from the pen of Chief Justice Roberts, who admits, as he did three years ago in the individual-mandate case, that those challenging the administration are correct on the law. Nevertheless, again as he did before, Roberts contorts himself to eviscerate that “natural meaning” and rewrite Congress’s inartfully concocted scheme, this time such that “exchange established by the state” means “any old exchange.” Scalia rightly calls this novel interpretation “absurd.”
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/john-roberts-rewrites-obamacare-yet-again
It comes from the pen of Chief Justice Roberts, who admits, as he did three years ago in the individual-mandate case, that those challenging the administration are correct on the law. Nevertheless, again as he did before, Roberts contorts himself to eviscerate that “natural meaning” and rewrite Congress’s inartfully concocted scheme, this time such that “exchange established by the state” means “any old exchange.” Scalia rightly calls this novel interpretation “absurd.”
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/john-roberts-rewrites-obamacare-yet-again
2015-06-27
Cato: Two Years On, the TSA Is Still Not Subject to Law
Two years ago tomorrow, the Transportation Security Administration stopped accepting comments on its proposal to use “Advanced Imaging Technology” for primary screening at airports. The end of the comment period on nude body scanning would ordinarily promise the issuance of a final rule that incorporates knowledge gained by hearing from the public. But this is no ordinary rulemaking. This is an agency that does not follow the law.
It was almost four years ago that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered TSA to do a notice-and-comment rulemaking on its nude body scanning policy. Few rules “impose [as] directly and significantly upon so many members of the public,” the court said in ordering the agency to “promptly” publish its policy, take comments, and consider them in formalizing its rules.
Over the next 20 months, the TSA produced a short, vague paragraph that did nothing to detail the rights of the public and what travelers can expect when they go to the airport. At the time, I called the proposed rule “contemptuous,” because the agency flouted the spirit of the court’s order. In our comment, Cato senior fellow John Mueller, Mark G. Stewart from the University of Newcastle in Australia, and I took the TSA to task a number of ways.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/two-years-tsa-still-not-subject-law
It was almost four years ago that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered TSA to do a notice-and-comment rulemaking on its nude body scanning policy. Few rules “impose [as] directly and significantly upon so many members of the public,” the court said in ordering the agency to “promptly” publish its policy, take comments, and consider them in formalizing its rules.
Over the next 20 months, the TSA produced a short, vague paragraph that did nothing to detail the rights of the public and what travelers can expect when they go to the airport. At the time, I called the proposed rule “contemptuous,” because the agency flouted the spirit of the court’s order. In our comment, Cato senior fellow John Mueller, Mark G. Stewart from the University of Newcastle in Australia, and I took the TSA to task a number of ways.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/two-years-tsa-still-not-subject-law
Cato: SCOTUS OKs Liability for Unintentional Housing Discrimination
Stop calling it fair housing law. If it was ever a matter of fairness, it isn’t now.
Under today’s 5-4 Supreme Court holding in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, you can be held liable for housing discrimination whether or not you or anyone in your organization intended to discriminate. Instead – to quote Justice Anthony Kennedy, who joined with the Court’s four liberals in a 5-4 majority – you might have been influenced by “unconscious prejudice” or “stereotyping” when you lent money or rented apartments or carried on appraisal or brokerage or planning functions. What you did had “disparate impact” on some race or other legally protected group, and now you’re caught up in potentially ruinous litigation in which it’s up to you to show that you had a good reason for what you did and could not have arranged your actions in some other way that had less disparate impact.
The decision is quite broad in its implications. For example, in employment discrimination law, where disparate impact has long been legally established, it is increasingly legally dangerous to ask job applicants about criminal records, or carry out criminal background checks on them before a job offer, for fear of disparate impact. Is it still safe to ask such questions of prospective tenants in your apartment building? Better ask your lawyer.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-oks-disparate-impact-housing-claims
Under today’s 5-4 Supreme Court holding in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, you can be held liable for housing discrimination whether or not you or anyone in your organization intended to discriminate. Instead – to quote Justice Anthony Kennedy, who joined with the Court’s four liberals in a 5-4 majority – you might have been influenced by “unconscious prejudice” or “stereotyping” when you lent money or rented apartments or carried on appraisal or brokerage or planning functions. What you did had “disparate impact” on some race or other legally protected group, and now you’re caught up in potentially ruinous litigation in which it’s up to you to show that you had a good reason for what you did and could not have arranged your actions in some other way that had less disparate impact.
