Reason Magazine - Contributors

Watching the Kids

mhanson@reason.com (Macy Hanson) — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 09:42:00 EDT

Children in the United Kingdom will soon have a new reason to eat their vegetables: The government is watching.

In June child care practitioners and child protection experts gathered at the London School of Economics to voice concern about the Children Act 2004, one of the biggest intrusions into parental rights in U.K. history. The act, passed following the abuse and death of an 8-year-old girl, mandates a £224 million interagency database that will track the development of Britain’s 12 million children.

Meant to be fully operational in two years, the system will combine existing databases to create a unified file on each person under 18. Government workers, such as teachers, social workers, and law enforcement officials, will be required to report “information as to the existence of any cause for concern” and log their comments in the corresponding file.

What might be “cause for concern”? Given the broad language of the bill, it’s hard to say. But critics cite a government requirement that kids get at least “five fruits and vegetables” every day as evidence of the program’s broad reach.

The June conference in London is among the first stirrings of opposition to the database, which some child care experts say will hinder rather than help efforts to identify those severe cases that merit government intervention. As Jonathan Bamford, assistant commissioner at the Information Commissioner’s Office, asked the London Telegraph, “When you are looking for a needle in a haystack, is it necessary to keep building bigger haystacks?”

D.C., the 51st Police State

mhanson@reason.com (Macy Hanson) — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 14:11:00 EDT

We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Well, that and anyone under the age of 17.

So follows the logic of the Washington, D.C., City Council, which, in response to a devastating "crime wave," has passed emergency legislation that strengthens curfew laws and greatly expands the powers of the Metropolitan Police Department.

This emergency legislation, passed on July 20, makes it illegal for anyone under the age of 17 to be out past 10 P.M., D.C. resident or not. The law also requires the installation of surveillance cameras in undisclosed residential neighborhoods and grants police instant access to previously-confidential files on juveniles.

The law is effective from July 31 to August 30, although Mayor Anthony A. Williams has expressed his desire to see these changes made permanent when the Council reconvenes for business in the early Fall.

The Enhanced Crime Prevention and Abatement Emergency Amendment Act of 2006 gives the Mayor the authority to set alternative curfew hours. (The Juvenile Curfew Act of 1995 already prohibits 16-and-unders from being out past midnight.) According to a government press release:

Mayor Williams's emergency anti-crime legislation centers on authorizing Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey to deploy officers on a six-day work week. The extra manpower means at least 300 more uniformed officers on the streets. The plan also provided the Mayor with the authority to modify curfew time, and it authorized the expansion of closed circuit television cameras to be used in some neighborhoods for both crime prevention and investigation.

One portion of the new law not mentioned in this press release is that it provides police with immediate access to information on juveniles' involvement with the court system and their experiences with the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency, the unfocused and overburdened agency that has the responsibility of holding juveniles picked up on curfew violations. The Metropolitan Police Department, meanwhile, has not announced specifics on where thee surveillance cameras will be installed, what information will be collected and how this information will be used.

If the Enhanced Crime Prevention and Abatement Emergency Amendment Act of 2006 tells us anything, it's that D.C. government rules not only with an iron fist but with a head full of rocks. The impetus for this expansion of police powers—the deadly crime wave sweeping the streets of our nation's capitol—does not seem to exist.

As of July 31, when the law took effect, D.C. had experienced a 1.9 percent decline in its homicide rate from last year. And compared to other years (last year's number was abnormally low), the rate of violent crime is dramatically lower than is typical for the District of Columbia.

All of this can only mean one thing: it is an election year. Similar measures have been introduced throughout the country. Philadelphia residents recently approved an ordinance that required police to install surveillance cameras in residential neighborhoods, and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino has voiced his support for curbing all sorts of freedoms, from the random searching of vehicles entering Massachusetts to adopting strict regulations on Boston-area pay phones.

The D.C. law has drawn considerable opposition, and youth rights groups like Facilitating Leadership in Youth have joined with the American Civil Liberties Union to protest the emergency legislation. But hysteria about crime is always an easy sell. A Washington Times editorial compares the current crime wave to the crack explosion of the l980s.

"The sense of urgency guided City Hall toward its shift on law and order," the Times claims. "It was a big step toward fundamental policy change, and we're confident the momentum will shift yet again with the elections. Nonetheless, as we have editorialized before, Chief Ramsey and the Metropolitan Police Department need every available tool at their disposal to prevent and combat crime—regardless of where it occurs."

