14 April 2010

Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

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Media Coverage of the Health A Response to Intel Abuses at

Care Overhaul [Cato at Liberty] Last? [Cato at Liberty]
APR 13, 2010 05:06P.M. APR 13, 2010 05:04P.M.

By Michael D. Tanner By Julian Sanchez

Over the course of the health care debate, the media often reported and As I explain in yesterday’s BloggingHeads dialogue with Eli Lake, I’m
editorialized — and sometimes it was impossible to tell the difference — chary of relying too much on legislative “sunset” provisions to check
quite favorably on the Democratic proposals running through Congress. abuse of power, especially in the shadowy world of intelligence. (For the
While some upheld their journalistic responsibility to scrutinize and fleshed-out version of the argument, see Chris Mooney’s 2004 piece in
offer objective analysis of the legislation, many did not. Legal Affairs.) After all, in January, the Office of the Inspector General
had released an absolutely damning report showing that for years, FBI
It was not surprising to read stories almost daily about how Obamacare agents systematically manipulated their incredibly broad National
would lift millions of poor, elderly, sick, and generally down-trodden Security Letter authorities to get information about Americans telephone
Americans out of financial and medical crisis, and even go so far as to usage without following any legitimate legal process at all. To cover those
singlehandedly save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans abuses, officials compounded their crimes by lying to federal courts and
over the course of the next decade. (It would even provide one free refusing to use an auditable computer system for their information
turkey for Thanksgiving to every family living 400 percent below the requests. The report was released amid debate over what reforms should
poverty level.) be included in the reauthorization of several controversial Patriot Act
provisions, with proposed changes to the NSL statutes front and
This morning, however, the headlines read something like this: center—not least because several courts had found constitutional
problems with the gag orders accompanying NSLs. Yet just a month
• “Rasmussen: Public Favors Repeal 58%-38%” (Rasmussen Polls) later, Congress consented to an extension of those Patriot provisions
without implementing any of the various rather mild changes that had
• “JCT Says Healthcare Reform Will Raise Middle Class Taxes” (The won approval in the House or Senate Judiciary Committees. If a sunset-
Hill) inspired review didn’t yield any real consequences then, I thought, what
would it take?
• “Lawmakers, Staff May Lose Coverage” (New York Times): Adds
the Times, “The confusion raises the inevitable question: If they did Today, however, I see a there are glimmers of interest in something more
not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did closely resembling serious oversight. In a letter to Attorney General Eric
lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of Holder, sent last month but released yesterday, Senate Judiciary
how it would influence the lives of other Americans?” Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) urges DOJ to implement many of
the reforms in the SJC’s bill voluntarily—above all procedures to
• “Healthcare Law Could Boost Costs For Less Healthy Americans” guarantee a detailed record of the grounds on which various types of
(New York Times) information sought, and to govern the retention, use, and distribution of
information obtained. Leahy also signals his intent to ask department
• “Healthcare Law Unlikely To Curb Premium Increases” (Los watchdogs to conduct audits of the use of Patriot authorities, as the
Angeles Times) Senate’s bill had stipulated. These are all, needless to say, good
ideas—provided we don’t accept voluntary and mutable internal
My question is this: where were these reporters before the passage of the guidelines as a substitute for statutory limits with teeth.
health care bill?
Meanwhile, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) is holding Wednesday morning
hearings on the abuses detailed in the Inspector General’s report. FBI
General Counsel Valerie Caproni and IG Glenn Fine are slated to testify.
(There are links to their prepared testimony already, though the