The decision is quite broad in its implications. For example, in employment discrimination law, where disparate impact has long been legally established, it is increasingly legally dangerous to ask job applicants about criminal records, or carry out criminal background checks on them before a job offer, for fear of disparate impact. Is it still safe to ask such questions of prospective tenants in your apartment building? Better ask your lawyer.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-oks-disparate-impact-housing-claims
2015-06-26
Cato: The Government Has to Pay for the Raisins It Confiscates
The near-unanimous Supreme Court decided today in favor of the farmers whose raisins the federal government wanted to take as part of a cockamamie New Deal-era regulatory scheme. The Court ruled 8-1 in support of Cato’s position that taking personal property is a compensable action, regardless of whether the government purports to act on the property owner’s behalf, and 5-4 on the question of compensation for that taking. (This is two years after the Court ruled 9-0 that the Marvin and Laura Horne could have their day in court and raise their constitutional challenge, rather than being stuck in some byzantine administrative purgatory.)
Of course, it should be rather obvious that when the government takes your property, its actions are subject to the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, which requires that such taking be (a) for a “public use” and (b) subject to the owner receiving “just compensation.” And it should be equally obvious that the Constitution doesn’t distinguish between real property (your house) and personal property (your car). Yet the government insisted here that, at least in the context of agricultural-marketing/price-setting programs, it can take your crops and do whatever it likes with them so long as it’s all hypothetically for your own benefit.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/government-has-pay-raisins-it-confiscates
Of course, it should be rather obvious that when the government takes your property, its actions are subject to the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, which requires that such taking be (a) for a “public use” and (b) subject to the owner receiving “just compensation.” And it should be equally obvious that the Constitution doesn’t distinguish between real property (your house) and personal property (your car). Yet the government insisted here that, at least in the context of agricultural-marketing/price-setting programs, it can take your crops and do whatever it likes with them so long as it’s all hypothetically for your own benefit.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/government-has-pay-raisins-it-confiscates
Cato: Red Light for Red Line, Yellow Light for Purple Line
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced today that he was canceling Baltimore’s Red light-rail line while approving suburban Washington’s Purple Line. However, that approval comes with some caveats that could still mean the wasteful transit project will never be built.
The latest cost estimate for the Purple Line is nearly $2.5 billion for a project that, if done with buses, would cost less than 2 percent as much. The Purple Line finance plan calls for the federal government to put up $900 million, the state to immediately add $738 million, and then for the state to borrow another $810 million.
Instead, Governor Hogan says Maryland will contribute only $168 million to the project, and that local governments–meaning, mainly, Montgomery County but also Prince Georges County–will have to come up with the rest. It isn’t clear from press reports whether Hogan is willing to commit Maryland taxpayers to repay $810 million worth of loans, but it is clear that local taxpayers will have to pay at least half a billion dollars more than they were expecting.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/red-light-red-line-yellow-light-purple-line
The latest cost estimate for the Purple Line is nearly $2.5 billion for a project that, if done with buses, would cost less than 2 percent as much. The Purple Line finance plan calls for the federal government to put up $900 million, the state to immediately add $738 million, and then for the state to borrow another $810 million.
Instead, Governor Hogan says Maryland will contribute only $168 million to the project, and that local governments–meaning, mainly, Montgomery County but also Prince Georges County–will have to come up with the rest. It isn’t clear from press reports whether Hogan is willing to commit Maryland taxpayers to repay $810 million worth of loans, but it is clear that local taxpayers will have to pay at least half a billion dollars more than they were expecting.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/red-light-red-line-yellow-light-purple-line
2015-03-22
Cato: Another Petty Dispute Involving U.S. Allies
Alliances tend to entangle America in confrontations that have little or no relevance to the security and liberty of the republic. A prime example of that problem is the ongoing, bitter dispute between Japan and South Korea over some largely uninhabited rocks and the waters surrounding them. Tokyo and Seoul cannot even agree on the correct name of the islands or the body of water. Japanese call the islands Takeshima, while South Koreans insist on the name Dokdo. For Japanese (and most of the world), the spits of rock are located in the Sea of Japan, but South Koreans hate that name and instead call it the East Sea.
