Lawson for Congress

In recent months a lot has been said about the seemingly ever increasing list of potential terrorist threats we call the “terrorist watch list.”

The Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), better known as the terrorist watch list, is operated by the National Security Branch of the FBI. The list is mainly compiled from names and aliases from the National Counterterrorism Center, which provides international terrorist information, and the FBI, which provided domestic terrorist information. The TSDB, terrorist watch list, was created to “provide ‘one-stop shopping’ so that every government screener is using the same terrorist watch list.”

Many of you have probably heard the numerous stories of delays, interrogations, and canceled flights from legitimate, law-abiding U.S. citizens whose name happens to match or resemble a name on the Federal Government’s terrorist watch list.

James Robinson is a commercial airline pilot and a retired brigadier general with the Air National Guard. Despite his credentials as a commercial pilot, he is forced to jump through hurdles to board his own plane because his name matches that of another on the watch list. This story is made more ironic by the fact that he is held up by the TSA, the same administration which certified him to carry a weapon in the cockpit of his plane.

I highlight this story to draw attention to the inadequacies of the current terrorist watch list, not to advocate its removal. I believe that a properly functioning watch list is vital to domestic safety in America’s terminals and ports as well as at the local level. While I feel safer flying knowing that James Robinson, the pilot, will be checked to insure he is not James Robinson, the terrorist, the simple fact that more than 1,000,000 names and aliases comprise this list deters its effectiveness.

In July of this year the watch list, which was created after 9/11, reached the million mile marker. The sheer size of the list is counterproductive to its mission. As the list continues to grow, more and more innocent citizens are having their rights impeded upon. I am in no way advocating that individuals with names on the list should be ushered through airport terminals around the country, but I am advocating changes to the system.

Nelson Mandela, recipient of America’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as well as the Nobel Peace Prize was on the terrorist watch list until he was recently removed by a bill signed by George W. Bush. When men such as Nelson Mandela and Jim Robinson, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division during the Clinton administration, are on the terror watch list it seems there is gross negligence in the system. If notable characters like these are hassled by the current system of the terrorist watch list, you can imagine its ramifications for ordinary citizens.

More important than the delays and hassles at the airport caused by such a list is its encroachment on the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Is the Due Process clause of this Amendment being adhered to when the government can place practically anyone on the list? The Terrorist Screening Center explains its guidelines for who is included on the list by staing, “Per HSPD-6, only individuals who are known or appropriately suspected to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism are included in the TSDB.” Looking through the hazy vagueness of what defines “appropriately suspected,” it apparent that anyone can placed on the list without being formally charged. The lack of legitimacy to whose is named on the list is furthered by the fact that “the TSC (Terrorist Screening Center) cannot reveal whether a particular person is in the TSDB.” The fact that you cannot determine if you are on the list is of little importance because the TSC does not accept redress inquires for removing names from the list directly from the public.

I wish to close with a few facts from the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) report on the terrorist watch list from an article in USA Today.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) could not specify how many people on its no-fly list, which is a small subset of the watch list, might have slipped through screening and been allowed on domestic flights.

Homeland Security has not done enough to use the list more broadly in the private sector, where workers applying for jobs in sensitive places such as chemical factories could do harm.

TSA data show “a number of individuals” on the no-fly list passed undetected through screening and boarded international flights bound for the United States. Several planes have been diverted once officials realized that people named on the watch lists were on board.

Be sure to check out the ACLU’s Watch List Counter and read a few stories of the innocent individuals who have found themselves running into problems because of the Federal Government’s terrorist watch list.

Also, take at the article, Feds Set to Take Over Airline Watch List Checking, Again, on the Wired Blog Network.

Matt Barber is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a volunteer with Lawson for Congress. He is working towards a double major in Political Science and Business Administration.

Physicians for Human Rights has launched a campaign Broken Laws, Broken Lives to document medical evidence of torture, and raise awareness of torture experienced by detainees in American custody. The Preface to their report is written by Major General Antonio Taguba (USA, Ret), who led the US Army’s official investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and testified before Congress on his findings in May, 2004. From his Preface:

This report tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individuals’ lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors.

The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted—both on America’s institutions and our nation’s founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend.

The full report is deeply troubling, and recommended reading. How can we, as Americans, reach a point of desperation such that we accept, rationalize, and even encourage subhuman behavior? Is there any evidence that information obtained through torture is accurate, or valuable? How is American security enhanced by our abandoning respect for basic human rights?

How have Americans handled the need for intelligence gathering in the past? Is there precedent for interrogations conducted by men and women who respect human rights, and understand the importance of setting a principled example both globally and individually?

Fortunately, yes. As a contrast to horrendous torture tactics that we must reject, an article last October provided an opportunity for the veterans of P.O. Box 1142, a top-secret World War II installation, to speak out about their experiences interrogating Nazi prisoners:

For six decades, they held their silence.

The group of World War II veterans kept a military code and the decorum of their generation, telling virtually no one of their top-secret work interrogating Nazi prisoners of war at Fort Hunt.

When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.

Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners’ cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.

“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.

The interrogators had standards that remain a source of pride and honor.

“During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone,” said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. “We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”

Interesting concept — a battle of wits. Interesting ideals — never compromising one’s humanity.