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documents themselves aren’t there yet as I write.) Extrapolating from FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
past performances, I predict Caproni will allow that the abuses described
were Very Serious Indeed (though, really, perhaps not quite as serious as John Dennis Signs Taxpayer
all that…) but all cleaned up now. Nobody should be satisfied with this,
and if Fine doesn’t broach the subject himself, somebody really ought to Protection Pledge in CA-08
ask Caproni about some minimization procedures for the
25,000–50,000 National Security Letters the department issues [Americans for Tax Reform]
annually. As Fine noted in recent testimony, the Bureau has been APR 13, 2010 04:12P.M.
promising this for years now:
California businessman and congressional candidate John Dennis
In August 2007, the NSL Working Group sent the Attorney recently signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge in his bid for California’s
General its report and proposed minimization procedures. 8th district. Dennis will be competing in the GOP Primar...
However, we had several concerns with the findings and
recommendations of the Working Group’s report, which we
discussed in our March 2008 NSL report. In particular, we
disagreed with the Working Group about the sufficiency of FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
existing privacy safeguards and measures for minimizing the
retention of NSL-derived information. We disagreed because Essay Contest: Win Free Tickets
the controls the Working Group cited as providing safeguards
predated our NSL reviews, yet we found serious abuses of the to the Friedman Prize Dinner
NSL authorities.
[Cato at Liberty]
As a result, the Acting Privacy Officer decided to reconsider APR 13, 2010 03:31P.M.
the recommendations and withdrew them. The Working
Group has subsequently developed new recommendations for By Chris Moody
NSL minimization procedures, which are still being
considered within the Department and have not yet been In partnership with Students for Liberty, Cato is holding a contest for
issued. We believe that the Department should promptly two tickets to the Friedman Prize biennial dinner and award
consider the Working Group’s proposal and issue final presentation, which will be held at the Hilton Washington Hotel in
minimization procedures for NSLs that address the collection Washington, D.C, on May 13, 2010. The winners of the contest will each
of information through NSLs, how the FBI can upload NSL receive a free ticket to the event, regularly sold for $500 each.
information in FBI databases, the dissemination of NSL
information, the appropriate tagging and tracking of NSL To apply for the essay contest, reply to the following questions 500
derived information in FBI databases and files, and the time words or less:
period for retention of NSL obtained information. At this
point, more than 2 years have elapsed since after our first In light of the selection of Akbar Ganji for the receipt of the
report was issued, and final guidance is needed and overdue. 2010 Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, who would you
nominate for a second prize this year and why?
Way, way overdue—much like some kind of serious congressional
response to the Bureau’s NSL Calvinball. Submissions should be both attached in an MS Word (or compatible)
document and included in the body of an e-mail, along with the
contestant’s name, school, graduation year, and major. E-mail all
submissions to [email protected]

Cato On Campus has more details.

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Free Enterprise: Bread, Cheese, Tuesday Links [Cato at Liberty]

APR 13, 2010 11:47A.M.
and Meat! [The Club for
By Chris Moody
Growth]
APR 13, 2010 03:09P.M. • Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji awarded the $500,000 Milton
Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty.
Here s Meat on the Avenue
• New rules for your taxes: Pretend your way to tax freedom — just
like Congress!

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS • Americans this year will spend more on taxes than on clothing,
food, and shelter combined.
Cheating the Government [The
• Is federal power now unlimited? To defend the nominee President
Club for Growth] Obama chooses to replace the liberal Justice Stevens, Democrats
APR 13, 2010 02:16P.M. will be forced to say what they really believe about the Constitution.

What if you could cheat on the government in the same way that it cheats • Podcast: “Stevens’ Undue Deference” featuring John Samples
on you? ll go easy on you when you tell them that an identical approach
helped push the IRS budget up to $12 billion.)

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS University of Maryland Beating

Um... Did The New York Times Prompts Investigations [Cato at
Just Say Death Panels Will Save Liberty]
APR 13, 2010 10:21A.M.
Money? [Americans for Tax
By David Rittgers
Reform]
APR 13, 2010 01:16P.M. Following the home basketball victory against Duke, University of
Maryland students took to the streets to celebrate. Prince George’s
Two weeks ago, we wrote with some surprise that President Obama’s County Police, along with mounted officers from the Maryland-National
lackey-economist Paul Krugman said that death panels - sorry “advisory Capital Park Police, responded to disperse an unruly crowd. One student
panels” - would save money by denying people hea... skipped for joy toward police in riot gear, then stopped as he neared two
mounted officers. Prince George’s officers rushed the student, beating
him with clubs until he fell to the ground, and then continuing to deliver
blows as he lay on the pavement. Video of the incident:

The student, John McKenna, was charged with felonies on suspicion of

assaulting officers on horseback and their mounts. The charges against
McKenna were dropped yesterday without comment, and now the
officers responsible for the beating are under scrutiny. One of the three
officers who beat McKenna has been suspended, and as soon as the other
two are identified they face parallel sanction. Prince George’s
prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation as well.

