From: reasonexpress@reason.com ("Reason Express")
To: reason-express@sonic.sparklist.com ("Reason's e-mail newsletter")
Subject: Reason Express - November 26, 2002
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 04:16:45 -0800


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------Multipart-Boundary-xxj2BKh.omoWQ---
Content-Type: text/plain;
 charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit


Reason Express

Reason's Weekly Dispatch
By Jeff A. Taylor and the Reason staff

Back Issues: http://www.reason.com/re/re.html
Subscribe: http://www.reason.com/re/subscribe.html
Send Feedback: mailto:reasonexpress@reason.com
   
Visit http://www.reason.com/re/rextext.txt for the plain text version of
Reason Express.
   
Visit http://www.reason.com/re/current.shtml for the html version.Reason
Express


November 26, 2002
Vol. 5, No. 49

In this issue:
 
1. Freedom is Info
2. Money Trail  
3. Pier to Pier  
4. Quick Hits
5. Forced Feeding - and other highlights from Reason Online
6. From Reason's print edition
7. News and Events



Debunking the Doomsters!

Environmental fear mongers have succeeded in spreading their dismal
visions of a poisoned, overpopulated, resource-depleted world spiraling
down into ecological ruin.

In his new book, Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths, Reason Science
Correspondent Ronald Bailey assembles some of the most respected
researchers in the country to explode the myths behind these doom and
gloom scenarios, and expose how the environmental movement uses false
science to scare us to death and stymie progress.

Buy it now!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0761536604/ref%3Dnosim/reasonmagazineA/103-8227741-3717450





Reason Express is made possible by a grant from The DBT Group
( http://www.dbtgroup.com/ ), manufacturers of affordable, high-performance
mainframe systems and productivity software.




1. Freedom is Info

That great American political impulse to do some thing rather than 
the right thing has finally birthed the Homeland Security 
Department, in all its mutant glory. It is hard to imagine that a 
484-page bill could contain so many bad ideas, but there is one 
theme that unites them: that the federal government requires more 
information about private citizens in order to keep them safe from harm.

But that has it exactly backwards. Private citizens need more 
information about their federal government in order to stay safe 
from harm.

A torrent of info washing over the federal watchers will merely help 
to obscure actual threats. And under the new info-hoarding rules, 
the failures of the system will never trickle out to the public, 
making corrective action impossible. The net result will be less 
security, not more.

All that is wrongheaded with the Homeland approach is evident in the 
Total Information Awareness program it will help bring into being. 
This Pentagon research project aims to develop a database of every 
transaction in the country. Why? Because "knowledge is security."

And don't worry about privacy, the program's boosters assure us. "I 
find it somewhat counterintuitive that people are not concerned that 
telemarketers and insurance companies can acquire this data but feel 
tremendous trepidation if a government ventures into this arena," 
attorney David Rivkin told Fox News. "To me it just smacks of paranoia."

Well, one big difference just might be that we know what 
telemarketers want to do. They want to sell us stuff and make money. 
There is literally no telling what the government will do with the 
same information.

Travel and financial transactions will be monitored, as will the 
purchase of dangerous materials, which certainly means guns and 
someday might mean "too much" motor fuel.

Pay for the wrong item in the wrong place, and you might just end up 
on some kind of watch list. That list may or may not be 
cross-checked against other databases in order to build up a 
"profile." After all, it isn't possible to tell if you've deviated 
from your profile in some suspicious manner unless there is a 
profile of you.

Read between the lines and you'll see that that's clearly what the 
info warriors have in mind: a constant churning of data in order to 
"flag" suspicious activity. But there is not one shred of evidence 
that the terrorists of 9/11 failed to send up enough flags. 
Everything from their visa applications to their pilot-training 
alarm bells to their demeanor boarding their planes/missiles flagged 
them as suspicious characters.

Yet all were missed by the same feds who want a few trillion more 
bits of information to mull over.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,70992,00.html
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021121-80027736.htm

Senior Editor Jacob Sullum peers into the Total Information 
Awareness laboratory:

http://reason.com/sullum/111502.shtml



2. Money Trail

Yet another example of a threat hidden in plain sight comes from the 
revelation that the very inner circle of the Saudi royal family may 
have indirectly routed money to some of the 9/11 hijackers. An 
investigation by House-Senate Intelligence Committee has found 
evidence that money originating in an account held by the wife of 
the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. made its way to Khalid al Midhar 
and Nawaf al Hazmi.

