Home > The Barr Code > Archives > 2008 > February
February 2008
Forced sterilization of pets
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Los Angeles, California, the city that has contributed mightily to American culture, including the O.J. Simpson murders and circus trial, Britney Spears’ crazy escapades, the Rodney King riots, and so much more, is now forcing pet owners to have their pets sterilized, whether they want to or not, under threat of criminal sanctions (Click here for the story). Even if a pet owner has paid thousands for a pure bred cat or dog and does not wish to have the animal neutered, the recently enacted law requires them to do so. Only a limited category of pets are excluded from the Draconian ordinance, including law enforcement dogs, pets belonging to professional breeders, those that have competed in sporting shows or competitions, and seeing eye guide dogs. Similar legislation is pending at the state level in California, and undoubtedly if the legislation finds its way to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s desk, the Big Government Governor will sign it.
But wait, it may get even worse. Already some busybodies, concerned over how to enforce the intrusive ordinance, are calling for mandatory implantation of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Chips in pets in order to facilitate tracking down pet-owner scofflaws who might try to resist or violate the ordinance. (Of course, if such procedure results in harm or death to your pet the city will assume no responsibility.)
The City of Angels, probably long ago abandoned by those heavenly guardians, has found yet another way to try and coerce citizens into rigid behavior patterns favored by extremist groups and control-freak government officials.
Editor’s Note: For news, information and more discussion about pets, visit ajcpets.com.
Boston police jump gun with ‘Safe Homes’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Most police officers with whom I have worked over the years —- whether as a United States attorney, a lawyer in private practice, or a member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee —- are men and women of integrity and commitment to the communities they serve. The vast majority of those officers have a sincere respect for the constitutional rights of the citizenry. But then again, I’ve not worked with the Boston Police Department.
The police department in that Massachusetts city has just launched an initiative that exhibits a cynical disregard for the rights of the citizenry, even as it cleverly cloaks the program in language pretending to protect the people toward whom it is directed. I refer to the “Safe Homes Initiative,” with its slick brochures and smooth rhetoric.
On the surface —- as with virtually all government actions diminishing liberty —- the initiative appears benign. The program is “designed” to help parents who have so little control over their children that they cannot —- or do not want to —- search their rooms to discover if their young charges are hiding firearms in their homes. Boston’s police chief, Edward Davis, graciously has agreed to fill this parental void by sending teams of officers to the homes of parents with children the police or other “community members” believe might be harboring hidden firearms. The “search teams” would then ask the parent or “other responsible adult” (whomever that might be) at the home for consent to search for guns.
The program is problematic on several levels. First, of course, is the fact that three police officers showing up on your doorstep makes it very difficult for a parent or “other responsible adult” to say no when asked to consent to a search. This works a serious injustice to the notion that a person’s home is and should remain free from government searches absent a warrant based on probable cause that a crime has been committed. While true, voluntary “consent” can validate an otherwise unlawful, warrantless search, consent born of the sort of police presence contemplated in this Boston initiative would not appear to constitute such grounds.
While the police in Boston promise that any firearm found during such searches will not lead to criminal charges based solely on the possession of that firearm, they cleverly leave open the possibility that if the firearm was used in a crime, charges may be brought.
Interestingly also, literature describing the initiative states that while the searching officers will do their dead level best not to damage property or create an “unnecessary mess” in the searches, there is no guarantee against that. Moreover, if other illegal items are found or seen during the search, this may lead to a resident’s arrest. And while the police in Boston promise they will not “automatically notify schools or public housing” authorities if firearms have been found, they will not rule out notifying them. This could lead to families being evicted from public housing (even if the firearm was in the home for personal protection) or to children being expelled from school —- both results hardly designed to improve the quality of life or education of persons living in the poorer neighborhoods targeted by this initiative.
The bottom line is, if the police in Boston or any other city have probable cause to believe illegal firearms or other evidence of unlawful activity is located in a home, they ought to investigate and —- if armed with a warrant based on probable cause —- search that home. But to go through this charade of searching without securing warrants, under the guise of obtaining “consent” of persons who may or may not be the parents of a child, under the transparently false premise that nothing will happen to them if they refuse or if something unlawful is found, is unfair and constitutionally deficient.