I believe we need more physicians in Congress. Politicians and bureaucrats are far too eager to engage in linguistic gymnastics to “define” torture. For physicians who honor their Hippocratic oath, definitions are unnecessary. Physicians seek to cure illness, and ease suffering. While there is no question that self-defense is a fundamental human right, imposing suffering on those in custody is un-American, and inhuman.

Americans consider our country one of the freest on earth, yet national incarceration rates beg to differ. More than half of all federal prisoners are not murderers, rapists or even thieves; they are people who have forcibly hurt no one except themselves. More than half of all federal prisoners are non-violent drug offenders.

America now has the highest prison population in the world in terms of both percentage of the population and overall prisoners with one in every one hundred Americans imprisoned. Furthermore Hispanics and Blacks are unequally affected, as the New York Times reports:

One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.

In a time of economic stagnation and resource-driven inflation why are we spending so much on imprisoning these non-violent offenders? The New York Times elaborates on this point, writing:

It cost an average of $23,876 dollars to imprison someone in 2005, the most recent year for which data were available. But state spending varies widely, from $45,000 a year in Rhode Island to $13,000 in Louisiana.

The cost of medical care is growing by 10 percent annually, the report said, and will accelerate as the prison population ages.

About one in nine state government employees works in corrections, and some states are finding it hard to fill those jobs. California spent more than $500 million on overtime alone in 2006.

$23,876 is quite a large sum. Money that could go to a doctor’s salary to treat drug users rather than a guard’s salary to watch them.

Americans have long adopted an approach that is tough on crime. This toughness is laudable in some cases — with increased sentencing, violent crime has fallen by about 25 percent. Drugs have not followed this trend, however.  In many ways being tough on crime works, but shouldn’t we be more than tough?  Should we not also be smart? Since Nixon declared the federal “War on Drugs”, drug availability has remained essentially unchanged. Few would object to tough sentencing laws that keep violent criminals off the street and prevent violent crime. Should we not save incarceration for when it is a solution, however, rather than just a burden?

Whatever your opinion on the use of drugs, we should question the appropriateness of enforcing laws that are in contradiction to our nation’s highest law, the Constitution. At least with alcohol prohibition in the early 1900s, we had the intellectual honesty to recognize that federal alcohol prohibition required a Constitutional amendment. Today, however, we tolerate unconstitutional expansion of government power.

In one such excess, Gonzales v. Raich (2005), Federal authorities were affirmed in their efforts to criminalize the local, intrastate cultivation and distribution of medical marijuana.  Not only does this imprison people who sought to relieve the suffering of the sick, but as Clarence Thomas writes:

If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison’s assurance to the people of New York that the “powers delegated” to the Federal Government are “few and defined,” while those of the States are “numerous and indefinite.” The Federalist No. 45, at 313 (J. Madison).

The federal drug war must be rethought, and we must adopt a rational drug policy that not only pays attention to social mores but also respects empirical evidence and, most importantly, obeys our Constitution.

William Griffin is a rising Junior studying Political Science and Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a policy intern with Lawson for Congress.

There has been much discussion about the use of the rebate package passed by Congress and signed by the President to stimulate the economy. B.J. recently covered the topic in his post, “Shiller vs. IMF,” laying out the arguments of those who favor using it and those who oppose it. As with most government initiatives, success is best measured by its unintended consequences:

President Bush Boosts Porn Industry With Economic Stimulus Plan, According to AIMRCo

NEW YORK, July 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — An unforeseen and surprising beneficiary of the Economic Stimulus Plan, a plan that George Bush contends will “boost our economy and encourage job creation,” has surfaced this week. An independent market-research firm, AIMRCo (Adult Internet Market Research Company), has discovered that many websites focused on adult or erotic material have experienced an upswing in sales in the recent weeks since checks have appeared in millions of Americans’ mailboxes across the country.

According to Kirk Mishkin, Head Research Consultant for AIMRCo, “Many of the sites we surveyed have reported 20-30% growth in membership rates since mid-May when the checks were first sent out, and typically the summer is a slow period for this market.

Jillian Fox, spokeswoman for LSGmodels.com, one of the sites reporting figures to AIMRCo, added, “In a June 15, 2008 survey to our members, thirty two percent of respondents referenced the recent stimulus package as part of their decision to either become a new member, or renew an existing membership.”

The economic stimulus plan, which includes a check for up to $600 for individuals and $1200 for married couples (among other benefits), is the product of an agreement between House leaders and the Bush Administration, focused on reviving a struggling economy in the wake of flagging economy.

Fox also added, “Getting more people to buy porn was probably the last thing Bush had on his mind when he came up with his ’stimulus package,’ but we’ll take it.”

One might reasonably question if the money we borrowed to pay for these “rebates” are going to spur capital investment and wealth creation. Or do these data suggest that we’re simply seeing “Congressmen Gone Wild”?

It appears our incumbent Representative and others in Congress who supported this legislation have succeeded in seeking a short-run economic boost to satisfy their constituents and facilitate their re-election while ignoring — and in fact exacerbating — very serious fundamental and long-run challenges.