The FBI and the Bush administration have resisted efforts to 
publicize the connection out of fear of what it might do to 
U.S.-Saudi relations. And defenders of Princess Haifa al Faisal, the 
wife of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, have made the rather weak defense 
that even if the money did end up in the hands of terrorists, it 
surely wasn't intentional.

But the relevant issue is that the Saudis have for years followed a 
policy of sending money to radical Islamists. It's a form of bribery 
that has served them well, and it is more than a little bit fanciful 
to claim that the princess's "charities" were alone in vetting the 
beliefs of recipients of gifts.

Beginning in earnest with fundamentalists' bloody occupation of the 
Grand Mosque in Mecca in November 1979, the Saudis have tried to buy 
themselves some breathing space by funding all manner of 
fundamentalist causes. So far, it's worked.

The Bush administration, though, is loathe to do anything to 
"embarrass" the Saudis because their cooperation -- tacit to the 
point of being invisible, if need be -- is needed in order to wage 
war on Iraq, whose connection to the 9/11 terrorists remains tenuous 
at best.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/11/24/saudi.money.trail/index.html

Associate Editor Jesse Walker questions the U.S.-Saudi relationship:

http://reason.com/links/links080702.shtml



3. Pier to Pier

Add cadets at the Naval Academy to the list of no-good rotten 
thieves. The sailors stand accused of downloading copies of music 
and movies from the Internet. Academy officials have seized about 
100 laptops as an investigation into the matter continues.

Last month the Recording Industry Association of America sent a 
letter to the academy, among other institutions, warning that their 
charges were using high-speed connections to get copies of 
copyrighted material. The RIAA's position is that every downloaded 
piece of music represents a lost sale, and hence is theft.

If the academy takes that same view, then offending cadets could 
face a court martial over the offense. Of course, the academy could 
just delete the material, tell the cadets to knock it off, and ask 
the RIAA to take a long walk off a short pier.

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/live/11_23-19/NAV

Associate Editor Brian Doherty says not to cry for the record industry:

http://www.reason.com/0207/cr.bd.cant.shtml



4. Quick Hits

- - Quote of the Week - -

"The funny thing was, I was on drugs! I was on Benedryl, my 
allergy medication, so I was really out of it anyway." --Ellen 
Feiss, icon to stoners everywhere thanks to her Apple computer TV 
ad, putting to rest the rumor that made her a Web celeb.

http://www.browndailyherald.com/post/stories.asp?ID=269
http://www.apple.com/switch/ads


- - Hide the Tequila - -

The Bush twins turn 21, allowing the Secret Service and bouncers 
nationwide to end their clumsy games of cat and mouse. Jenna and 
Barbara are free at last.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/38154p-35912c.html


- - Goodie Package - -

The Bush wish list includes some sort of stimulus package for the 
idling economy, likely including an acceleration of tax cuts already 
on tap and expansion of contribution limits for IRAs and 401(k)s.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021125-92397640.htm


- - Spam Spurt - -

It is not just your imagination. Spam is growing by leaps and 
bounds. As much as 50 percent of all e-mail may be spam, up from 
less than 10 percent just last year.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/23/28268.html



5. New at Reason Online

Forced Feeding
Do teens really have no choice but fast food? Jacob Sullum
http://reason.com/links/links112502.shtml

Special Education Confidential
How schools use the "learning disability" label to cover up their
failures. Lisa Snell
http://www.reason.com/0212/fe.ls.special.shtml

Volunteer Nation
America's Secret Weapon in the War on TerrorAmericans. Jonathan Rauch
http://www.reason.com/rauch/112502.shtml

And much more! http://www.reason.com



6. The Print Edition


Get your personal copy of the latest issue of Reason's print edition each
month -- before it hits the newsstands and before it's posted on the Web!
Subscribe Today!  https://www.kable.com/pub/anxx/newsubs.asp



7. News and Events


Buy Reason T-shirts and coffee mugs! http://www.reason.com/stuff.shtml

****

Click here for the latest on media appearances by Reason writers.
http://reason.com/press.shtml

****

Want even more Reason? Sign up for Reason Alert to get regular news from
Reason Magazine and Reason Public Policy Instiute,

as well as advance notice about media appearances and events.
http://reason.org/join.html