As I discuss in a recent National Interest Online article, outsiders might be tempted to snicker at such a parochial feud, but it has significant policy implications. U.S. officials are seeking to strengthen Washington’s alliances with both Japan and South Korea to counter China’s growing power in East Asia. A key component of that strategy is to encourage closer bilateral military cooperation between Tokyo and Seoul. The Takeshima/Dokdo dispute is a major impediment to such cooperation. Beijing has been quick to take advantage of the animosity by actively courting South Korea.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/another-petty-dispute-involving-us-allies
As I discuss in a recent National Interest Online article, outsiders might be tempted to snicker at such a parochial feud, but it has significant policy implications. U.S. officials are seeking to strengthen Washington’s alliances with both Japan and South Korea to counter China’s growing power in East Asia. A key component of that strategy is to encourage closer bilateral military cooperation between Tokyo and Seoul. The Takeshima/Dokdo dispute is a major impediment to such cooperation. Beijing has been quick to take advantage of the animosity by actively courting South Korea.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/another-petty-dispute-involving-us-allies
Cato: Audit the Fed: What Would Milton Friedman Say?
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a bill (S.264) which is popularly known as “Audit the Fed” (ATF). The bill picked up 30 initial co-sponsors. Although the Fed is already extensively audited in the accounting sense of the term, the ATF bill would expand the scope and scale of Fed auditing. Indeed, monetary policy decisions, which have been exempt from any sort of “auditing” since 1978, would see their auditing exemption lifted if the bill becomes law.
There is popular support for the idea that the Fed should be audited. More than three-quarters of registered voters would give the general idea of auditing the Fed a green light. It’s no surprise, then, that there has been bipartisan support for similar proposals in the past. However, none of these have become law because the push-back from Fed officials and other “experts” has been strong. Today is no different, with the Fed and the Obama White House all singing the same tune: “It’s Dangerous.”
The real issue at stake is whether the Fed should be independent. The opponents of the ATF bill naturally think that the law would imperil the Fed’s autonomy and that this would be objectionable.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/audit-fed-what-would-milton-friedman-say
There is popular support for the idea that the Fed should be audited. More than three-quarters of registered voters would give the general idea of auditing the Fed a green light. It’s no surprise, then, that there has been bipartisan support for similar proposals in the past. However, none of these have become law because the push-back from Fed officials and other “experts” has been strong. Today is no different, with the Fed and the Obama White House all singing the same tune: “It’s Dangerous.”
The real issue at stake is whether the Fed should be independent. The opponents of the ATF bill naturally think that the law would imperil the Fed’s autonomy and that this would be objectionable.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/audit-fed-what-would-milton-friedman-say
Cato: Another Fishy Regulation
All across the globe, people see the United States as a land of opportunity and dream of making their way here to work hard and enjoy the prosperity that our system of laws helps provide. Cindy Vong made that dream a reality by emigrating from Vietnam, becoming a U.S. citizen, and starting her own nail salon in Gilbert, Arizona. Thanks to a state occupational-licensing scheme, however, Ms. Vong may no longer be free to pursue her vision of happiness.
The Arizona Board of Cosmetology—yes, that’s an actual entity—got wind that Ms. Vong’s spa offered a treatment that uses small fish to exfoliate dead skin from the feet. This is a perfectly safe practice popular in East Asia and the Middle East. Learning that the Board intended to apply its exfoliation-instrument sterilization standards to her fish—how does one sterilize a fish?—Ms. Vong volunteered her spa as a test project until the Board was able to revise its existing rules to address this increasingly popular treatment. Without so much as bothering to evaluate whether the fish treatment is unsafe—there is no such evidence anywhere—the Board ignored her request and, summarily concluding the treatment unsafe, shut down Ms. Vong’s business. So much for “Land of the Free.”