Long-run economic growth results from a number of fundamental factors, which include the accumulation of physical capital (which is a function of personal saving in a healthy economy), human capital (which is a function of education), technological advancement, protection of property rights, and a strong legal system. The accumulation of high debt by government necessitates that resources in the future must be redistributed from investment in these productive forces to paying the bills we’re stacking up now, which crushes long-run economic growth.

Furthermore, the building of a large government debt has a number of negative by-products in an international economy. Absorbing private domestic saving necessitates reliance on foreign saving for domestic growth, as well as possibly on foreign purchasing of government bonds to finance deficit spending. When foreign investment decreases and/or leaves the country, which may occur for a number of reasons (market insecurity, a decline of the value of the dollar due to inflationary monetary policy or payment of foreign debt… either of these sound familiar?), then with it goes the source of growth. At this point, interest rates increase with high government borrowing, and the central bank is in a tough spot. It can either inflate to lower interest rates, which will hurt consumers, increase costs for businesses, and decrease returns of investors; or it can do nothing and allow high interest rates to lead to a recession.  In any of these situations, economic growth is either stagnant or significanlty negative in the end. Thus, “stimulus” spending ultimately gives no real economic boost at all.

By creating more debt to “stimulate” the economy, Congress is attempting to rebalance a house of cards and delay its eventual collapse, even at the cost of potentially worsening it. We are delaying action on making hard choices that must be made today to shore up the country’s financial future and are making the these choices much harder for ourselves down the road. A $9.4 trillion national debt — with more hundred-billion deficits and skyrocketing interest payments expected down the road — and $53 trillion in present value of unfunded liabilities are absolutely nothing to ignore. These are phenomena that will wreck the economy much more powerfully than any near-term recession that may come, and they will not go away on their own nor by creating a significant amount of new debt.

Finally, we should note that the “stimulus packages” being in the form of rebates implies somehow a lessened burden of taxation for now to achieve a change in some economic variable. Real tax cuts are cuts in the burden of government on the taxpayers, and as such, they are long-term commitments that allow us and our communities to keep more of their resources.

Cutting taxes in the short-term and continuing deficit spending in no way represent a tax cut, as the government has one of two options to finance remaining spending. It can borrow and accumulate debt, which necessitates either a future tax increase to pay off the debt or a stalling of long-term growth and decline in opportunities available to the future. Or, the government can print money to finance deficits, which causes price inflation that squeezes consumers. As Milton Friedman would say (paraphrasing), “A tax cut is not a tax cut at all without a spending cut.”

Paige Michael-Shetley is the Volunteer Coordinator and Youth Coodinator for Lawson for Congress. He is a Senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is majoring in Economics and Math.

From the latest iPhone to sleek, lightweight laptop computers, we live in a world increasingly reliant on electronic devices. Everything from family photos to last year’s taxes and even trade secrets are only a click away. While we rely on passwords and fingertip scanners to protect this information, many people are still unaware of the federal government’s authority to search devices such as laptops, PDAs, and cell phones of American’s returning to the country.

Border agents and customs officials may search the contents of these devices without probable cause and pore through any private data you may have saved on these devices.

On April 21, 2008 American civil liberties were dealt another blow when the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals decided the case United States v. Michael Timothy Arnold. This unanimous three-judge decision upheld the legality of laptop searches by border agents without probable cause. The court overruled a lower court’s ruling that digital devices were “an extension of our own memory” and were protected against searches without probable cause.

In the court’s opinion, written by Judge O’Scannlain, he remarked, “Arnold has failed to distinguish how the search of his laptop and its electronic contents is logically any different from the suspicionless border searches of travelers’ luggage that the Supreme Court and we have allowed.” O’Scannlain chided Arnold for his argument that his laptop was like a home and should receive the same protections, by stating that you cannot live in a laptop and that it travels with you, so there is less privacy expectation. However, I fail to see how Judge O’Scannlain can make this observation and then overlook the fact that you can’t even pack a shirt in a laptop — it’s hardly an ideal suitcase.

Clearly laptops and other personal electronic devices are protected against warrantless search and seizures by our Constitution’s Amendment IV.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This Amendment had been protecting citizens since the founding of this country and is one of the most important rights we have as Americans. These recent rulings are clearly a violation of our rights against search and seizures without probable cause.

Personal devices such as laptops, cameras, PDAs, and cell phones all logically fall under “papers and effects,” as stated in the Fourth. In a time in which our forefathers were writing with quills on parchment, these “papers” were deemed worthy of protection because of what people kept records of on paper. In a world that is dominated by wireless communication and transactions, should our personal information stored on these devices not also be considered “papers.” After all, they are serving the same purpose as those of our forefathers. The Federal Government should not be able to stomp on the 4^th Amendment Rights of its citizens solely because these “papers” are in a different medium. However, because two Appeals court have made similar rulings in two separate cases it is unlikely the Supreme Court will hear this issue.

Now that we know border agents and customs officials can search laptops and other personal electronic devices upon reentering the United States we must ask what these officials do with information. After reading through a release by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a department of Homeland Security, I was unable to find any information about what information they are able to look at and what happens to the personal information after these searches.

Congressional investigators speculate that these officials make digital copies, or “mirror images,” which would allow them to go back and look at the information. For a practice that the CBP contends is completely legal they are awfully quiet about the details of this practice. In fact, the CBP will not release figures on the number of devices confiscated and searched and how commonplace this practice is. As with any act that tip-toes dangerously close to invading civil liberties, and in my mind clearly does, it is important that the Government release facts and figures that allow for adequate study and review of these policies.