There’s a reason such programs have not been instituted in other cities (a similar program was launched in St. Louis in the 1990s, with very mixed results before it was terminated). Boston’s program is at best disingenuous and clearly corrupting of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantees against warrantless searches. Let’s hope Atlanta’s police department relies on measures more constitutionally sound than those being instituted by their colleagues in Boston.
Atlanta priorities — $300,000 toilets for homeless
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta’s infrastructure is crumbling. Its flagship public hospital is on life support. Its roads are among the most congested in the nation. It faces a continuing water-supply crisis. But don’t worry, the City has its priorities in order. Atlanta is about ready to unveil the latest example of how it spends its taxpayers’ dollars. The City has taken $1.5 million from its Development Authority “Homeless Opportunity Fund” and built five $300,000, state-of-the-art, technologically advanced public toilets for homeless persons to use.
Atlanta residents might legitimately ask the City exactly what “homeless opportunity” is advanced by such an expenditure, other than offering a few people the ability to relieve themselves in a public toilet with running warm water, automatic toilet paper dispensers, and piped-in music playing — get this — “What the World Needs Now is Love” (I kid you not).
Apparently this expenditure is based on what the City perceives as a basic human right to a state-of-the-art public commode. The head of Atlanta’s Community Food Bank has weighed in, gushing that this expenditure reflects “something we all deserve as citizens.” One wonders if the toilets will poof one’s bottom with talcum powder as the user rises from the taxpayer-funded throne.
Amtrak passengers to be surveilled, searched
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The pleasures enjoyed by airline passengers being subjected to surveillance and searches will now be available to Amtrak passengers. The government recently announced that it will shortly institute a program to randomly select Amtrak passengers for searches. Even though the government says there is no general or specific threat, it has now decided to begin this new “security” program.
“Mobile security teams” will be set up at selected stations, and passengers “randomly” selected to have their belongings swabbed for traces of — one supposes — explosives. If such testing results in a positive “hit,” Amtrak says that person will be (1) searched further, or (2) not searched further, but prevented from boarding the train and refunded the price of their ticket.
Does this make sense to anyone?
First of all, despite Amtrak’s statement that random searches will serve as a “powerful deterrent” to potential terrorists, the reality is that random searches do not and will not deter a determined terrorist. Second, on what basis will the “random” search be conducted? Truly random? If so, exactly what is the purpose?
Moreover, what sense does it make to test a person, presumably determine they may have explosives, and then simply refund the person their money and send them on their merry way? Can you see the government doing that? If they did, it would be appear to be counterproductive. Would they at least make a note that the person was thus positively tested and place them in a database? If they did, would this be proper?
In short, the program thus announced raises more questions than it answers. The only question it answers is this: Is this yet another intrusive government “security” measure designed simply to give the appearance the government is doing something about security on trains to make the public feel good? And the answer to that question is “Yes.”
Clemens spectacle offers many pointers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The House of Representatives left town last week for its Presidents Day recess without having addressed the matter of amending the law defining how much power the federal government should have to electronically spy on American citizens.
President Bush wants the government to have ever greater powers to surveil citizens. Telecommunications companies want the government to immunize them for disclosing private communications information on their customers to the government even if those requests are unlawful. Hence the president’s public pique at the Congress for failing last week to definitively address this matter.
However, the Congress, or at least the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, apparently concluded there were far more important matters to deal with last week than defining the power of the federal government to surreptitiously surveil the citizenry without limit.
The House, you see, was investigating whether an aging but still outstanding major-league baseball pitcher, Roger Clemens, or one of his former trainers, Brian McNamee, was more believable in determining whether the pitcher had used performance-enhancing substances during the course of his now short-circuited career. The mavens of Capitol Hill had decided that subjecting Clemens to a day of grilling on the issue of steroid use among big-league ballplayers was the most important issue on the national agenda last week. While I and many others disagree with this prioritization, the proceedings actually were rather instructive.
The Clemens-McNamee steroid hearing provided a textbook example for future congressional witnesses of how not to be a congressional witness. Clemens’ appearance, and the lead-up to it, should be required reading for every future potential witness before a congressional oversight committee —- and for every lawyer representing such an individual.
