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Cato Daily Dispatch for December 17, 2001

Call for National ID Cards Continue
First U.S.-Cuba Food Trade Since 1962
Amtrak and the Post Office in the Same Boat

Call for National ID Cards Continue

Under the headline "National ID Card Gaining Support," The Washington Post reports in its front page that almost from the day the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, members of Congress, security experts and high-tech executives have endorsed the idea of some new form of identification system as a critical weapon in the fight against terrorism. They believe the cards, linked to giant databases, would be invaluable in preventing terrorists from operating under assumed names and identities.

Any such proposals in the past foundered on a distrust of centralized government as old as the American republic. Opponents raised the specter of prying bureaucrats with access to databases full of personal information, of Gestapo-like stops on the street and demands to produce papers, and the kind of unchecked police authority that would erode constitutional protections.

The nation's new consciousness of terrorism, the paper says, has markedly changed the way Americans think about security, surveillance and their civil liberties. For many people, the trade-off of less privacy for more security now seems reasonable.

Instead of providing meaningful solutions to terrorism, national ID cards will become at best an unnecessary nuisance for most citizens. In extreme cases, they could produce massive breaches of individual privacy, argues Cato scholar Adam Thierer in "National ID Cards: New Technologies, Same Bad Idea."

Cato's Tim Lynch was on CNN's Moneyline recently discussing the various proposals for a national identification card program. Video of the show is available online.

First U.S.-Cuba Food Trade Since 1962

A ship carrying U.S. chicken arrived in Cuba on Sunday, completing the first direct food trade between the two politically estranged countries since the United States slapped an embargo on the Communist-run island in 1962, according to Reuters.

The historic sales, prompted by Hurricane Michelle, which devastated the Caribbean island's crops last month, were the result of a year-old law that exempts food and medicine from U.S. trade sanctions.

In "A Policy toward Cuba That Serves U.S. Interests," Philip Peters argues that the wide array of U.S. sanctions has failed to promote change in Cuba and has allowed Castro to reinforce his arguments that the United States promotes economic deprivation in Cuba. "It is time for the United States to turn to economic engagement," he says. "Whether or not the embargo is lifted completely, a policy that respects the rights of Americans to trade with, invest in, and travel to Cuba would more effectively serve U.S. interests in post-Soviet Cuba: defending human rights, helping the Cuban people, and connecting with the generation of Cubans that will govern that country in the early 21st century."

According to Jonathan G. Clarke, Cato research fellow, and William Ratliff, senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, the embargo is not responsible for Cuba's poor economic condition--as Havana claims--nor has it been effective at achieving Washington's goal of isolating the Cuban regime. Their study, "Report from Havana: Time for a Reality Check on U.S. Policy toward Cuba," draws on their interviews with officials, dissidents, and private citizens in Cuba.

Amtrak and the Post Office in the Same Boat

The events of Sept. 11 and the subsequent round of anthrax attacks have left two American institutions -- Amtrak and the U.S. Postal Service -- knocking on the door of Congress for emergency funding, according to Fox News.

But have these debt-embattled, quasi-governmental agencies finally worn out their welcome with those who control the money on Capitol Hill?

In November, a panel charged by Congress to make recommendations on the fate of Amtrak said it should be liquidated, arguing the organization has squandered billions of tax dollars with a business plan that doesn't work. Currently $3 billion in the red, Amtrak has 90 days to come up with a plan to liquidate the operation as a result of the non-binding vote by the congressionally appointed Amtrak Reform Council.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal Service is asking for billions to buoy its own financial woes: the agency is $1.6 billion in debt and has been hit hard by the anthrax episodes. But critics said that even without its recent troubles, the institution is an antiquated bureaucracy that cannot compete with private competitors, and shouldn't be kept on life support by the government.

In the new Cato Institute study, "Help Passenger Rail by Privatizing Amtrak," former council member Joseph Vranich and Edward L. Hudgins, director of regulatory studies at Cato, take a look at Amtrak's economic state and call for its privatization.

"Amtrak legislation now before Congress is delusional," Vranich and Hudgins write in "Stop the New Amtrak Bailouts." "Policy makers should first decide on the type of organizations needed to replace Amtrak and which markets can sustain rail passenger service before spending more taxpayer dollars propping up Amtrak's hopelessly dysfunctional system."

In "A Holiday Gift: Post Office Going Private?" Hudgins, editor of the book "Mail @ the Millennium: Will the Postal Service Go Private?" writes that "economic forces are quietly but inexorably pushing the U.S. Postal Service toward privatization."