While this story is moving in the right direction, the video contradicting
the charges against McKenna and putting police brutality on record
made all the difference. Good reason to be wary of laws prohibiting

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photography or video of police officers. long-term solution toward Iran.

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The Flat Tax: How it Works and Do Earmarks Crowd Out Local
Why it is Good for America Private Investment? [Cato at
[Larry Kudlow’s Money Liberty]
APR 13, 2010 08:38A.M.
Politic$]
APR 13, 2010 09:42A.M. By Mark A. Calabria

In the spirit of tax week, here’s a terrific video hosted by my old friend The extent to which government spending either complements or crowds
Dan Mitchell showing how a flat tax would benefit American families out private investment has long been one of the most heated debates in
and businesses. It also explains how this simple and fair system would economics (and politics). Generally economic theorists posit that an
boost economic growth and eliminate the special-interest corruption of increase in government spending drives up interest rates, which
the internal revenue code. increases the cost of private investment, accordingly reducing such
investment. Most macroeconomic models are build on this relationship.

In an interesting new working paper, a trio of economists attack the

question from a different angle. They measure the impact of increased
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS earmarks on the local economy receiving those earmarks, and compare
the impact to areas not receiving the increased earmarks, which allows
The Libertarian Take on Iran them to control for the overall macroeconomic environment. Their
finding: even in a setting where government spending is “free” to the
[Cato at Liberty] recipients (but not free to the rest of us), such spending reduces private
APR 13, 2010 09:12A.M. investment.

By Malou Innocent More specifically, the authors examine what happens to a state when one
of its senators becomes a chair of a powerful committee. First, the
In this video, David Boaz makes an excellent case for tamping down our obvious, upon taking a power chairmanship, the value of earmarks
overblown perception of Iran. increase almost 50%. This results in roughly a $200 million annual
increase to the state. But the authors find this is not simply a transfer
In the clip, Boaz argues persuasively that far from being suicidal, the from the rest of the country to the state, it also depresses private capital
track record of Iranian behavior shows pragmatism and calculating investment and R&D spending in the state. On average, once a state has
temperament when attempting to advance its interests in the a senator obtain a powerful chairmanship, state level private investment
region. Thus, rather than assessing Iran based on their leaders’ repulsive in capital expenditures decreases $39 million annually and state private
and provocative rhetoric, U.S. officials should deduce future Iranian R&D decreases $34 million annually.
intentions based on how it has reacted when confronted with
overwhelming force. While no one can predict the future, regional For states seeking to get your senator into a powerful chairmanship: be
experts—not hawkish, misinformed policy analysts or neo-conservative careful of what you wish for. There’s no free lunch, even when someone
ideologues who advocate regime change—insist that the clerical else is paying.
regime has valued self-preservation and in the future can be deterred.

My colleague, Justin Logan, argues here that U.S. policymakers must

press for direct diplomacy with the Iranian leadership and have a plan
“B” in case that diplomacy fails. Of course, the problem is that those who
endorse a tougher approach toward Iran insist that we have tried
diplomacy before. That is not true. Washington typically offers
halfhearted gestures and then falsely concludes that diplomacy does not
work. Americans must reject the alarmist rhetoric and tortured
rationales that have thus far proved counterproductive for arriving at a

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What’s a Libertarian? [Cato at

Liberty]
APR 13, 2010 08:35A.M.

By Chris Moody

In a new episode of Stossel, Cato’s David Boaz and Jeffrey Miron join a
panel of experts to discuss where libertarians stand on a host of major
issues facing the nation today. They tackle libertarian views on war,
abortion, the welfare state, gay rights and more.

Watch the videos below for a full re-cap.

The first video covers the so-called culture wars, including gay marriage,
abortion and immigration:

More videos after the jump.

In the second video they discuss the role of government in providing aid
to the poor:

In the third video, the panelists discuss libertarian views of war. Should
the United States leave Afghanistan and Iraq? What should we do about
Iran? Watch:

If you’re hungry for more, the segment is a great supplement to David

Boaz’s timeless book, Libertarianism: A Primer and Jeffrey Miron’s
forthcoming book Libertarianism: From A to Z.