First of all, you rarely, if ever, voluntarily subject yourself to be the punching bag for a congressional oversight committee; especially one headed by one of Washington’s most clever, intelligent and toughest interrogators —- Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). Yet Clemens, one of baseball’s greatest pitchers ever (nicknamed “The Rocket” for good reason), volunteered to sit there, under the glare of virtually every major media outlet in the country, and try vainly to trade verbal body blows with one of America’s top inquisitors and his large staff of investigators. Clemens never had a chance; and one wonders why his lawyers ever agreed to let him volunteer for such a mismatch.
If clearing your reputation truly is important to you, then choose a forum where you have at least some degree of control. Testifying before a public committee headed by hostile elected officials who control virtually every aspect of the proceeding is most definitely not such a forum.
Another rule of this course in Congressional Testimony 101: Do not volunteer to be a witness in your own prosecution on a slow news day. For heaven’s sake, don’t go around the Hill hyping your own appearance to guarantee it becomes even more of a spectacle than it might otherwise have been.
Clemens made other mistakes as well, which guaranteed he would emerge from the ordeal in worse shape than before he entered. For one thing, McNamee, Clemens’ accuser and co-witness, was far better trained as a witness than Clemens was. He was, no doubt, prepped by federal agents and congressional investigators, including perhaps those who were among Clemens’ tormentors that day. Whatever problems Clemens might have faced prior to his congressional escapade, his potential problems afterward are more, not less, serious.
His reputation is now not only unsalvaged, but further undermined. And because his volunteered testimony was under oath, he now faces the possibility of a perjury prosecution, depending on how federal investigators —- some of whom were present in the audience listening to and no doubt recording his every word —- interpret his testimony. Finally, since volunteered evidence can be used just as effectively (if not more so) as other evidence in prosecuting a person for criminal offenses, including alleged drug violations, which were the basis for this whole mess in the first place, Clemens may have given prosecutors fresh evidence for substantive charges.
While Clemens might still be able to control masterfully the speed and rotation of a baseball as it traverses the 60 1/2 feet between the pitcher’s mound and home plate, his ability to control a panel of congressional inquisitors interested in hitting a public relations home run of their own at his expense clearly is far more limited.
Fear and the surveillance law
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Well, the sky has not yet fallen. The country was not invaded by terrorist cells over the weekend. Even though the expanded electronic surveillance powers the government granted itself last August expired the end of last week, the United States has not lost the ability to listen in to those phone calls and internet transmissions needed to gather necessary intelligence on al-Qaeda and other adversaries.
Still, the drumbeat of fear from the Administration continues. Essentially, the president is claiming that if the expanded surveillance powers are not renewed, the country will be left defenseless and unable to listen in to conversations involving known or suspected terrorists. This is simply not the case.
The government had this ability before the law was expanded in August 2007, and it has the power now. What the government does not have any longer is the legal power to listen in to any international phone call or e-mail transmission made to or from any person, so long as one party is not in the United States - no suspicion of illegal or terrorist activity; just a suspicion that one person is outside the country. This level of potential surveillance goes far beyond what the government needs to legitimately and constitutionally gather necessary foreign intelligence.
Whether the Congress, which has been browbeaten in the past into passing legislation giving the federal government unnecessarily expansive powers to invade citizens’ privacy, will again allow itself to be thus intimidated, remains to be seen when the House and Senate reconvene following their President’s Day recess. But for now, at least, Uncle Sam cannot lawfully listen in to your international phone calls or a-mails, without at least some articulable reason for doing so.
Sunday alcohol sales hostage to GOP
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Citizens of the Peach State hoping that the ascendancy of the Republican Party as the majority party in state government would usher in an era of individual liberty consistent with the oft-pronounced GOP philosophy of individual responsibility and less government power, have yet to witness any significant evidence of that since the Republicans took over the governorship and the state House and Senate several years ago. This gulf between talk of less government restriction on personal freedom and the reality of government control, is evident in public comments by the Republican Senate leadership, the lieutenant governor and Governor Sonny Perdue, refusing to even allow formal consideration of referenda on Sunday sales of alcoholic beverages in grocery and convenience stores.
While many Republican legislators speak often and eloquently of individual freedom and responsibility, and of supporting small businesses, when it comes to listening to the majority of citizens - 65 percent according to a recent poll - who favor Sunday alcohol sales, the voice of the people apparently counts for nothing. In fact, the governor has indicated clearly that even were the legislature to pass legislation allowing local jurisdictions to hold referenda allowing Sunday sales, he would veto the bill. Senate leaders reportedly have refused even to hold hearings on the legislation.
