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Cato Daily Dispatch for June 27, 2002

Jerry Brito, editor, jbrito@cato.org

Supreme Court OKs Voucher Program
Court Says Students Can Be Drug Tested
Feds Fear Al Qaeda Cyber-Attack

Supreme Court OKs Voucher Program

The Constitution allows public money to underwrite tuition at religious schools as long as parents have a choice among a range of religious and secular schools, the Supreme Court ruled today, according to the Associated Press.

The 5-4 ruling led by the court's conservative majority lowers the figurative wall separating church and state and clears a constitutional cloud from school vouchers, a divisive education idea dear to political conservatives and championed by President Bush.

David Salisbury, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom, had the following comments:

"The Supreme Court decision represents a major step forward for America's school children and their parents. The decision, which upholds the constitutionality of private school scholarships for low-income families, begins to break down the barriers that exist between children and access to high quality schools.

"Since the Cleveland public schools have been declared an 'academic emergency' by the state, it is understandable that many parents chose private or religious schools for their children. Children who remain in the public schools have a greater chance of becoming a victim of a violent crime on campus than of graduating on time with senior-level proficiency.

"This ruling clears the way for states to enact school choice legislation, either through scholarships or through tuition tax credits."

Court Says Students Can Be Drug Tested

The Supreme Court approved random drug tests for many public high school students today, ruling that schools' interest in ridding their campuses of drugs outweighs an individual's right to privacy, according to the Associated Press.

The 5-4 decision would allow the broadest drug testing the court has yet permitted for young people whom authorities have no particular reason to suspect of wrongdoing. It applies to students who join competitive after-school activities or teams, a category that includes many if not most middle-school and high-school students. Previously these tests had been allowed only for student athletes.

The Cato Institute filed a friend of the court brief in this case in support of the respondents, Lindsay Earls, et al (pdf).

Feds Fear Al Qaeda Cyber-Attack

U.S. government experts, wary of al Qaeda's skills on the Internet, are concerned that Osama bin Laden's guerrilla network may be planning cyber-attacks targeting nuclear power plants, dams or other critical structures, according to The Washington Post.

An FBI investigation of suspicious surveillance of key computers discovered "multiple casings of sites" nationwide, the report said, citing a Defense Department summary of the probe.

Routed through telecommunications switches in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Pakistan, the visitors studied emergency telephone systems, electrical generation and transmission, water storage and distribution, nuclear power plants and gas facilities, the Post said.

In "Electronic Pearl Harbor? More Hype Than Threat," David Isenberg argues that fears of information warfare are misguided. He writes that despite some mishaps with viruses or Web sites being shut down, "most of those incidents have been merely garden-variety nuisances -- not the work of a rogue state or a hostile terrorist group." He warns that security proposals might do more harm than good as civil liberties might be trampled in the rush to protect information.