Cato Daily Dispatch for October 10, 2002
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Daschle Now Supports Military StrikeFBI Used Illegal Wiretaps
Bush Joins Auto Makers Against California Clean Air Act
Daschle Now Supports Military Strike
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle put aside his misgivings today and announced he will support President Bush's request for authority to use force against Iraq, according to the Associated Press. "I believe it is important for America to speak with one voice," Daschle declared. His announcement of support came as both chambers marched toward expected approval of the war resolution by wide bipartisan margins.
Daschle said the measure still has shortcomings, but he called it an improvement over the administration's initial request for broad authority.
In a statement released yesterday, Ivan Eland, Cato's director of defense policy studies, argues against an attack on Iraq saying, "The U.S. government's national security policy is supposed to enhance the security of the nation, not detract from it. Risking terrorist attacks against the United States with conventional, biological, or chemical weapons to remove a thug -- who has been successfully deterred and contained for more than a decade -- from a small, poor, developing nation defies common sense."
FBI Used Illegal Wiretaps
The Associated Press reports that FBI agents illegally videotaped suspects, intercepted e-mails without court permission, and recorded the wrong phone conversations during sensitive terrorism and espionage investigations, according to an internal memorandum detailing serious lapses inside the FBI more than a year before the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The blunders--roughly 15 over the first three months of 2000--were never made public but garnered the attention of the "highest levels of management" inside the FBI, said the memo written by senior bureau lawyers and obtained by The Associated Press.
In a Cato Policy Analysis, "Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Preserving Our Liberties While Fighting Terrorism", Timothy Lynch, director of Cato's Project on Criminal Justice, details the steps taken in the fight against terrorism which curtail our civil liberties. He writes, "This cycle of terrorist attack followed by government curtailment of civil liberties must be broken -- or our society will eventually lose the key attribute that has made it great: freedom. The American people can accept the reality that the president and Congress are simply not capable of preventing terrorist attacks from occurring. Policymakers should stop pretending otherwise and focus their attention on combating terrorism within the framework of a free society."
Bush Joins Auto Makers Against California Clean Air Act
According to The New York Times, the Bush administration went to court today to support the automobile industry's effort to eliminate requirements in California that auto manufacturers sell electric cars.
Under California clean air rules, 10 percent of the vehicles sold in the 2003 to 2008 model years must be electric or "zero-emission vehicles." But the state, recognizing that the car companies were not ready to meet that goal, offered to let them sell hybrid vehicles, which run on gasoline and electricity, to satisfy part of the requirement.
In a Cato Daily Commentary, "California's Dreamin'", Patrick Michaels, a Cato senior fellow in environmental studies and author of The Satanic Gases, argues against this global warming bill explaining that it will have little effect. "If the United States increased the fuel efficiency of its cars and trucks by 15 percent--and kept the number of cars constant (which is impossible)--the net reduction in emissions would be 8/1000's of the total global human contribution, which might be good for a 50-year reduction of 0.007ºF of global warming." Michaels goes on to say, "California's contribution under this legislation would be about 1/10 of that, or seven ten-thousandths of a degree. In other words, California is dreamin' if it thinks hybrid technology is going to reduce global warming."
Michaels also recently debated global warming on MSNBC's Hardball.
Wyatt Dubois, editor, wdubois@cato.org
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