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Cato Daily Dispatch for March 9, 2004

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U.S. Military Verges upon Domestic Law Enforcement
D.C. Restaurateurs Sue to Keep Smoking Ban off Ballot
Amtrak Fails to Reach Goal

U.S. Military Verges upon Domestic Law Enforcement

"In a little-noticed side effect of the war on terrorism, the military is edging toward a sensitive area that has been off-limits to it historically: domestic intelligence gathering and law enforcement," according to The Wall Street Journal.

"Historically, Americans haven't trusted the military to do domestic police work. The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, passed in response to abuses by federal troops in the South after the Civil War, prohibits the use of the military 'to execute the laws' of the U.S."

In "Deployed in the U.S.A.: The Creeping Militarization of the Home Front," Cato Senior Editor Gene Healy writes: "Deploying troops on the home front is very different from waging war abroad. Soldiers are trained to kill, whereas civilian peace officers are trained to respect constitutional rights and to use force only as a last resort. That fundamental distinction explains why Americans have long resisted the use of standing armies to keep the domestic peace." He goes on to say: "The Posse Comitatus Act is, unfortunately, a weak and porous barrier to military involvement in domestic law enforcement, but it is designed to protect both our liberty and our safety. Changed circumstances after September 11 provide no compelling reason to weaken the statute further. Moreover, the disturbing history of Army involvement in domestic affairs strongly cautions against giving the military a freer hand at home."

D.C. Restaurateurs Sue to Keep Smoking Ban off Ballot

"A coalition of Washington restaurant owners sued the District yesterday in hopes of keeping an initiative off the November ballot that would ban smoking in bars and restaurants in the city," The Washington Post reports. "The suit, filed in D.C. Superior Court, is the latest move in a battle that began in September when anti-smoking advocates launched a campaign in Washington to ban the smoking of cigarettes, cigars and pipes in all D.C. workplaces, including bars and restaurants."

In "Bloomberg Smokes Out Property Rights," Robert A. Levy, Cato senior fellow, writes: "To put it bluntly, the owner of the property should be able to determine--for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason at all--whether to admit smokers, nonsmokers, neither, or both. Customers or employees who object may go elsewhere. They would not be relinquishing any right that they ever possessed. By contrast, when a businessman is forced to effect an unwanted smoking policy on his own property, the government violates his rights.

"That's the controlling principle. Private property does not belong to the public. Employing a large staff, or providing services to lots of people, is not sufficient to transform private property into public property. The litmus test for private property is ownership, not the size of the customer base or the workforce."

Amtrak Fails to Reach Goal

"Amtrak didn't meet its goal of three-hour train service between Boston and New York because neither the railroad nor the government managed or oversaw the project effectively, congressional auditors said yesterday," The Associated Press reports.

"Congress in 1992 ordered the Transportation Department to come up with a plan for reducing the train trip between the two cities from four hours to three hours or less. A total of $3.2 billion was spent by Amtrak, state governments and other railroads on the project through March 2003. The trip now takes three hours, 24 minutes."

"Since its creation in 1970 Amtrak has run deficits each year and collected at least $25 billion in federal subsidies, while accounting for only three-tenths of one percent of all trips taken annually by Americans," says Cato Institute Adjunct Scholar Edward Hudgins.

In "Help Passenger Rail by Privatizing Amtrak," Hudgins and former Amtrak reform council member Joseph Vranich take a look at the passenger line's finances and call for it to be privatized. "The rush to throw money at Amtrak represents government at its worst," they write. "The nation should not stay wedded to the Amtrak paradigm, which has been a colossal failure for 30 years, because terrorists' acts have boosted train travel."

Wyatt Dubois, editor, wdubois@cato.org