Cato Daily Dispatch for December 13, 2001
Election Reform Sails Through the HouseHouse Passes Intelligence Reorganization Bill
War on Terrorism Weakens the Drug War
Election Reform Sails Through the House
Exactly one year after a controversial Supreme Court ruling decided the 2000 presidential election, the House yesterday easily passed a bill to overhaul the nation's election system and provide $2.65 billion to upgrade voting equipment and replace punch-card voting machines like the ones at the center of last year's bitter vote recount in Florida, according to The Washington Post.
The 363 to 63 vote signaled strong bipartisan support for revamping the election system and came after two hours of debate during which lawmakers repeatedly referred to the Florida recount debacle and vowed never to allow such a situation to develop again.
Cato scholars John Samples, Tom G. Palmer, and Patrick Basham made recommendations for reform of the U.S. election system in "Lessons of Election 2000." They argue for preserving the electoral college, removing limits to campaign donations, and allowing states the choice to accept and implement Congress' suggestions for reform.
House Passes Intelligence Reorganization Bill
The House unanimously passed an intelligence bill yesterday that will place new emphasis on traditional human spy networks that have served as a key to the war on terrorism, according to The Washington Post.
"The events of Sept. 11 are a sad reminder of what happens when we let our intelligence guard down," said Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), a former CIA officer who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "Intelligence is our first line of defense, and it must be treated as such, particularly in this war against terrorism."
In the 1996 study "Why Spy? The Uses and Misuses of Intelligence," Cato research fellow Stanley Kober argued that intelligence agencies focus too much attention on economic espionage when they should devote their resources to the most serious security threats, principally international terrorism and adverse political trends.
War on Terrorism Weakens the Drug War
Under the headline, "Terrorism Fight Hurts Drug War," The Washington Post reports that law enforcement has shifted focus since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Large amounts of U.S. resources are now being devoted to the fight against terrorism, and much less to the war on drugs, according to experts and officials on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
"We have had to move our vessels back to defend the goal line," said Cmdr. Jim McPherson, chief spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard, explaining that as much as 75 percent of the ships and other assets once dedicated to the U.S. counter-drug effort have been moved to focus on homeland defense and counterterrorism patrols. As a result, he said, "We are not seizing anywhere near what we were. . . . Our counter-drug intelligence support has dropped to zero."
In "Responding to the Attack on America," David Boaz recommends that the federal government reorient drug war resources to the war on terrorism.
"Some officials have compared the new war on terrorism with the war on drugs," he writes. "That's a depressing thought: We've been fighting the drug war for 87 years, and drug use is as high as ever. A better tack is to take some of the $40 billion we spend annually on the futile drug war and reallocate it to the war on terrorism. Use the Drug Enforcement Administration's agents to search for pipe bombs, not marijuana pipes."