The Times editorial, which summarizes the argument in favor of the emergency legislation, makes two important, if inadvertent, points. First, it does not hide the fact that this issue is primarily one of political gain. Second, it is unapologetic with regard to the at-all-costs mentality of the "law-and-order" crowd to which the D.C. Council is pandering for votes.

The D.C. statehood movement may be stalled, but the D.C. police-state movement moves full steam ahead.

Straight Talk Is Cheap

mhanson@reason.com (Macy Hanson) — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EDT

What happens when Mr. Smith becomes Washington? Look no further than Arizona's Senator John McCain, who is busily plotting another run at the Oval Office. This time, he is letting his political action committee (PAC) do the dirty work.

Back in 2001, you'll recall, maverick John McCain, a man so honest he once chopped down a cherry tree just so Charles Keating could throw him $200,000 in wooden nickels from across the Potomac, introduced the controversial McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform leg islation and urged his fellow-politicians to clean up.

On the Senate floor, McCain claimed that his law would

...help change the public's widespread belief that politicians have no greater purpose than their own reelection and to that end we will respond disproportionately to the needs of those interests that can best finance our ambition, even if those interests conflict with the public interest and with the governing philosophy we once sought office to advance.

McCain's law passed, and survived a Supreme Court challenge. With government corruption finally out of the political process, McCain did the only reasonable thing: work toward his own reelection by responding disproportionately to those interests that could best finance his ambition.

Straight Talk America PAC, which pays for McCain's travel for speeches and allows the senator to distribute campaign funds to other candidates and state Republican parties, is a clear sign that, for all his reformer rhetoric, McCain is a part of the establishment he so frequently criticizes. McCain has already used his PAC to funnel money to ultra-conservative special interest groups and candidates.

McCain is kowtowing to groups that just a few years ago he labeled "agents of intolerance." But not only is McCain—that independently-minded champion of the "little guy"—backtracking (see his retraction of the phrase "agents of intolerance" in a recent interview with Meet the Press host Tim Russert, along with the infamous convocation speech at Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University), he is showering social conservatives with cash.

Consider his PAC's spending choices. During the FEC recording period for the month of May alone, Straight Talk America reports giving away $803,517.45 to cover McCain's speeches and to help fund Republican candidates and special interest groups across the country.

What kind of candidates benefit from McCain's largesse? Meet South Carolina's own Sen. Jim DeMint. DeMint argues that homosexuals and single mothers who cohabit outside of marriage are unfit to teach in public schools, campaigned to ban the abortion pill, and supports jail time for search engine operators who offer pay-to-play deals. McCain endorsed the Senator and cut him a $5,000 check—the maximum amount allowed by federal elections law.

And then there's Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina, whose solution to the pledge of allegiance controversy is to "start by agreeing that we want the words 'under God' to remain in the pledge of allegiance." After that, says Inglis, who never shies from taking a controversial position, we all must "agree that it's important to do the right things in the right way."

McCain's PAC gave many of its largest donations to candidates in important primary states like South Carolina, New Hampshire, Iowa and Virginia. Nearly every formidable Republican in South Carolina has gotten a check, and McCain gave $3,500 to both the South Carolina Senate and House GOP Caucuses. Focusing on the South makes sense for McCain: It was his poor showing in the southern primaries (particularly in South Carolina, where then-foe George W. Bush insinuated that McCain had an illegitimate African-American child) that eventually did him in during his first go at the presidency.

Yet McCain shares the love with right-wing special interest groups, whose support would score a major victory for McCain GOP primary aspirations. That's why McCain gave gifts valued at $ 4432.13 and $ 2155.44 to the Pro-Life Campaign Committee and the Republican Issues Committee, respectively.

"As long as the wealthiest Americans and richest organized interests can make the six- and seven-figure donations to political parties and gain the special access to power that such generosity confers on the donor, most Americans will dismiss the most virtuous politician's claim of patriotism," McCain declared to CNN in 2002.

Now, McCain holds the reins of a powerful and wealthy organization, which supports conservative candidates, conservative special interest groups and the actual Republican Party itself.

McCain isn't breaking any campaign finance laws. He wrote them so he wouldn't have to. But he's guilty of campaigning in exactly the manner he asserts is harming our nation. Senator McCain isn't reforming Washington. He is Washington.