Represented by our friends at the Goldwater Institute, Ms. Vong fought back, bringing a constitutional challenge against the Board’s action all the way to Arizona’s high court. Unfortunately, that court deferred to the Board’s “safety” concerns, finding there to be a “reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis” for the regulation. In other words, because a state-empowered group of Ms. Vong’s competitors offered a better-than-completely-ridiculous pretext for telling her how to run her business, the court would entertain no legal challenge.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/another-fishy-regulation
The Arizona Board of Cosmetology—yes, that’s an actual entity—got wind that Ms. Vong’s spa offered a treatment that uses small fish to exfoliate dead skin from the feet. This is a perfectly safe practice popular in East Asia and the Middle East. Learning that the Board intended to apply its exfoliation-instrument sterilization standards to her fish—how does one sterilize a fish?—Ms. Vong volunteered her spa as a test project until the Board was able to revise its existing rules to address this increasingly popular treatment. Without so much as bothering to evaluate whether the fish treatment is unsafe—there is no such evidence anywhere—the Board ignored her request and, summarily concluding the treatment unsafe, shut down Ms. Vong’s business. So much for “Land of the Free.”
Represented by our friends at the Goldwater Institute, Ms. Vong fought back, bringing a constitutional challenge against the Board’s action all the way to Arizona’s high court. Unfortunately, that court deferred to the Board’s “safety” concerns, finding there to be a “reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis” for the regulation. In other words, because a state-empowered group of Ms. Vong’s competitors offered a better-than-completely-ridiculous pretext for telling her how to run her business, the court would entertain no legal challenge.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/another-fishy-regulation
Cato: Continuing Constitutional Difficulties in Implementing the Voting Rights Act
Sue Evenwel is a citizen of the United States and of the state of Texas. She is a registered voter in Titus County and regularly votes in local and state elections. How is it, then, that Ms. Evenwel’s vote in a Texas state senate race is worth only about half that of certain other voters? The answer lies somewhere at the intersection of bad law and even worse politics that the modern Voting Rights Act has become.
The VRA, as you may recall, was the heroic civil rights legislation that finally put a stop to the most blatant and invidious forms of racial discrimination impairing the fundamental right of racial minorities to vote. It has been several decades now since this important and proud work but now, sadly, the heroic VRA has lived long enough to see itself become a villain. As Cato has warned before—in our amicus briefs in Perry v. Perez and Shelby County v. Holder—the courts are at a “bloody crossroads” when interpreting what have become the conflicting mandates of the VRA. To give one example, the courts have found that Section 2 requires race-based redistricting to prevent loss of minority voting power, while at the same time, the Fifteenth Amendment (and the currently inoperable VRA Section 5) prohibits discrimination in voting on the basis of race.
The conflicts go on: as Ms. Evenwel’s case demonstrates, Section 2’s requirements clash with the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection guarantee. In response to the pressures of satisfying Section 2, Texas adopted a court-drawn, interim redistricting plan for state senate districts. To ensure that racial minorities’ voting power isn’t diluted, however, the plan instead dilutes the voting power of rural voters by equalizing “total population” among districts instead of using the “citizens of voting age population” (CVAP) metric. The result of this choice is that the high number of non-voting-eligible immigrants—whether legal or illegal—in Texas’s urban centers wildly inflates the voting power of the relatively fewer eligible voters who also reside in those urban districts.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/continuing-constitutional-difficulties-implementing-voting-rights-act
The VRA, as you may recall, was the heroic civil rights legislation that finally put a stop to the most blatant and invidious forms of racial discrimination impairing the fundamental right of racial minorities to vote. It has been several decades now since this important and proud work but now, sadly, the heroic VRA has lived long enough to see itself become a villain. As Cato has warned before—in our amicus briefs in Perry v. Perez and Shelby County v. Holder—the courts are at a “bloody crossroads” when interpreting what have become the conflicting mandates of the VRA. To give one example, the courts have found that Section 2 requires race-based redistricting to prevent loss of minority voting power, while at the same time, the Fifteenth Amendment (and the currently inoperable VRA Section 5) prohibits discrimination in voting on the basis of race.
