FC: Cato: Germ warfare treaty harms privacy, don't ban Net-gambling

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Cato Daily Dispatch
July 25, 2001
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.cato.org/dispatch/07-25-01d.html

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* U.S. Says No To Another Global Treaty
* Even More Money For Colombian Drug War
* Lawmakers Seek To Ban Online Gambling
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U.S. SAYS NO TO ANOTHER GLOBAL TREATY

The United States -- already facing European criticism for rejecting a
climate change accord -- said today it was abandoning a U.N. draft accord
designed to give teeth to an anti-germ warfare treaty, according to the
Associated Press. (
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010725/ts/un_biological_ban_7.html )

Nations have been negotiating since 1995 to develop an accord on how to
enforce the germ warfare treaty, painstakingly working through
disagreements over the 210-page document. The draft is intended to create
a way to inspect sites suspected of developing biological weapons without
interfering with legitimate industries and facilities.

"In our assessment, the draft protocol would put national security and
confidential business information at risk," said U.S. chief negotiator
Donald A. Mahley, effectively killing nearly seven years of negotiations.

In "Constitutional Problems with Enforcing the Biological Weapons
Convention," ( http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-061es.html ) Ronald
D. Rotunda notes that while the United States should continue to renounce
the use of biological weapons, "the [enforcement] protocol will undermine
the privacy rights that U.S. citizens expect and that the Fourth Amendment
guards, will interfere with the safeguards that the appointments clause
was designed to guarantee, and will compromise the intellectual property
rights that the Fifth Amendment protects."

Instead of allowing foreign inspectors access only to public property, the
enforcement protocol would expand access to allow searches of private
individuals and companies "without the strict protections of the Fourth
Amendment and its requirement that a search warrant be issued by a neutral
magistrate only after a finding of probable cause," says Rotunda. "The
protocol's search of private property must be unusually thorough to have
any chance of working effectively, but such invasive searches create a
greater risk of a violation."

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EVEN MORE MONEY FOR COLOMBIAN DRUG WAR

The House of Representatives yesterday approved a foreign aid spending
bill featuring $676 million to fight the Colombian drug trade, rejecting a
Democratic-led effort to shift some of the money to other priorities,
according to Reuters. (
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010724/pl/colombia_usa_funds_dc_1.html )

The House endorsed the $15.2 billion foreign aid bill on a 381-46 vote
after defeating several attempts to cut spending on President Bush's
Andean Initiative, which would provide drug-fighting money to Colombia and
six neighboring South American countries.

"We should not surrender Colombia to the drug lords," said Rep. Mark Kirk,
an Illinois Republican.

In "Declaring an Armistice in the International Drug War," (
http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-026.html ) Vice President for
Defense and Foreign Policy Studies Ted Galen Carpenter demanded an
armistice to the failed international drug war that has hurt all sides of
the conflict. In "Time to End the Drug War," (
http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-03-97.html ) Assistant Director of the
Project on Global Economic Liberty Jacobo L. Rodriguez explains that
"efforts to eradicate crops and interdiction of traffic -- that is,
efforts to reduce the supply of drugs -- put only a small dent in the
profit margins of traffickers."

Earlier this year, the Cato Institute hosted "Plan Colombia: Should We
Escalate the War on Drugs?" featuring Prof. Russell Crandall of Davidson
College and Amb. James F. Mack of the State Department's Bureau of
International Narcotics & Law Enforcement Affairs. The forum can be viewed
live online. ( http://www.cato.org/events/010313pf.html )

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LAWMAKERS SEEK TO BAN ONLINE GAMBLING

A group of U.S. lawmakers yesterday vowed to gear up efforts to ban
gambling on the Internet, pushing for legislation that would, among other
things, bar the use of credit cards for online wagers, according to
Reuters. (
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010724/pl/tech_internet_gambling_dc_1.html
)

The lawmakers -- with key members from both the House and Senate -- told a
House panel that legislation would be introduced in the next two weeks
seeking an outright ban on online gambling, an industry that has grown
dramatically over the past several years.

These bills would go beyond a measure that has already been introduced in
the House that aims to curb such gambling by barring the use of many
financial instruments to pay gambling debts to online casinos or
sports-wagering sites.

"We're going to pass legislation in this Congress that will ... make
Internet gambling illegal. I'm convinced of that," said Sen. Jon Kyl, who
sponsored a bill last year with such a ban that had passed the Senate.

Tom Bell writes in "Gambler's Web: Online Betting Can't Be Stopped -- and
Why Washington Shouldn't" ( http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-01-99.html )
that licensed, land-based gambling businesses and the 37 states with
lotteries won't be able to stifle their online gambling competition.
Controlling electronic gambling would be an enormous technical feat. He
goes on to state in "Internet Gambling: Popular, Inexorable, and
(Eventually) Legal" ( http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-336es.html ) that
gambling will inevitably be legalized. In "Don't Give Up the Right to
Gamble," ( http://www.cato.org/dailys/06-18-99.html ) mathematician Guy
Calvert shows that gambling is a natural human endeavor, entrenched in
American history and that "any coercive effort by the government to
eliminate or reduce gambling must compete against that most formidable
opponent, human nature." Calvert is also the author of the "Gambling
America: Balancing the Risks of Gambling and Its Regulation." (
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-349es.html )

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In today's Daily Commentary: How Social Security cheats African-Americans.
By Michael Tanner. http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-25-01.html

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