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Cato Daily Dispatch for April 1, 2002

Bush: Welfare About 'Stable Families,' 'Strengthening Marriage'

In six Michigan counties, single women on welfare who have a baby are required to take 24 hours of classes on how to be a good parent and "create a stable family." In West Virginia, 1,800 welfare families are being paid a $100 monthly bonus because the children are being raised by married parents.

Such new state strategies to encourage marriage, all paid for with federal subsidies, would proliferate across the country under one of the most ambitious -- and divisive -- parts of President Bush's proposal for renewing the nation's welfare laws, according to The Washington Post.

The administration has defined the promotion of healthy marriages as an essential, unfinished piece of the welfare reforms the federal government set in motion in the mid-1990s. "Stable families should be the central goal of American welfare policy," Bush declared at an Washington, D.C. church where he announced his welfare plan in February. "So my administration will give unprecedented support to strengthening marriages."

In "Marriage 'Training' Program Doomed to Fail," Cato Entitlements Policy Analyst Kimble Ainslie explains that the president's initiative doesn't have much substance and "is a patchwork of poorly thought out and voluntary components begging the states to come on board."

Virginia Out-of-State Wine Ban Overturned

A state law banning the shipment of wine and beer from out-of-state vineyards and breweries to Virginia residents is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled, according to the Associated Press.

The law limits the importing of beer to those licensed to sell it. Wine can be shipped from another state only to someone with a wholesale wine license.

Judge Richard L. Williams ruled Friday that the law violates the Constitution by discriminating against companies in other states that want to sell wine or beer directly to Virginia consumers.

The law "has both the purpose and effect of prohibiting an out-of-state entity from participating in direct marketing and shipment of wine and beer to Virginia residents," Williams said.

At the Cato Institute forum, "Kids, Wine, and the Commerce Clause," the Institute for Justice's Clint Bollick argued that the law in 30 states that prevents you from ordering a bottle of wine directly from an out-of-state winery has little to do with keeping wine away from kids. Instead, it is "designed to preserve the monopoly of liquor wholesalers" and violates the Constitution's Commerce Clause. Video of the event is available online.

FBI's Carnivore Program Further Uncovered

Privacy advocates have won another round in their fight to gain access to more information about the FBI's Carnivore e-mail surveillance system, according to CNET.

A federal judge this week ordered the FBI to expand its search for records about Carnivore, also known as DCS1000, technology that is installed at Internet service providers to monitor e-mail from criminal suspects. The court denied a motion for summary judgment and ordered the FBI to produce within 60 days "a further search" of its records pertaining to Carnivore as well as a device called EtherPeek, which manages network traffic.

The FBI has defended Carnivore by assuring the public that it only captures e-mail and other online information authorized for seizure in a court order, but the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has voiced concerns over potential abuse. EPIC sued the FBI, the investigative arm of the Justice Department, in July 2000 under the Freedom of Information Act so it could examine Carnivore-related documents.

In "How Big Brother Began," Solveig Singleton writes that seemingly innocuous measures by government can lead to an Orwellian state. In "The Feds and Your Privacy," information studies researcher Lucas Mast writes "if the FBI's refusal to rein in its 'Carnivore' e-mail surveillance system is any indication of government willingness to vigilantly defend our privacy, we have great cause for concern." Resources on online privacy are available at the Cato Web site.