The conflicts go on: as Ms. Evenwel’s case demonstrates, Section 2’s requirements clash with the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection guarantee. In response to the pressures of satisfying Section 2, Texas adopted a court-drawn, interim redistricting plan for state senate districts. To ensure that racial minorities’ voting power isn’t diluted, however, the plan instead dilutes the voting power of rural voters by equalizing “total population” among districts instead of using the “citizens of voting age population” (CVAP) metric. The result of this choice is that the high number of non-voting-eligible immigrants—whether legal or illegal—in Texas’s urban centers wildly inflates the voting power of the relatively fewer eligible voters who also reside in those urban districts.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/continuing-constitutional-difficulties-implementing-voting-rights-act
Cato: Russia Befriends North Korea to Punish U.S. Over Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin has reached out to one of the poorest and least predictable states on earth: North Korea. So far, the new Moscow-Pyongyang axis matters little. But the effort demonstrates that Russia can make Washington pay for confronting Moscow over Ukraine.
The United States and the Soviet Union divided the Korean peninsula at the end of World War II. Moscow’s zone became the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, while the U.S. zone became the Republic of Korea, better known as South Korea. But North Korea denounced Moscow in 1991 after it recognized South Korea. Since then, Russo-North Korean relations have been minimal.
In contrast, Seoul provided investment and trade in abundance. After President Vladimir Putin held a summit with South Korean President Park, Russia leaned toward Seoul in denouncing the North’s missile and nuclear programs.
However, Moscow is rebalancing its position. Last year North Korea and Russia exchanged high-level visitors and inked a number of economic agreements. Russia indicated its willingness to host a summit. Both governments talked of “deepening” economic and political ties.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/russia-befriends-north-korea-punish-us-over-ukraine
The United States and the Soviet Union divided the Korean peninsula at the end of World War II. Moscow’s zone became the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, while the U.S. zone became the Republic of Korea, better known as South Korea. But North Korea denounced Moscow in 1991 after it recognized South Korea. Since then, Russo-North Korean relations have been minimal.
In contrast, Seoul provided investment and trade in abundance. After President Vladimir Putin held a summit with South Korean President Park, Russia leaned toward Seoul in denouncing the North’s missile and nuclear programs.
However, Moscow is rebalancing its position. Last year North Korea and Russia exchanged high-level visitors and inked a number of economic agreements. Russia indicated its willingness to host a summit. Both governments talked of “deepening” economic and political ties.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/russia-befriends-north-korea-punish-us-over-ukraine
Cato: The Equal Protection Clause Requires Giving Marriage Licenses to Same-Sex Couples
Two years ago in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution forbids the federal government from treating same-sex marriages differently than opposite-sex marriages. The Court’s majority, writing through Justice Anthony Kennedy, recognized that discriminating against lawfully wed same-sex couples violates the Fifth Amendment’s “prohibition against denying to any person the equal protection of the laws,” a prohibition which the “equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment makes … all the more specific and all the better understood and preserved.” Because Windsor challenged only the federal Defense of Marriage Act, no state marriage laws were directly affected.
Given the Court’s broad language, however—especially its direct reference to the Equal Protection Clause—many (including Justice Antonin Scalia in dissent) predicted that the opinion’s reasoning would eventually be used to strike down state laws and constitutional provisions that deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples. They were right. Windsor served as the basis for dozens of challenges to marriage laws across the country, initially resulting in an unbroken series of victories for marriage equality in federal courts, which the Supreme Court declined to review.
Finally, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee) issued a contrary ruling, holding that “the people who adopted the Fourteenth Amendment understood it to require the States to change the definition of marriage.” The Supreme Court could thus no longer delay taking up the marriage debate.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/equal-protection-clause-requires-giving-marriage-licenses-same-sex-couples
Given the Court’s broad language, however—especially its direct reference to the Equal Protection Clause—many (including Justice Antonin Scalia in dissent) predicted that the opinion’s reasoning would eventually be used to strike down state laws and constitutional provisions that deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples. They were right. Windsor served as the basis for dozens of challenges to marriage laws across the country, initially resulting in an unbroken series of victories for marriage equality in federal courts, which the Supreme Court declined to review.