So much for responsive, representative government in Georgia. And so much for the possibility of Sunday alcohol sales, at least for the time being.
Conservative cred elusive for McCain
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I spent three days last week in Washington, D.C., where, like a recovering alcoholic, I am not infrequently drawn for sustenance and comfort. Part of my time on this latest trip was spent at the 35th annual Conservative Political Action Conference, known among political junkies and media hounds by its acronym, “CPAC.”
CPAC this year attracted a record number of participants — nearly 7,000 conservative activists of all ages, from mid-teens to octogenarians and beyond. However, most of the time the constant rush of young people charging through the all-too-narrow corridors of the huge but still inadequate Omni Shoreham Hotel made it seem like everyone there had overdosed on Red Bull. Still, it was a most interesting experience in this year in which the nation is poised to elect its 44th president.
Noticeably absent this year were a handful of presidential wannabees who had generated such excitement at last year’s event. Nowhere to be seen was “America’s Mayor,” Rudy Giuliani, who last year had sought to soothe continuing concerns over his liberal philosophical bent by sharing his personal conclusion that no other single human being on the planet was his equal in defending America from the scourge of terrorists. Apparently voters had, in the interim 12 months, reached a quite different conclusion.
Also silent was former Sen. Fred Thompson’s booming voice and TV-crafted persona, although reruns of “Law and Order” might still soothe the yearnings of his fans, who had tried in vain to inject a dose of adrenaline into his energy-deficient campaign. Mr. “Tough on Immigration” Tom Tancredo’s one-trick pony gave out long before CPAC 2008 rolled around, as did Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback’s evangelical express. Duncan Hunter, the congressman who’d hoped to ignite a dark-horse candidacy at last year’s conference, was nowhere to be seen, apparently still in the dark.
Notwithstanding the far smaller number of presidential candidates at the 2008 event, the excitement was even more pronounced; but the responsibility to kindle it was left to a foursome of commander in chief hopefuls — John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. And of these, one (Romney) announced he was dropping out while speaking to the convention. Even more interesting, however, was that Romney, Paul and Huckabee all received arguably warmer and more enthusiastic responses than the front-runner, McCain.
And therein lies a serious problem for the senator from Arizona. Even those speakers who came to his defense — conservative journalists Robert Novak and George Will, for example — were treated to repeated booing at points during their defensive deliveries. Even as Novak, Will and other conservative pundits who’ve attempted to rally conservatives to McCain’s camp have ticked off reason after reason why he really should be considered sufficiently conservative to be elected by conservatives as a conservative, many conservatives become more, rather than less, skeptical of his conservative bona fides.
The skepticism is based at least in part on the fact that a rule of thumb in politics is that if you have to spend your time trying to convince voters that you are not something, you probably are. Shakespeare once again had it right — he “doth protest too much, methinks.” Of course, McCain’s problem also has to do with the fact he authored the law bearing his name that is among the most, if not the most, anti-freedom, anti-participatory legislation of the modern era — the McCain-Feingold “Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act.” The simple truth is, when your ability to convince voters of the validity of your message is hampered by the very law you authored, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Still, all is not lost for the elder statesman from Arizona. In every election, at least some Republican voters have shown themselves as willing as their Democrat counterparts to lay principles aside for electoral victory. Unfortunately for McCain, the number of conservative voters predisposed to do this again this year, after the disappointing experience of the last eight years, is unlikely to be sufficient for him to overcome his considerable ideological baggage, especially since many of those voters already have tasted of much more exciting and principled candidates like Paul and Huckabee.
High court ruling expected on right to possess a firearm
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For the first time in the 217 years since the Second Amendment to our Constitution was adopted as part of the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court is likely to rule this spring or summer that the amendment does indeed protect the right of an individual citizen to possess a firearm.
Yes, you heard that right; even though there have been numerous Supreme Court rulings over the years that interpret or touch on the Second Amendment, the high court has never addressed that threshold question clearly and directly. Gun control advocates argue that the amendment merely guarantees the rights of citizens participating in state militias to possess firearms for that purpose.