Matt Barber is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and policy intern with Lawson for Congress. He is working towards a double-major in Political Science and Business Administration.

By now if you are a citizen concerned about the protection of your civil liberties or indeed pay cursory attention to the major news outlets, you have probably heard about the District of Columbia vs. Heller Supreme Court case involving the debate over the right to individually own firearms.  I must admit that although I am a supporter of the 2^nd amendment I let this case slip under my radar until it had already been decided.

The Supreme Court ruled last week in a 5-4 majority that the 2^nd amendment does indeed protect an American’s right to possess an operational firearm in their home for the purposes of self-defense, defeating a minority of judges who felt the amendment only guaranteed the right of Americans to do so under the auspices of state militia service.  However, despite the fact the ruling ended up confirming a right we as Americans have had since the very genesis of the countries founding, we only came one vote away from losing it.  That’s too close.

Therefore, as a concerned citizen (and also faced with the prospect of an otherwise uneventful 4 hour flight yesterday morning) I printed off the 157 page decision and prepared myself to figure out what exactly had gone on here.  Now granted most people don’t read Supreme Court cases just for kicks, but believe it or not the reading actually went by efficiently and by the time I’d finished there were several serious thoughts floating in my head (one of which being that this is probably why lots of girls don’t return my calls).

On a more serious note though, I thought it interesting that Justice Scalia in his majority opinion seemed almost stunned that the rather explicit wording of the 2^nd amendment had been so badly distorted by the minority judges.  Citing a plethora of historical precedents as well as applying a common sense test to the Constitution which was written as he says referencing another case “to be understood by the voters…distinguished from technical meaning” he made the point that the right to keep arms has never been only associated with the militia service and at one point refers to the minority’s reasoning on the matter as “bizarre.”

On this occasion, Scalia noted that Stevens had tried to argue that because the framers had used the wording “to keep and bear arms” as opposed to “to keep and to bear arms” they simply meant that militiamen were allowed to wield the arms which they had been granted and that this did not apply to the people as a whole.  Now I’m no Supreme Court justice nor am I an expert on advanced logical debate; but to this humble writer typing from a beat up laptop with a left clicker that only works with persuasion it is shall we say mildly upsetting to think (whether dealing with a controversial subject such as firearms or not) that an explicit and Constitutionally protected right can be nearly overturned in part by such word games. Our Bill of Rights was designed to use clear and precise language to lay down the rights of its citizens and protect them from being harassed in their persons and property by a prying and heavy-handed government (which I might add the framers knew a little something about).

In final summation, the majority concluded the right to bear arms was and still is one of these rights, allowing Americans to protect themselves as long as the right is exercised responsibly and free from laws such as the D.C. ordinances.  The law in question, the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 had made it impossible to not only register and possess guns in the city, but also said that even if a special one-year license was granted to keep a gun it had it be disassembled or disabled via a trigger lock while inside the home.  There was no comment on what use a disassembled firearm would be in a self-defense situation, but one must imagine it might present a considerable obstacle should such an occasion arise.  Thankfully though, despite the narrow and concerning margin of the vote the D.C. vs. Heller case was interpreted correctly and has in fact turned out to be an important victory for those who espouse the authority of the Constitution, the protection of civil liberties for all Americans and conservative small-government.

Let us hope such a victory is the first of many….

Seth is a senior at UNC, double majoring in Political Science and American History.  He is a policy intern with Lawson for Congress.

Debating the War on Drugs normally focuses attention on the obvious: the negative effects drugs have on society and the individuals who use them, the money spent on combating the illicit trade, and whether individuals have the right to choose to consume these substances.

The negative effects this war has on other nations and their people is widely ignored.

Trafficking these products in Central America, West Africa and the Caribbean contributes to instability and endangers national security. In both Colombia and Afghanistan, the illicit drug trade helps fund violent insurgencies which cause large regions of lawlessness, commit hundreds of murders, and actively kill government and allied military forces including, in the case of Afghanistan, our own men and women in uniform.

In Colombia, a 42 year civil war has raged between the government and FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), an authoritarian left-wing organization that has killed countless Colombians and foreigners. Most of Colombia’s 3000 kidnappings are also the work of these revolutionaries. FARC receives $300 million a year by ‘taxing’ the thriving cocaine trade in Colombia, and more than half the world’s coca is grown in FARC controlled territories.

By legalizing and regulating cocaine, any market in the United States could be supplied by legal cultivation in Bolivia, which does not have the problem of a violent insurgency. Since most of the price of cocaine comes from the illegal nature of the product and the risk the suppliers must take, by legalization will hamper FARC’s cash supply and ability to terrorize the countryside.

Meanwhile, southern Afghanistan cultivates 80% of the world’s poppy crop (the plant used to create opiates). 53% of Afghanistan’s GDP now comes from the export of poppies. Currently the Taliban uses this to their advantage, funding themselves with much of the profits. Western troops in the country destroy the crop where they can, but despite our efforts, Afghan poppy production grew 17% last year to hit $4 billion. As a result, the Taliban profited handsomely:

The Taliban earned $200 million to $400 million last year through a 10 percent tax on poppy growers and drug traffickers in areas under its control, Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, said in an interview. He estimates that Afghan poppy farmers and drug traffickers last year earned about $4 billion, half of the country’s national income.