Finally, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee) issued a contrary ruling, holding that “the people who adopted the Fourteenth Amendment understood it to require the States to change the definition of marriage.” The Supreme Court could thus no longer delay taking up the marriage debate.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/equal-protection-clause-requires-giving-marriage-licenses-same-sex-couples
2015-03-21
Cato: The Grapes of Wrath: California Raisins Are Back at the Supreme Court
When Marvin Horne told the United States Raisin Administrative Committee (yes, there’s a raisin administrative committee) that he wasn’t going to turn over nearly 30 percent of his crop to the government in exchange for nothing, he probably didn’t expect his case would go to the Supreme Court—twice. That little act of civil disobedience was thirteen years ago, and the Hornes now stand on the precipice of vindicating an important constitutional right—the Fifth Amendment right not to have your property taken without just compensation—as well as putting a wrench in the gears of what Justice Elena Kagan called “the world’s most outdated law.”
Like much of our agricultural policy, the Raisin Administrative Committee (RAC) is a relic of New Deal-era cartelization schemes. Trying to understand the logic behind American agricultural policy is like trying to find the logic in a Marx Brothers movie—it can’t be done and you’re better off just sitting back and laughing at the antics. Yet our agricultural policy has real-world effects on farmers like the Hornes, who are subject to the whims of the RAC as it tries to stabilize the price and supply of raisins. Sometimes the RAC pays for the raisins it takes, and sometimes not. In 2002-2003, the RAC offered far less than the cost of production for 47 percent of the Hornes’ raisins, and in 2003-2004 they offered nothing for 30 percent of the raisins. The Hornes had had enough, and they refused the order, arguing the seemingly simple point that the confiscation would be a taking without just compensation under the Fifth Amendment.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/grapes-wrath-california-raisins-are-back-supreme-court
Like much of our agricultural policy, the Raisin Administrative Committee (RAC) is a relic of New Deal-era cartelization schemes. Trying to understand the logic behind American agricultural policy is like trying to find the logic in a Marx Brothers movie—it can’t be done and you’re better off just sitting back and laughing at the antics. Yet our agricultural policy has real-world effects on farmers like the Hornes, who are subject to the whims of the RAC as it tries to stabilize the price and supply of raisins. Sometimes the RAC pays for the raisins it takes, and sometimes not. In 2002-2003, the RAC offered far less than the cost of production for 47 percent of the Hornes’ raisins, and in 2003-2004 they offered nothing for 30 percent of the raisins. The Hornes had had enough, and they refused the order, arguing the seemingly simple point that the confiscation would be a taking without just compensation under the Fifth Amendment.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/grapes-wrath-california-raisins-are-back-supreme-court
Cato: The Fatal Conceit of the “Right to be Forgotten”
Intelligence Squared hosted a lively debate last week over the so-called “Right to be Forgotten” embraced by European courts—which, as tech executive Andrew McLaughlin aptly noted, would be more honestly described as a “right to force others to forget.” A primary consequence of this “right” thus far has been that citizens are entitled to demand that search engines like Google censor the results that are returned for a search on the person’s name, provided those results are “inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant.” In other words, if you’re unhappy that an unflattering item—such as a news story—shows up as a prominent result for your name, you can declare it “irrelevant” even if entirely truthful and ask Google to stop showing it as a result for such searches, with ultimate recourse to the courts if the company refuses. Within two months of the ruling establishing the “right,” the company received more than 70,000 such requests.