Many states, cities and the District of Columbia have enacted strict, even prohibitory limitations on firearms possession. In fact, it is the 30-year old District of Columbia gun ban that triggered the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to rule almost a year ago that the Second Amendment clearly guarantees an individual right and that D.C.’s ban is so restrictive as to be unconstitutional.
I and many other observers and participants (I filed a friend-of-the-court brief this week in support of the lower court decision) expect the Supreme Court to agree with the Court of Appeals that the right is in fact an individual one, and that the D.C. ban is impermissibly broad.
While the high court may leave open the ultimate question of exactly what sort of limits governments may reasonably place on the exercise of the right guaranteed under the Second Amendment, if a majority at least rules that it does reflect an individual right and that a state or local government cannot simply ban firearms possession outright, that will be welcome news to all Americans who believe in common sense, the primacy of individual rather than government power, and in the right to defend one self.
A majority of House of Representatives and Senate members, Democrats and Republicans, have joined friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the Second Amendment and against the District of Columbia.
Stimulus package vote reveals few true fiscal conservatives
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you want to learn who the true economic conservatives in the Congress are, take a look at the final votes in the House and the Senate on the so-called economic stimulus package. Of 435 House Members, only 34 voted “No” to this income redistribution plan, including all seven Georgia House Republicans and six Democrats.
In the Senate, no Democrats could bring themselves to vote against the popular but economically flawed legislation; both of Georgia’s Republican Senators supported it. Obviously, President George W. Bush, who encouraged the Congress to send him the measure, does not fall into the category of a “fiscal conservative”; but that’s hardly news.
Super Tuesday sows super confusion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The country remains closely split between Rs and Ds, but within each of the two major parties, Super Tuesday’s results confirm deep splits among constituent groups. In the GOP, the chasm between moderates and religious conservatives has become more pronounced than at any time since the early and mid-1990s, and threatens to create a serious problem in the general election for the Republican candidate if (as now appears likely) John McCain is the Party’s nominee. Regional splits, breaking down largely but not entirely along that same moderate-conservative fault line, also have come to the fore in the GOP.
On the Democrat side, the splits are deep and bright between young and old, male and female, black and white, and black and Latino. The challenge for that Party’s nominee will be to bring those deeply divided factions together in the fall.
These splits will likely figure heavily in each Party’s nominee’s choice of a running mate; with McCain (if he prevails as appears likey) almost certain to choose a southerner, and the Democrat nominee likely to pick a veep from the west or the south.
Although major media still tries to ignore Ron Paul’s Republican candidacy, the continuing strength of his effort, reflected especially in impressive fundraising, indicates a real base of libertarian-leaning voters into the future.”
Real ID Act a real intrusion on rights, privacy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With the announcement last month by Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff of the final implementing regulations for the much-delayed Real ID Act, the debate over this thinly veiled national identification card project moved into high gear.
The federal government for several years now has been fighting a guerrilla action with citizen groups and a number of state legislatures over imposing on the states and the citizenry this privacy-intrusive and costly mandate. With the announcement Jan. 11 of the final regulations, the debate is fully joined and pits those who support the principle of states’ rights against the legions of Big Government advocates.
Big Government advocates are personified by the current Bush administration, favoring central control of virtually every facet of activity in our society, from education to transportation and from the plumbing in our bathrooms to the bulbs in our lamps. While the Real ID debate shares some elements with its sister debate concerning voter ID, mixing the two as if two sides of the same coin dilutes the host of fundamental constitutional concerns and responsibilities affected by the Real ID Act program now being forced down the throats of the states.
Let’s leave aside for the moment the underlying federalism question — where does the federal government get the power to dictate to the states who can get a driver’s license? — to focus on civil liberties that would be undercut by the Real ID Act.
If, as proposed in the law, a person must have a Real ID Act-compliant card in order to access a federal building, access any regulated or interstate mode of transportation, or obtain any federal benefit, then we have surrendered to the federal government (that is, federal bureaucrats) the power to deny citizens all manner of activities guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Consider:
A person not possessing a Real ID Act-compliant identification card could not enter any federal building, or an office of his or her congressman or senator or the U.S. Capitol. This effectively denies that person their fundamental rights to assembly and to petition the government as guaranteed in the First Amendment.
A person seeking to exercise their right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment could henceforth be denied that ability if they do not possess a precious Real ID card, because the federal bureaucracy known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives probably will decree that such a form of identification is necessary to meet federal requirements for purchasing a firearm.