American troops have made gains by adopting counter-insurgency tactics and winning the populace over to our side. However, it’s difficult to win support of impoverished citizens when our troops are physically destroying the people’s primary means of subsistence.

As long as the price of the poppy remains high (once again due to the illegal nature of the product), it remains the best crop with which to provide food for one’s family. We can enforce the ban and destroy the crops, but American and Coalition troops will be seen as the enemy. If we legalize the product and depress the price, the problem will be mitigated through market forces. It will become less profitable to cultivate poppy and the Taliban will not be able to fund themselves with the trade. Farmers will switch their crop to either something to eat themselves or whatever else is most profitable.

The interference with real conflicts is another problem with America’s unconstitutional War on Drugs that must not be overlooked.

For those of you who are unaware, today (Sunday, June 15) is the anniversary of the Magna Carta, the British document that established the tradition of Constitutional law that protects individual liberty in the western world and that serves as the legal inspiration for the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, not many Americans know of this document or appreciate its significance, a by-product of negligence in understanding the importance of our liberties and of maintaining our Constitutional system of government. But while our basic freedoms have been under assault in recent years, so has also been the case in my ancestral homeland, the UK.

This week, the sacred British traditions enshrined in the Magna Carta were dealt a serious blow by Parliament. The Labour Party (the UK’s equivalent of the Democratic Party in the U.S.), who currently controls government under the leadership of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, introduced new legislation that would extend the detention period for terror suspects without charge to 42 days. Whereas the mere presence of detention without charge is a clear violation of Habeas Corpus, a hundred years old principle dictated by the Magna Carta, extending the period of detention to 42 days is a simply unacceptable increase in power of the state and is a serious threat to liberty. It is fundamental to the freedom of the individual that he/she must be allowed to live his/her life without coercion by anyone, as long as there is no coercion of others’ life and liberty. That a person can be held without charge for a crime completely contradicts a free society and establishes the basis for tyranny. This is the initiation of a trend very damaging to the concept of a free British society. What’s to say that in the future, the government won’t ask for the period to be extended to 90 days, or six months, or even a year?

Unfortunately, this legislation passed on Wednesday by a very narrow margin of nine votes, all of which composed by the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (which some suspect may have been the result of a dodgy deal). What is encouraging, though (and surprising, from the perspective of an American) is that the Conservative Party- essentially the UK’s version of the Republican Party- was opposed to the legislation. The Tories (British nickname for the Conservatives) joined the Liberal Democrats (who would be best compared to the left-wing of the Democratic Party here) in fighting the legislation, while most of Labour pushed for it.

But no Tory, or for that matter any other MP, has offered such spirited opposition to the proposal and gone to such extraordinary lengths to defeat it as David Davis, a Shadow Cabinet minister, who this week resigned from Parliament in protest of the Bill’s passage. Mr. Davis, who led the Conservatives’ opposition to the measure, has committed to running in a by-election (when a MP resigns, a special election for the seat called a “by-election” is automatically held) from his district on the platform of protecting civil liberties. In doing so, he gave an eloquent and alarming speech laying out the specific anti-freedom actions pursued by the UK government recently- which reads quite similarly to a list of legislation enacted and being promoted in the US- and boldly initiating a new struggle for British civil liberties.

But while Mr. Davis is promoting a stance in line with his Party’s, this move was truly one of political courage. For one, he resigned from one of the most power seats in the Conservative Party and, effectively, has surrendered any chance he would have at a cabinet post if, as expected, the Tories win power in the next Parliamentary election. The move, according to The Independent, is also said to have angered Tory leader David Cameron with the perception of instability in the Party that has come in the aftermath of the resignation. Cameron, who has been working hard to build momentum for the Conservative Party, who is set to become the next Prime Minister after the next Parliamentary election. All of this gives every indication that Davis is now permanently out of power and out the running to one day be leader of the Conservative Party, which would position him to one day be Prime Minister if the Conservatives hold Parliament under his leadership. This is not exactly a typical quality for a man who very recently made a strong challenge for the leadership of the Conservative Party when it last came up, which would have set him up to be the next Prime Minister of the UK.

Mr. Davis has also opened himself to great public criticism, particularly by the notoriously harsh, yet substantially influential, British media. He has been accused of making a mere self-promoting publicity stunt, the London Times calling it a “disastrous ego trip.” The Sun, a right-leaning publication owned by Rupert Murdoch, accused him of “treachery to David Cameron” in a scathing attack in which they call him a “quitter” and say he has “gone stark raving mad.” Even by media that has been positive to Mr. Davis, such as the Daily Telegraph. Many in the media suspect him of attempting to exploit the situation to engineer public momentum behind him to challenge for Conservative leadership, a notion he has roundly and convincingly rejected.

