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REASON Express July 20, 1998 Vol. 1 No. 10 - - Seizure Slowed - - The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled unanimously that defendents whose property is forfeited in criminal proceedings are entitled to a jury trial before their stuff can be confiscated. The decision sent prosecutors in the state into a tizzy, as they fear, quite correctly, that juries will not be so quick to take property from those who have not been convicted, or even charged, with a crime. Plus, the added cost of trials will likely deter prosecutors from even attempting seizures in many cases. State prosecutors have 2,500 forfeiture actions pending any given time. Last year they seized $16.9 million worth of property. Lois McDermott, a 67-year-old widow whose son was convicted of dealing heroin in her 1990 Honda, brought the case in question. The Monmouth County Prosecutor seized the car two years ago. McDermott's attorney, Elizabeth Macron, relied on the fact that New Jersey incorporated British common law into its jurisprudence. Since defendents were entitled to jury trials in colonial-era asset forfeiture cases, and no specific law, constitutional provision or precedent had ever repudiated this right, it was found to still exist. New Jersey's attorney general may ask the court to reconsider. http://www.nj.com/news/stories/0716property.html Reason Senior Editor Jacob Sullum looked at the seizure frenzy at http://www.reason.com/sullum/070198.html - - Science 1, EPA 0 - - A federal judge ruled that the EPA jumped the gun in declaring secondhand cigarette smoke a carcinogen. Many states and localities, in turn, took the EPA's ruling and ran with it, implementing smoking bans in public places. Judge Thomas Osteen took the feds to the woodshed in his ruling. "EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun; excluded industry by violating (the Indoor Air Quality Act's) procedural requirements; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the Agency's public conclusion, and aggressively … establish(ed) a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict (tobacco) products and to influence public opinion," Osteen wrote. Ouch. Reason Senior Editor Jacob Sullum sniffed out smoke facts at http://www.reason.com/sullum/031898.html and http://www.reason.com/sullum/102297.html Steven Milloy's "Secondhand Smoke-and-Mirrors" can be found at http://www.junkscience.com/news/mirrors.html Read the Congressional Research Service's report on secondhand smoke at http://www.forces.org/pages/crs11-95.htm - -Wire Tapped - - Louis "Backdoor" Freeh has worked his magic on the Senate Appropriations Committee to get a provision in the Justice Dept. funding bill which would require phone companies to give cops the precise location of cellular phone users. To top it off, a court order, needed for run-of-mill wiretaps, may not be needed for Lou's roaming tracker. The situations that would allow a non-court ordered location ID would include such catchall occurrences as the suspicion of a felony, pursuit of a fugitive, or threats to human safety. Freeh is also angling to kick the Federal Communications Commission out of the loop on the issue. Cell phone makers had appealed to the FCC after the FBI continued to push for new powers in talks designed to make sure cell phones were at least as tappable as land-lines. In a twist sure to bring conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork, the FBI would use technology that is in place to allow 911 emergency operators to pinpoint the locations of cellular callers. "This is very close to a dragnet search, and I'm not clear you should be able to do this even with a warrant," said Richard Epstein, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. "I think they've gone too far on this one," Epstein told the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/biztech/articles/17tap.html Richard Epstein's book Simple Rules for a Complex World was reviewed at http://www.reason.com/9511/EPSTEINbk.html Reason interviewed Epstein at http://www.reason.com/9504/epstein.apr.html - - Spam Over Easy - - As expected, the Federal Trade Commission has waded into the spam email dispute with a plan to outlaw fake return addresses on unsolicited commercial e-mail. But the plan does not go far enough for some anti-spam activists who want even stronger restrictions on email as a marketing tool. The FTC report received input from many big Internet players including America Online, AT&T, IBM and Microsoft. But it is the participation of the Direct Marketing Association that set off alarm bells among the loudest spam critics. The FTC has tough job ahead. Anti-fraud measures are not likely to satisfy those who demand a level of cyber-privacy not found in the real world. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_display/0,3441,2119409,00.html Reason Online's Breaking Issue on privacy and the Internet is at http://www.reason.com/bipriv.html - -CyberRecords- - Not exactly an A-list guest even in at his hottest in the '80s, rocker Billy Squier is still one of the bigger names to embrace Internet music. He signed a deal with J-Bird Records, an Internet-based label. J-Bird does its marketing and retailing via Web pages, avoiding the hassle of in-store distribution deals that can be very costly. While some big labels are still wary of the Internet, the little guys may end up blazing new trails. http://www.mediacentral.com/Magazines/MediaDaily/news/07_13_1998.reutr-story-N13294182.html - - Norway Or the Highway- - In the name of the ever-elusive even playing field, Norway's government has taken steps to steer men into jobs traditionally held by women. Laws which shepherd women into male-dominated fields have been amended to do the inverse, too. From now on, female-dominated professions like child care, early teaching, and child welfare must seek out more men. "Equality will be strengthened by a more even proportion of sexes in education and child care," Minister of Families and Children Valgerd Svarstad Haugland decreed. Quotas will be in place for the underrepresented professions and employers will be required to tilt toward men if faced with two equally qualified candidates. - - Sickly Health Bill - - Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) is rushing a "patients' rights" bill to the floor, lest Republicans be caught without one in the last few weeks of the congressional session. The consensus among GOP mucky-mucks is that some kind of patients rights bill must be moved to blunt what is perceived as winning Democratic issue for November. At the same time comes news that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the patients' rights bill the Democrats want will raise health insurance premiums by 4 percent for all Americans. Republicans dispute this saying the number would be much higher, essentially arguing that their legislation is best because it will raise premiums only a little bit. The question politicians dare not ask is; do Americans want their health premiums to go up, at all? Of course, that would shatter the something for nothing Beltway illusion. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-07/15/054l-071598-idx.html Reason Washington Editor Michael W. Lynch looked at health care follies at http://www.reason.com/opeds/lynch120897.html http://www.reason.com/9802/ed.lynch.html and http://www.reason.com/9807/ed.lynch.html AEI fellow Karlyn Bowman actually asked Americans what they think of HMOs at http://www.aei.org/oti/oti9283.htm - - Mulderized and Scullified - - It is an idea out of "The X-Files;" the Clinton administration is working to implement a national "health identifier" which would track the medical histories of every American. Insurers and public health cultists salivate at the idea of reducing patients to numbers, but cannot explain exactly why such private information should be amassed in a huge federal database. Several bills in Congress would pre-empt the national health ID by either granting new protections to health data or by allowing citizens to opt out of their government's ID system. Note link will expire on 7/21. http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/healthcare-code.html - - Tony, Hun. Hun, Tony. - - Another Rodham, this one Anthony, brother of the First Lady, decided to jump into the news pages. Mr. Rodham up and visited Cambodia on behalf of unnamed business clients just weeks before a crucial UN brokered election. The U.S. State Dept. frets the visit will be interpreted by Cambodian voters as U.S backing for incumbent President Hun Sen. As a bonus, a week after his brother-in-law blanketed the airwaves with anti-drug messages, Rodham stayed at a hotel owned by an alleged narcotics trafficker. Reason Senior Editor Nick Gillespie targeted the new wave of anti-drug spots at http://www.reason.com/opeds/nick071598.html QUICK HITS
- - Quote of the Week - - "The drafters of the 1776 (state) constitution did not have a war on drugs on their hands. Their children were not dying from the poisons of drugs," New Jersey Attorney General Peter Verniero, explaining why jury trials are an anachronistic luxury. - - Property Wrongs - - The Senate effectively killed a bill which would've made it easier to challenge state and local land-use regulations in federal court. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-07/14/056l-071498-idx.html - - XXX Marks the Site - - An Internet Service Provider hopes to cut through all the concern about online porn by setting up the equivalent of a cyber red-light district. A new .XXX domain, the in place of .com or .org, would signify adult content to all, making it easier to block access for kids, he argues. http://www.abcnews.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/dotxxx970715.html - - The Little Chip that Could - - Free-speech supporters broke the 56-bit Data Encryption Standard code using $250,000 worth of equipment. The feds have more or less insisted such a thing was impossible and that 40-bit encryption is all most folks would ever need. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/biztech/articles/17encrypt.html http://www.thestandard.net/articles/article_display/0,1449,1115,00.html?01 - - Oh that? That's Next. - - The General Accounting Office found that the outfit charged with hooked up the nation's schools to "below cost" Internet connections has spent $18.8 million without yet hooking up anybody to the Internet. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/07/cyber/articles/17erate.html#1 - - Euro-Disney, Watch Out! - - Pop star Michael Jackson may yet build a $500 million theme park in Warsaw, Poland. "The park will incorporate universal topics of interest to young people... as well as Polish history, tradition and legends," Warsaw mayor Marcin Swiecicki said.
PROGRAM NOTE John Stossel will have a piece about ever-expanding safety regulation and government paternalism on the July 27 (9pm Eastern) edition of 20/20 on ABC. Reason Express is made possible by a grant from
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