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Cato Daily Dispatch for May 31, 2002

Jerry Brito, editor, jbrito@cato.org

FBI Surveillance Powers Expanded
U.S. Continues Strikes Against Iraq
EU Seeks to Impose Retaliator Trade Sanctions on U.S.

FBI Surveillance Powers Expanded

Saying that the FBI's own rules have provided terrorists with a "competitive advantage," Attorney General John D. Ashcroft unveiled new guidelines yesterday that will permit agents to more freely conduct surveillance at political rallies and religious gatherings, surf the Internet and mine commercial databases for information, The Washington Post reports.

The changes give the FBI -- whose primary mission now is preventing terrorist attacks -- greater ability to gather the intelligence it needs, Ashcroft said. They loosen guidelines imposed after FBI domestic spying scandals of the 1960s and 1970s.

Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute and a former Justice Department official, had the following remarks:

"As reported in the press, the new FBI surveillance guidelines present no serious problems. Especially under post-September 11 circumstances, law enforcement monitoring of public places is simply good, pro-active police work that violates the rights of no one. The same is true for topical research not directly related to a specific crime, which the new guidelines will permit.

"Depending on how the work is conducted, there is always the potential for abuse, of course. But unless the new latitude leads to significant abuse, that potential should not preclude officials from taking an active role not simply in prosecuting but in preventing crime as well."

U.S. Continues Strikes Against Iraq

Attack aircraft bombed a radar system in southern Iraq in the latest incident involving warplanes patrolling a no-fly zone over the Middle Eastern country, according to Reuters.

The U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, said aircraft from the force of U.S. and British planes used precision-guided weapons yesterday to hit "components of an offensive radar system." It did not say whether U.S. or British planes were involved.

The attack at An Nasiriyah, 150 miles southeast of Baghdad, followed a series of bombings on Iraqi air defenses in response to what the U.S. military says are attacks on the patrolling aircraft from the ground.

"Ten years of sanctions and military strikes have failed to tame or oust Saddam Hussein," writes Senior Fellow Doug Bandow in "Bombing Without End." "Yet the Bush administration thinks only of doing more of the same."

EU Seeks to Impose Retaliator Trade Sanctions on U.S.

The European Union may give itself the power next month to impose retaliatory sanctions against U.S. steel tariffs but not immediately apply the measures to allow Washington time for more concessions in July, according to Reuters.

Speaking as EU national trade officials were meeting to review the dispute over tariffs imposed by President Bush in March, the official said the 15-nation bloc wanted to preserve its right to retaliate before a June 18 World Trade Organization deadline while pressing for the best possible deal.

In "Steel Trap: How Subsidies and Protectionism Weaken the U.S. Steel Industry," trade policy analyst Daniel Ikenson predicted that "Section 201 relief for steel producers could invite WTO-legal retaliation against other U.S. export sectors, undermine prospects for trade agreements and related job growth, and saddle downstream steel-using industries with price hikes and supply shortages that will handicap them vis-a-vis their international competitors."