This historic act by David Davis solidifies him firmly as Britain’s very own Ron Paul. It is an important and inspirational moment in the international movement for liberty, and this is certainly the case for America. Obviously, an act in specified defense of liberty by a politician this powerful and well-known in the cradle of modern Constitutional law of the world qualifies as such. But it is particularly important in that it re-establishes the notion that conservatism- true conservatism- has as one of its fundamental tenants the staunch defense of individual liberty from encroachment by government under any and every pretext. This is absolutely necessary in America, as “conservatism” has come more to resemble the nature of police statism that purges freedom to “promote” security, however ineffective its tactics may be in this regard. While Tory leaders like Davis, Cameron, and former Prime Minister John Major excoriate the British government’s offense on civil liberties; in America, the “conservative” Bush Administration has trampled on the Bill of Rights, while Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain calls the Supreme Court’s rejection of suspension of Habeas Corpus in the Military Commissions Act “one of the worst decisions” in the history of the Supreme Court. A writer at the “conservative” National Review even claimed that the Court’s upholding of Habeas Corpus proclaimed that the America people had “lost to radical Islam.”

As Constitutional lawyer Glen Greenwald explains in this terrific piece on Friday, what the “right” of American politics currently pursues is nothing resembling conservatism, but rather authoritarianism. Basic preconditions to true conservatism are the preservation of tradition and restraint. For America, entails preserving America’s tradition of as a free society rooted in individual liberty and restraint of government from encroaching on this liberty by Constitutional law. Inherent in the actions advocated by “conservative” Republicans like George W. Bush, John McCain, and most of the Republican Party wholly contradict these ideas. In order for the freedom movement to advance in America, conservatism must once again be identified in its true context. Self-identified libertarians (big “L” and small “l”) simply do not amount to a large enough number at this point to ensure victory, and Democrats like David Price who vote to assault our civil liberties through institution of the Patriot Act and the Real ID clearly cannot be trusted completely- if at all- to faithfully carry forth this agenda. The American Right must once again reacquaint itself with its purpose in order to have the numbers and momentum to prevail. In a sense, we who seek to preserve and promote individual liberty- be we self-identified as of the left, right, or the libertarian column- are all true conservatives.

To follow up on my latest post discussing Former Democratic Senator and Presidential Nominee George McGovern’s newly-discovered love of liberty, I paid a visit to a blog that I frequent a lot and where I sometimes post called Freedom Democrats, a group of Democrats who, like Senator McGovern, are very freedom-minded. The main poster at the site, Freedom Democrats, also contributes to my main blog, Liberty Republicans. A few weeks ago, he made a post endorsing the election of B.J. in this district instead of David Price, the incumbent and a member of his own party. I’d like to share this post with all of you here. Make sure you share the view of this Democrat with all of your Democratic friends in the 4th District! Away we go:

Stand up to George Bush: Elect a Republican to Congress!

What in the world could bring me, a self-identified libertarian Democrat, to the point of advocating electing a Republican to Congress?

Two things.

First, a Republican like North Carolina’s BJ Lawson.

For those who don’t know Lawson already, he is arguably one of the most dynamic and exciting libertarian Republican candidates this year. With Jim Forsythe out of the race in New Hampshire, the list of Republican congressional candidates representing a new generation of libertarian politics is lead by BJ Lawson and Virginia’s Amit Singh.

Second, there needs to be a Democratic incumbent who is failing to stand up for the district he is elected to represent. In North Carolina’s 4th District, we have such a problem.

Ironically, a front page story at the liberal blog Daily Kos helps make the case.

The great minds in Bush’s Homeland Security department came up with a doozie this year: let’s move the facility where we study the most infectious and dangerous disease among livestock from the isolated island it’s now on (accessible only by ferry or helicopter) and put it where there are lots of livestock operations. Brilliant!

The Associated Press has the details on a plan to move the nation’s leading center for research into animal diseases from Plum Island to the heartland of America:

The only U.S. facility allowed to research the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease experienced several accidents with the feared virus, the Bush administration acknowledged Friday.

A 1978 release of the virus into cattle holding pens on Plum Island, N.Y., triggered new safety procedures. While that incident was previously known, the Homeland Security Department told a House committee there were other accidents inside the government’s laboratory.

The accidents are significant because the administration is likely to move foot-and-mouth research from the remote island to one of five sites on the U.S. mainland near livestock herds. This has raised concerns about the risks of a catastrophic outbreak of the disease, which does not sicken humans but can devastate the livestock industry.

One of the five likely sites of the research facility is the town of Butner in Granville County, just outside of the 4th District and the Durham metropolitan area.

Here is where the incumbent in the race stands:

My current assessment is that the Granville County site would be a good location for the NBAF, and that our region of North Carolina would reap many economic and agricultural benefits from such a facility.

Here is BJ Lawson’s view:

As a citizen, physician, and father, I strongly oppose NBAF in our backyard. Join me in opposing David Price, and opposing NBAF. As your Congressman, I will work for the people of the Fourth District by seeking to make our federal government smaller, not larger. I will work to preserve private property rights, and not encourage unaccountable environmental hazards in our backyards.

The AP article outlines a government simulations of a simulated foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Kansas:

A simulated outbreak of the disease in 2002 — part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called “Crimson Sky” — ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation’s National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.