Hearteningly, the opponents of importing this “right” to the United States won the debate by a large margin, but it occurred to me that one absolutely essential reason for rejecting this kind of censorship process was only indirectly and obliquely invoked. As even the defenders of the Right to be Forgotten conceded, it would be inappropriate to allow a person to suppress search results that were of some legitimate public value: Search engines are obligated to honor suppression requests only when linking some piece of truthful information to a person’s name would be embarrassing or harmful to that person without some compensating benefit to those who would receive the information. Frequent comparison was made to the familiar legal standards that have been applied to newspapers publishing (lawfully obtained) private information about non-public figures. In those cases, of course, the person seeking to suppress the information is typically opposed in court by the entity publishing the information—such as a newspaper—which is at least in a position to articulate why it believes there is some public interest in that information at the time of publication.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/fatal-conceit-right-be-forgotten
Hearteningly, the opponents of importing this “right” to the United States won the debate by a large margin, but it occurred to me that one absolutely essential reason for rejecting this kind of censorship process was only indirectly and obliquely invoked. As even the defenders of the Right to be Forgotten conceded, it would be inappropriate to allow a person to suppress search results that were of some legitimate public value: Search engines are obligated to honor suppression requests only when linking some piece of truthful information to a person’s name would be embarrassing or harmful to that person without some compensating benefit to those who would receive the information. Frequent comparison was made to the familiar legal standards that have been applied to newspapers publishing (lawfully obtained) private information about non-public figures. In those cases, of course, the person seeking to suppress the information is typically opposed in court by the entity publishing the information—such as a newspaper—which is at least in a position to articulate why it believes there is some public interest in that information at the time of publication.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/fatal-conceit-right-be-forgotten
Cato: President Obama’s Dismissal of Drug Reform
Yesterday President Obama seemed to make light of the push for drug reform (again), arguing that young Americans should put it at the bottom of their priority list in favor of issues like climate change and war:
"I understand this is important to you but, you know, you should be thinking about climate change, the economy, jobs, war and peace. Maybe, way at the bottom, you should be thinking about marijuana."
As a member of that millennial generation, I’d like to ask: why?
Setting aside the strange suggestion that environmental and peace activism are somehow mutually exclusive with opposing the drug war, I would suggest that Americans have much more influence over drug policy than we have over the global climate or the U.S. government’s penchant for warmaking.
Despite the President’s insinuations, the fight to end the drug war isn’t just a crusade by young stoners to get high without worry of arrest. Prohibition doesn’t work. It didn’t work in the 1920s when alcohol prohibition turned entire American cities over to organized crime, and it doesn’t work in 2015.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/president-obamas-dismissal-drug-reform
"I understand this is important to you but, you know, you should be thinking about climate change, the economy, jobs, war and peace. Maybe, way at the bottom, you should be thinking about marijuana."
As a member of that millennial generation, I’d like to ask: why?
Setting aside the strange suggestion that environmental and peace activism are somehow mutually exclusive with opposing the drug war, I would suggest that Americans have much more influence over drug policy than we have over the global climate or the U.S. government’s penchant for warmaking.
Despite the President’s insinuations, the fight to end the drug war isn’t just a crusade by young stoners to get high without worry of arrest. Prohibition doesn’t work. It didn’t work in the 1920s when alcohol prohibition turned entire American cities over to organized crime, and it doesn’t work in 2015.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/president-obamas-dismissal-drug-reform
Cato: Police Body Cameras Are Not a Panacea
Las Vegas police officer Richard Scavone is facing a misdemeanor battery charge after body camera footage revealed that he had, according to Undersheriff Kevin McMahill, used excessive and unreasonable force while arresting a woman for loitering for prostitution in January.
Scavone’s lawyer said that his client, who is suspended with pay, was one of the 400 volunteers taking part in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s body camera study. Footage of the incident has not been released, as it is being used in the ongoing investigations conducted by the Clark County District Attorney and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
This is not the first time that police body cameras have captured alleged excessive force. In January, prosecutors in Albuquerque, New Mexico said that they would be pursuing murder charges against two police officers who in March 2014 shot and killed James Boyd, a homeless paranoid schizophrenic camping in the Sandia Mountains. The killing was filmed by a helmet camera worn by one of the officers at the scene. Speaking about the case, Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg said, “We have evidence in this case to establish probable cause we didn’t have in other cases.”
