September 29, 2000

Judge Slashes Government's Tobacco Case in Half
The Best Energy Policy Is No Energy Policy
Survey: Americans Concerned About Personal Information on Fed's Computers

Judge Slashes Government's Tobacco Case in Half

A federal judge yesterday dismissed half of the claims in the Clinton administration's massive lawsuit against cigarette makers but still let the government seek billions from the industry for allegedly concealing the dangers of smoking, according to The Washington Post.

In a ruling praised by both sides, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler decided the government could pursue racketeering claims seeking to force the industry to hand over profits dating back to the 1950s. But she also said the government could not invoke two federal laws to recover the Medicare cost of treating ill smokers.

In "When Theft Masquerades as Law," Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies Robert A. Levy criticizes government lawsuits against socially unpopular -- but deep-pocketed -- industries, including gun manufacturers, HMOs and tobacco companies. He writes that "when we condone the selective and retroactive application of extraordinary legal principles, intended specifically to transfer resources from disfavored defendants to favored plaintiffs -- or indeed to the public sector -- we substitute political cronyism for fundamental fairness, make a mockery of justice, and trample on our precious liberty."

In "Clinton's Tobacco War: How High the Constitutional Price?" Cato scholar Jerry Taylor writes that presidential mandates to "save our kids from Joe Camel run roughshod over our most basic civil liberties and threaten to actually ban cigarettes as we know them."

The Best Energy Policy Is No Energy Policy

Republican George W. Bush, saying the United States was paying "a steep price for years without an energy policy," unveiled a $7.1 billion plan Friday to open an Alaskan wilderness to drilling, develop alternative sources and coax other nations to provide steady oil supplies, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries declared yesterday that rich countries complaining about high oil prices should instead cut their gasoline taxes, according to The Washington Post.

In "The Best Energy Policy Is No Energy Policy," director of natural resource studies Jerry Taylor writes that "government should forget about trying to control oil prices." He warns that government meddling is futile, would distort prices and is unconstitutional.

In "Give Motorists a Tax Break," Director of Fiscal Policy Studies Stephen Moore writes that the federal gasoline tax "has been the fastest-growing federal tax imposed on middle-income Americans over the past 20 years." Moore shows how gasoline tax money is not used only for roads, as it was intended, but for all sorts of projects. In "An Issue Running on Empty," Moore questions the inaction of the GOP Congress on their promise to repeal the Clinton-Gore gas tax.

Survey: Americans Concerned About Personal Information on Fed's Computers

According to a survey released yesterday, Americans have a generally positive outlook on government services moving to the Internet but are very concerned about the privacy of their personal information, The Washington Post reports. Sixty-six percent of Internet users surveyed by the Council for Excellence in Government, which advocates widespread adoption of "e-government" practices, said they are "extremely concerned" about hackers breaking into government computers, and 55 percent said they are "very concerned" about government employees misusing personal information.

In "The Feds and Your Privacy," information studies researcher Lucas Mast writes that out of 20 federal agencies audited for computer security by the General Accounting Office, 18 agencies received a grade of C or less. Seven got Fs. Government Web sites make great targets for hackers because they are often weaker than commercial systems and contain a jackpot of information on Americans, including such things as name, age, birth date and place, sex, race, home and business phone numbers and addresses, family size and composition, patterns of product use, drug sensitivity and medical history, mortgages and income patterns.

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