Stand up to George Bush and his Department of Homeland Security, elect Republican BJ Lawson.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I have just read a policy brief submitted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to Rep. Paul Ryan, the Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee. The brief, written by CBO Director Peter Orszag and prepared by his staff, discusses projects of our current fiscal path, its impact on our economy if left unresolved, the impact of slowing the growth of the deficit, and the impact of financing the deficit completely with tax increases. Here are some significant points in this very sobering brief.

On the rise of the amount of spending and the federal debt (not the total national debt) as a percentage of GDP:

In December 2007, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published The Long- Term Budget Outlook, which presented a long-term projection of the budget under an alternative fiscal scenario,” representing one interpretation of what continuing today’s underlying fiscal policy would mean. CBO projected that, under that scenario, spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security would rise rapidly, and federal outlays excluding interest (primary spending) would climb from about 18 percent of GDP in 2007 to 28 percent in 2050 and to 35 percent in 2082 (see Table 1).2 Because the scenario also assumes that revenues as a share of GDP would not increase much over the 75-year period, CBO projected that the federal budget deficit and federal debt held by the public would rise sharply. By CBO’s reckoning, federal debt under that scenario would climb from about 37 percent of GDP in fiscal year 2007 to more than 290 percent in 2050—a large figure by any standard (see Figure 1). Since the founding of the United States, federal debt surpassed 100 percent of GDP only for a brief period during and just after World War II (see Figure 2 on page 4).

On the economic impact of staying this course:

According to CBO’s simulations using that model, the rising federal budget deficits under this scenario would cause real gross national product (GNP) per person to stop growing and then to begin to contract in the late 2040s (see Figure 3).4 By 2060, real GNP per person would be about 17 percent below its peak in the late 2040s and would be declining at a rapid pace. Beyond 2060, projected deficits would become so large and unsustainable that the model cannot calculate their effects.

Despite the substantial economic costs generated by deficits under this model, such estimates greatly understate the potential loss to economic growth under this scenario. In particular, they are based on a model in which people do not anticipate future changes in debt; as a result, the model predicts a gradual change in the economy as federal debt rises. In reality, the economic effects of rapidly growing debt would probably be much more disorderly and could occur well before the time frame indicated in the scenario. If foreign investors began to expect a crisis, they might significantly reduce their purchases of U.S. securities, causing the exchange value of the dollar to plunge, interest rates to climb, consumer prices to shoot up, and the economy to contract sharply. Amid the anticipation of declining profits and rising inflation and interest rates, stock prices might fall and consumers might sharply reduce their purchases. In such circumstances, the economic problems in this country would probably spill over to the rest of the world and seriously weaken the economies of the United States’ trading partners.

On slowing the growth of the deficit:

Under the target path, federal outlays excluding interest (that is, primary spending) would rise from 18 percent of GDP in 2007 to 20 percent in 2030 and then decline to 19 percent in 2050 and 13 percent in 2082. For almost all years, revenues would remain at 18.5 percent of GDP. Under those assumptions, the budget deficit would gradually increase to about 6 percent of GDP in 2040 but then would decline to almost zero in 2075. By 2082, the target path would generate a budget surplus of about 2 percent of GDP. The primary budget (that is, the budget excluding interest on the public debt) would reach balance around 2050. With possible economic feedbacks not included, federal debt held by the public would increase to a peak of 120 percent of GDP around 2060 and then would decline to 64 percent in 2082. Thus, compared with the alternative fiscal scenario, the target path would substantially reduce future budget deficits and federal debt.

The target path provided by the Committee staff would be economically sustainable. Under that target, real GNP per person (in 2007 dollars) would continue to grow over the entire projection period, rising from about $45,000 in 2007 to about $165,000 in 2082 (see Figure 4). The economy would be considerably stronger under the target path than it would be under the alternative fiscal scenario. By 2060 (the last year for which it is possible to simulate the effects of the alternative fiscal policy using the textbook growth model), real GNP per person under the target path would be about 85 percent higher than that under the alternative fiscal scenario.

On the impact of raising taxes to finance all projected spending:

… tax rates would have to be raised by substantial amounts to finance the level of spending projected for 2082 under CBO’s alternative fiscal scenario. With no economic feedbacks taken into account and under an assumption that raising marginal tax rates was the only mechanism used to balance the budget, tax rates would have to more than double. The tax rate for the lowest tax bracket would have to be increased from 10 percent to 25 percent; the tax rate on incomes in the current 25 percent bracket would have to be increased to 63 percent; and the tax rate of the highest bracket would have to be raised from 35 percent to 88 percent. The top corporate income tax rate would also increase from 35 percent to 88 percent. Such tax rates would significantly reduce economic activity and would create serious problems with tax avoidance and tax evasion. Revenues would probably fall significantly short of the amount needed to finance the growth of spending; therefore, tax rates at such levels would probably not be economically feasible.

If federal outlays excluding interest did not rise to their 2082 share of GDP (35 percent), but instead were stabilized at the share of GDP projected for 2050 (28 percent), simulations can provide some guidance about the possible economic effects of financing additional spending with a proportional across-the-board increase in all personal and corporate tax rates.6 (The increase would apply to the regular rate schedule, the rates under the alternative minimum tax, and the preferential tax rates on dividends and capital gains.) To carry out the analysis, CBO used two different models of economic behavior—the textbook growth model and what is termed a stochastic overlapping generations model—to reflect the range of opinion among economists about how people respond to taxes. Both models take into account the dynamic effects of
higher tax rates on the economy and how those changes in the economy would in turn affect revenues. However, both models are simplified representations of the economy and therefore provide only a rough guide to the potential effects of the tax scenarios on the economy.