Very possibly the Real ID card will be required in order to vote in any election for federal office.
A veteran may be denied access to a VA hospital because he or she lacks the requisite Real ID card, perhaps because they did not have the money required to purchase it or because they could not locate the background forms the Department of Homeland Security required to obtain one.
A business traveler, unable to afford to travel by private jet, is denied the ability to make a living because their job requires air travel and they do not have a Real ID card — even though they demonstrably pose no danger whatsoever to their fellow travelers.
Even though individual states, such as Georgia, may provide greater legal protection for private information of its residents than other states or the federal government, this will mean nothing in the Real ID Act world, because all the data under that law will be subject to the lower federal standards, thereby subjecting residents to a higher likelihood of identity theft than they would risk under the laws of their state.
And, they would have no recourse to correct erroneous data, or prevent identity theft pursuant to the Real ID regulations.
On the other side of the ledger, arguing in favor of this intrusive and expensive federal mandate, are hollow promises of “security” — not freedom or liberty — but “safety,” the promise of which trumps all else in this post-9/11 world, at least for this Congress and this administration. I, for one, commend the state of Georgia and those other states that are standing against this assault on states’ rights and the Bill of Rights.
Commenting is closed but will reopen Thursday morning.
A scary way to further erode our liberties
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties / And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us.” — Cornish prayer
Never content to rely on the Good Lord to deliver us from those things that might do us harm, one Congress after another — going back at least to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 — has considered legislation or held hearings to highlight perceived threats and to then limit individual freedom to battle things that might bump us in the night.
Members of today’s younger generation (I can’t keep them straight — are they Generation X, Y, Z or the “Millennial Generation”?) clearly have no personal memory, and almost as little historical knowledge, of the “Red scare” of the 1940s and 1950s, or of the House Un-American Activities Committee that was the weapon of choice for official witch hunts. However, things have come full circle.
If California Rep. Jane Harman (D), Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R) and many of their colleagues on both sides of the political aisle have their way, President Bush may soon be able to sign into law an act that will create a new, 21st-century version of HUAC — the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism.
And what would this latest “national commission” — the enabling legislation for which passed the House with but cursory discussion and only six dissenting votes last Oct. 23 — do? According to the platitudes of those arguing its adoption, it would figure mightily in protecting our nation against this century’s “Red scare” — terrorism.
How would this commission (and the other mechanisms provided for in the legislation) protect us from terrorists in ways that the billions of dollars and tens of thousands of personnel currently being devoted to this effort are unable to accomplish? The legislation would write into federal law three new concepts: “violent radicalization,” “homegrown terrorism” and “ideologically based violence.” Any person or organization that might have even contemplated the use of “violence” (not itself a defined term in the legislation) ought to be genuinely frightened of this language. Any “extremist belief system” (not further defined) that might facilitate “ideologically based violence” would be a targetable activity for the commission.
Alleged Communist-front organizations were the prime targets of the HUAC back in 1947, when no less a luminary than then-president of the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan, was forced to testify on possible Communist sympathizers lurking within the film industry’s shadows. Whether disfavored filmmakers now would be among the targets remains to be seen. However, anti-war groups, anti-abortion organizations and myriad other entities easily could find themselves on the receiving end of an allegation of “homegrown terrorism.”
Although the Bush administration has not thus far openly embraced the legislation, it doesn’t have to. The enthusiasm with which this administration has supported all things that even hint at increased government power to discover, investigate and prosecute the broadest conceivable universe of those labeled “terrorists” is well-known. Secret watch lists routinely are employed to identify those on whom limits must be placed; surveillance of all international communications is now the norm; those labeled “enemies” are subject to indefinite detention; and a national identification card is being implemented. A national commission to offer an added degree of respectability to this scare obviously would meet with a presidential signature if passed by the Senate.
That a Martin Luther King Jr. easily could have been — indeed almost certainly would have been — swept within the absurdly broad definitions in the homegrown terrorism act apparently matters little to the hundreds of Democrat and Republican House members who blithely voted “aye.” Unfortunately, in the climate of fear that continues to color the political landscape, there is much greater interest in finding ways for increasing the power of the federal government to manage the economy than there is interest in limiting the erosion of our civil liberties by that same government.
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