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/police-body-cameras-are-not-panacea
Scavone’s lawyer said that his client, who is suspended with pay, was one of the 400 volunteers taking part in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s body camera study. Footage of the incident has not been released, as it is being used in the ongoing investigations conducted by the Clark County District Attorney and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
This is not the first time that police body cameras have captured alleged excessive force. In January, prosecutors in Albuquerque, New Mexico said that they would be pursuing murder charges against two police officers who in March 2014 shot and killed James Boyd, a homeless paranoid schizophrenic camping in the Sandia Mountains. The killing was filmed by a helmet camera worn by one of the officers at the scene. Speaking about the case, Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg said, “We have evidence in this case to establish probable cause we didn’t have in other cases.”
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/police-body-cameras-are-not-panacea
Cato: Putin Returns
In a piece published today over at Townhall, I talk about Vladimir Putin’s recent disappearance from the public eye, and why it wasn’t as big a deal as you might think.
The rumors surrounding his ten-day disappearance ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was kept busy, scotching speculation that the Russian leader was ill, quashing reports of a power struggle within the Kremlin, and refuting assertions that Putin had been absent to attend the birth of his new child.
When Putin finally reappeared on Monday, he waved away all questions about his absence, simply noting that “life would be boring without gossip.” We’ll probably never know where Putin was for those ten days, though his pallor implied a minor illness. Given the consistent unwillingness of the Kremlin to divulge information about Putin’s personal life, the whole thing may have been nothing more than the flu.
But it’s worth asking why Putin’s disappearance caused such a media furor. Putin’s centrality to the Russian political system is so well-accepted that commentators and policymakers routinely treat Putin himself as sole representative of the Russian state, psychoanalyzing the man for insight into Russian foreign policy choices. His disappearance, therefore, implied the possibility of chaos in Russia.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/putin-returns
The rumors surrounding his ten-day disappearance ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was kept busy, scotching speculation that the Russian leader was ill, quashing reports of a power struggle within the Kremlin, and refuting assertions that Putin had been absent to attend the birth of his new child.
When Putin finally reappeared on Monday, he waved away all questions about his absence, simply noting that “life would be boring without gossip.” We’ll probably never know where Putin was for those ten days, though his pallor implied a minor illness. Given the consistent unwillingness of the Kremlin to divulge information about Putin’s personal life, the whole thing may have been nothing more than the flu.
But it’s worth asking why Putin’s disappearance caused such a media furor. Putin’s centrality to the Russian political system is so well-accepted that commentators and policymakers routinely treat Putin himself as sole representative of the Russian state, psychoanalyzing the man for insight into Russian foreign policy choices. His disappearance, therefore, implied the possibility of chaos in Russia.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/putin-returns
Cato: DEA ‘Cold Consent’ Encounters Constitute Federal Stop-and-Frisk
Over at Forbes, the Institute for Justice’s Nick Sibilla details a new report from the Department of Justice concerning the Drug Enforcement Administration’s practice of cold-stopping travelers at airports, bus stations, and train stations and asking to search their property looking for forfeitable assets.
"Federal drug agents may be racially profiling and unjustly seizing cash from travelers in the nation’s airports, bus stations and train stations. A new report released by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Justice examined the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s controversial use of “cold consent."
In a cold consent encounter, a person is stopped if an agent thinks that person’s behavior fits a drug courier profile. Or an agent can stop a person cold “based on no particular behavior,” according to the Inspector General report. The agent then asks the people they have stopped for consent to question them and sometimes to search their possessions as well. By gaining consent, law enforcement officers can bypass the need for a warrant.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/dea-cold-consent-encounters-constitute-federal-stop-frisk
"Federal drug agents may be racially profiling and unjustly seizing cash from travelers in the nation’s airports, bus stations and train stations. A new report released by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Justice examined the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s controversial use of “cold consent."
In a cold consent encounter, a person is stopped if an agent thinks that person’s behavior fits a drug courier profile. Or an agent can stop a person cold “based on no particular behavior,” according to the Inspector General report. The agent then asks the people they have stopped for consent to question them and sometimes to search their possessions as well. By gaining consent, law enforcement officers can bypass the need for a warrant.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/dea-cold-consent-encounters-constitute-federal-stop-frisk
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