In the textbook growth model, economic output depends on the number of hours of work supplied by workers, the size of the capital stock, and total factor productivity (in simple terms, the state of technological know-how). The labor supply response is projected by CBO’s tax microsimulation model, which, for a sample of taxpayers, provides a detailed representation of individual income taxes. The textbook growth model assumes that households do not explicitly consider expected future policies when they make plans—that is, the model incorporates no forward-looking behavior. Moreover, the model does not account for the way that changes in marginal tax rates on capital income might influence investment, though it does account for the effects of budget deficits on investment.

In the stochastic overlapping generations model, households are forward-looking and their members decide how much to work and save in order to make themselves as well off as possible over their lifetime.9 They face uncertainty about future wages and the length of their life and may be subject to borrowing constraints.

Before accounting for economic feedbacks through the models, CBO estimates that individual income tax rates would have to be raised by about 90 percent to finance the projected increase in spending between 2007 and 2050. The lowest tax rate on individual income would have to be increased from 10 percent to 19 percent; the tax rate on incomes in the current 25 percent bracket would have to be increased to 47 percent; and the highest statutory rate would have to be raised from 35 percent to 66 percent. The top corporate income tax rate would also have to increase from 35 percent to 66 percent. Those estimates of tax rate changes are meant to be illustrative; official estimates of tax rate and revenue changes for any specific proposal would be prepared by the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Under this scenario, real GNP per person in 2050 could be between 5 percent and 20 percent less than what it would be if revenues and spending in 2050 were the same shares of GDP as in 2007. Those economic effects could be substantially reduced if the tax policies used to finance the additional spending did not distort economic behavior as much as increases in income tax rates would. In particular, tax policies that relied less on proportional increases in marginal income tax rates could have substantially smaller effects on the economy. For example, raising revenues by broadening the income tax base and eliminating various tax preferences (such as the deductions for mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and health insurance) would have a smaller effect on real GNP than would a proportional increase in tax rates.

This is a very sobering account of our nation’s financial status prepared by one of the most well-respected public finance economists around in Orszag, who could hardly be considered a free market libertarian/conservative alarmist given his previous history with the Brookings Institute, a left-leaning think tank. While Dr. Orszag implores that we must slow the growth of deficits, which is surely true, he also states that the damage due to deficits is likely underestimated because the model used does not account for forward-looking and panicky behavior of agents that is unquantifiable and would likely lead to more disastrous consequences. As Orszag’s report demonstrates, we cannot simply tax our way out of this problem, as the tax increases necessary to fund these increases in spending will certainly cause disastrous economic effects and likely wouldn’t even generate enough revenue to fund th spending, given the negative revenue impacts of the economic crash that apparently are not dealt with by the model.

For an additional sobering account of our nation’s long-term finances, I invite all of you to view these two videos by David Walker, the just recently retired Comptroller of the Currency.

As an economics and math major at UNC, and someone with an interest in, well, working and making money in the future, these assessments by respected financial analysts scare me. The bottom line is that if we want to ensure that this absolutely crushing financial burden of our government does not come to pass, we must do the work now to cut spending, eliminate the deficits quickly, and greatly restrain the long-term growth of entitlement programs. We cannot tax our way out, and we cannot grow our way out.

To do this work, we need to have a responsible Representative of the 4th District in Washington who demonstrates a thorough concern for and understanding of this problem and who will is willing to exercise courage in telling the truth about an issue when it may not be politically expedient to do so. Voting for a Concurrent Budget Resolution that plans to add $2 trillion in debt over the next five fiscal years, and then calls the Resolution “fiscally responsible,” does not demonstrate the type of responsible representation that is needed to tackle this problem. Clearly, based on this alone, David Price cannot be trusted in representing our district to address this issue.

It is time for a true Revolution. It is time for a change in Washington and in the seat held by the people of the 4th District of North Carolina. To address this issue, we need a Representative who has the experience of starting, owning, and operating a business from scratch and growing it into a financial success that allowed he and his family to emerge out of their own hefty burden of debt. We need a doctor who has made a career in the medical sector who understands why costs in health care, a major contributor to the projected financial burden of the federal government, are increasing so sharply and how we can abate them. If we as a district want to tackle this grand challenge head on and preserve a bright economic future for our country and for future generations, we must elect Dr. William “B.J.” Lawson to be the next Representative of the 4th U.S. House District of North Carolina.

For more insight into our nation’s fiscal troubles, I would like to recommend two books to all of you. The first is Running on Empty by Pete Peterson, a former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and co-founder of the Concord Coalition, an organization advocating fiscal responsibility and spending restraint in Washington. This is the book I read that really opened my eyes to how bad our fiscal situation, explaining well we got into the mess, the consequences of maintaining the course, and why both Democrats and Republicans are to blame.

The second book is The Coming Generational Storm by Lawrence Kotlikoff, a very well-renowned and respected public finance economist at Boston University. This book is newer and a bit more updated, and the tone is more academic, but it is equally as sobering and powerful.