Cato Daily Dispatch for October 17, 2001
White House Says No To More BailoutsCourt: Individuals Have Right To Bear Arms
Gregg Does 180 On Encryption
White House Says No To More Bailouts
The New York Times reports today that in response to a flood of calls for bailouts from industries hurt directly or indirectly by the terrorist attacks, from restaurants and theme parks to steel makers, the Bush administration has developed the following official policy position: forget it.
Preying on the public's anxiety about war, the steel industry is playing the national security card in its quest for government protection. What they won't tell you, however, is that the U.S. military accounted for less than 0.1 percent of industry deliveries in 2000. U.S. steel capacity and production so exceed military demand that even massive production cutbacks have no security implications, says trade policy analyst Daniel Ikenson in "Steel Industry Claims Victim Status After Terrorist Attacks."
Court: Individuals Have Right To Bear Arms
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the Constitution guarantees individuals the right to have a gun, the first time in recent history that such a high-level legal authority has explicitly endorsed such a view, according to The Washington Post.
The decision's immediate impact will be felt in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, which are within the jurisdiction of the court that issued the opinion. But the ruling is likely to embolden opponents of gun control to press their cause in federal courts around the country.
Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies Robert A. Levy had the following comments on the meeting:
"On October 16, in United States v. Emerson, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected the 'collective rights' view of the Second Amendment and affirmed the right that each of us enjoy, as individuals, to own a gun. The court's scholarly and powerfully worded opinion said that the Constitution 'protects the right of individuals, including those not then actually a member of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to privately possess and bear their own firearms, such as the pistol involved here, that are suitable as personal individual weapons.'
"The implications of the Emerson case are especially important today. On September 11, we learned that the state cannot defend us against all acts of terror. It is imperative, therefore, that we be able to defend ourselves. A disarmed society, because its citizens are defenseless, tends to adopt police state tactics. That's why law-abiding inner city residents, disarmed by gun control, beg for government protection against drug gangs despite the terrible violations of civil liberties that such protection entails - like curfews and anti-loitering laws. An individual right to bear arms is thus prophylactic - it reduces the demand for a police state.
"To be sure, constitutional rights are not absolute. They do, however, establish a powerful presumption in favor of liberty. There may be circumstances that justify a limitation on our right to possess a gun. Indeed, the Fifth Circuit held that Mr. Emerson's Second Amendment rights could be temporarily curtailed because there was reason to believe he posed a threat to his estranged wife. Still, the government must demonstrate, in Judge Garwood's words, that its restrictions are 'narrowly tailored ... and not inconsistent with the right of Americans generally to individually keep and bear their private arms.' Our federal courts now have a unique opportunity to uphold that principle and reinvigorate the Second Amendment."
Gregg Does 180 On Encryption
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) has abruptly changed his mind and will no longer seek to insert backdoors into encryption products, according to Wired News.
A spokesman for Gregg said yesterday that the senator has "no intention" of introducing a bill to require government access to scrambled electronic or voice communications.
"We are not working on an encryption bill and have no intention to," spokesman Brian Hart said in an interview.
Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Gregg strode onto the Senate floor and called for a global prohibition on data-scrambling products without backdoors for government surveillance. Gregg said that quick action was necessary "to get the information that allows us to anticipate and prevent what occurred in New York and in Washington."
In "Anonymity in America: Does National Security Preclude It?", Wayne Crews took issue with Gregg's proposals saying that, "government's job is to restrict the liberty of dangerous criminals and enemies--not to restrict the liberties of innocent citizens, or to treat everyone like a suspect."