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Cato Daily Dispatch for July 11, 2005

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PBS Funding: Time to Cut the Apron Strings
PATRIOT Act and Your Privacy
O'Connor for Chief Justice?

PBS Funding: Time to Cut the Apron Strings

"Public broadcasting executives are scheduled to defend their funding Monday, when the Senate Appropriations Committee begins to decide how much money the Corporation for Public Broadcasting should be allotted," reports the Washington Post.

In his testimony today before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Cato's executive vice president David Boaz states: "We wouldn't want the federal government to publish a national newspaper. Neither should we have a government television network and a government radio network. If anything should be kept separate from government and politics, it's the news and public affairs programming that informs Americans about government and its policies. When government brings us the news -- with all the inevitable bias and spin -- the government is putting its thumb on the scales of democracy. Journalists should not work for the government. Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize news and public-affairs programming."

"A healthy democracy needs a free and diverse press," Boaz continues. "Americans today have access to more sources of news and opinion than ever before. Deregulation has produced unprecedented diversity -- more broadcast networks than before, cable networks, satellite television and radio, the Internet. If there was at some point a diversity argument for NPR and PBS, it is no longer valid. We do not need a government news and opinion network. More importantly, we should not require taxpayers to pay for broadcasting that will inevitably reflect a particular perspective on politics and culture. The marketplace of democracy should be a free market, in which the voices of citizens are heard, with no unfair advantage granted by government to one participant."

PATRIOT Act and Your Privacy

"The PATRIOT Act already gives government too much power to spy on ordinary Americans, but things could get far worse. Congress is considering adding a broad new investigative power, known as the administrative subpoena, that would allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to gain access to anyone's financial, medical, employment and even library records without approval from a judge and even without the target knowing about it. Members of Congress should block this disturbing provision from becoming law," according to an editorial in the New York Times.

The piece continues: "The Senate is at work on a bill to reauthorize parts of the PATRIOT Act that are scheduled to expire later this year. In addition to extending those provisions, the Senate Intelligence Committee is proposing to add an array of new 'investigative tools.' The administrative subpoena is not the only one of the new provisions of the current bill that would endanger civil liberties, but it is the worst."

Chapter 19 of the Cato Handbook on Policy states: "American institutions tend to look for 'quick-fix' solutions to problems. American policymakers must recognize, however, that the danger posed by Al Qaeda is not a short-term crisis but a long-term security dilemma for the United States. If Congress rushes to enact anti-terrorism legislation in the aftermath of every attack, no one can deny that Americans will lose their liberty over the long term. Now that more than three years have passed since the shock and horror of September 11, Congress will have an opportunity to seriously deliberate the constitutional issues that were initially skirted. No one doubts that a legislative battle is looming with respect to whether the PATRIOT Act's provisions will expire or be made permanent. Policymakers should not make the mistake of underestimating the American people. Of course, the electorate wants safety, but it wants the federal government to secure that safety by fighting the terrorists themselves, not by turning America into a surveillance state."

O'Connor for Chief Justice?

"Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, suggested on Sunday that President Bush could name Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring from the Supreme Court, to the position of chief justice if it opens up," according to the New York Times.

"'I think it would be very tempting if the president said to Justice O'Connor, "You could help the country now,"' Mr. Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and a pivotal player in any confirmation hearings, said in an interview on the CBS program 'Face the Nation.' 'She has received so much adulation that a confirmation proceeding would be more like a coronation, and she might be willing to stay on for a year or so.'"

In "Two Cheers for Sandra Day O'Connor," Cato senior fellow and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review Mark Moller writes: "In the fight for the next court seat, conservatives would do well to emphasize O'Connor's strengths and her fundamentally conservative orientation, not harp on her weaknesses. If liberals demand another O'Connor, conservatives should insist they characterize her correctly: by ensuring her replacement puts at least as much value on limiting government, securing property rights, protecting individual liberty and promoting self-reliance as the cowgirl from the Gila River."

Holiday Dmitri, editor, hdmitri@cato.org