WASHINGTON, May 28 (UPI) -- The UPI think tank wrap-up is a daily digest covering brief opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events and position statements released by various think tanks. This is the first of two think tanks wrap-ups for May 28.
The Cato Institute
WASHINGTON -- Federal Gun-Prosecution Program Unconstitutional, Study Finds
As Project Safe Neighborhoods, the centerpiece of President Bush's crime fighting program, comes into effect, a new study from the Cato Institute finds that it is unconstitutional, wreaks havoc on federal courts, allows prosecutorial mischief affecting the racial composition of juries, and will likely lead to a mindless "zero tolerance" policy for technical infractions of gun laws. The report also shows that Second Amendment rights groups, including the National Rifle Association, are wrong to support the plan.
Like its prototype, Virginia's Project Exile, Project Safe Neighborhoods will channel gun-possession crimes that would ordinarily be prosecuted at the state level into the federal system. In addition to federalizing gun crimes, Project Safe Neighborhoods acts as a prosecution-stimulus package, funding the placement of over 700 new prosecutors (113 federal, 600 state) who will do nothing but pursue gun law violations full-time.
In "There Goes the Neighborhood: The Bush-Ashcroft Plan to 'Help' Localities Fight Gun Crime," attorney Gene Healy explains that the federal government has no authority to enact the type of criminal statutes used by the program. Although the president has promised to make respect for federalism a priority in his administration, Healy says Bush's initiatives "suggest that, where it counts, political expediency will trump respect for federalism."
By rewarding prosecutors for the number of gun convictions attained, Project Safe Neighborhoods creates an incentive structure that will lead to a proliferation of technical-violation indictments regardless of their merit, Healy writes. Such convictions include the sentencing of a rehabilitated felon to 15 years for possession of a single bullet.
Safe Neighborhoods also threatens the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by allowing prosecutors to select their preferred forum -- federal or state -- on the basis of the racial composition of the respective jury pools, Healy writes. "In Richmond, Virginia, where project exile was first implemented, the jury pool for the state-level circuit court is approximately 75 percent African-American," he writes. "In contrast, the jury pool for the Eastern District of Virginia in only about 10 percent African-American."
While the desire to tackle the problem of violent crime without adding to gun laws already on the books is laudable, Healy argues, gun rights groups are misguided to support Projects Exile and Safe Neighborhoods -- going as far as contributing $125,000 to Exile in the NRA's case.
"NRA officials such as Wayne LaPierre and Charlton Heston repeatedly assailed President Bill Clinton for failing to enforce federal firearms statutes, without ever explaining why such cases should be brought in federal court," Healy writes. "The supporters of federalizing gun crime lack even a compelling policy rationale -- let alone constitutional grounds -- for ignoring the distinction between local and interstate matters."
The report is available as Policy Analysis no. 440 on the Cato Institute web site www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-440es.html
Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!
by Charles V. Peña
In the 1960s classic sci-fi TV series "Lost in Space," the Robot would spin and flail his arms crying, "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!" For three consecutive days last week, senior members of the Bush administration delivered similar warnings. Is this for real or are terrorists playing mind games?
On "Meet the Press" Vice President Cheney said that the "prospect of a future attack against the United States is almost certain. We don't know if it's going to be tomorrow or next week or next year." Next, FBI Director Robert Mueller said that suicide bombers like those who have attacked Israel are "inevitable." "There will be another terrorist attack," he said. "We will not be able to stop it. It's something we all live with."
Finally, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell all warned of pending terrorist attacks.
Capping those warnings, the FBI alerted New York City authorities about possible terrorist attacks against city landmarks, such as the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. The warning was based on information that was not specific and not corroborated.
According to White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, the intensifying rhetoric was due to increased terrorist "chatter" picked up by intelligence agencies and the controversy surrounding the revelation that President Bush had been briefed in August that al Qaida wanted to hijack U.S. jetliners (but not how they intended to use them).
Let's hope that all the sound and fury is simply posturing to quell the scrutiny and criticism of what the administration did or didn't know and what it could have done to prevent 9/11. The various statements are also probably part of the White House's efforts to thwart calls for an independent commission to investigate the intelligence failures before Sept. 11. And certainly, the administration is clearly making a statement that it's not asleep at the wheel -- if something actually does happen, they can claim they gave fair warning.
Those are the reasonable explanations. But there are other possibilities to consider. One is that the administration actually has real information about possible terrorist attacks and just isn't telling us everything it knows. Given the administration's penchant for being tight-lipped and controlling information released to the media and public, the possibility cannot be discounted.
But if that's the case, such actions would be irresponsible. The paramount obligation of the government is to protect its citizenry and if the government has specific information about credible threats, then the public must be informed. But the mostly vague and general warnings that have been issued so far are unhelpful.
Another possibility is that the administration is contemplating homeland security measures that are likely to be considered infringing on civil liberties and personal freedoms (after all, the administration didn't get everything it wanted in the PATRIOT Act and there is proposed legislation in the House that would allow the Postal Service to conduct warrant-less searches of outbound mail). But a more dire sense of the terrorist threat would be needed to make more draconian actions acceptable and palatable to the American public.
Perhaps the most interesting and telling aspect of all these recent terrorist threat warnings (and previous ones) is that the Office of Homeland Security's advisory system for the terrorist threat level remains (as of May 22) at "yellow" (where it has been ever since the color-coded system was introduced in March), indicating a "significant risk of terrorist attacks."
Three consecutive days of senior administration officials' warnings and the FBI warning that New York City could be attacked was not enough to budge the indicator to "orange," indicating "high risk." It would seem that despite the administration pronouncements, the homeland security warning system has flatlined into a perpetual state of yellow.
The real danger is that, over time, the public won't take the warnings seriously. Indeed, New York Governor George Pataki said that people should "go on and go about their ordinary lives."
Raise the specter of a possible threat. Don't change the alert status. Tell people to act as if everything is "normal." How often can this happen before people think the administration is crying wolf? And are we doing more to help the terrorists plan their next attack as they watch how the government and public react to the warnings? Indeed, Rumsfeld admits that the terrorists "try to jerk us around and test us."
(Charles V. Peña is senior defense policy analyst at the Cato Institute.)
Institute for Public Accuracy
(The IPA is a nationwide consortium of policy researchers that seeks to broaden public discourse by gaining media access for experts whose perspectives are often overshadowed by major think tanks and other influential institutions.)
WASHINGTON -- Bush-Pope Meeting
-- Colman McCarthy, former Washington Post columnist, founder and director of the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington, D.C. and the author of "I'd Rather Teach Peace."
"I don't imagine that the meeting will lead to anything meaningful, because both Bush and the Pope believe in the 'just war' theory. The Papal comments on war are little more than cosmetic generalizations while the U.S. spends $900 million on the military every day. The Pope has yet to tell Catholics for example to stop giving their tax money to the Pentagon, in the way that he tells Catholics to oppose abortion and artificial birth control.... The current sex scandals in the Catholic Church are minor compared with the hierarchy's support for the U.S. government's war machine. Until Catholicism becomes a true peace church, like the Quakers, Mennonites, and Church of the Brethren, it mocks
the nonviolence of early Christianity."
-- Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, general director of the International Center of Bethlehem and author of "I Am a Palestinian Christian." Raheb is a Lutheran pastor.
"Israeli troops are still in Bethlehem. They seem to want to prove that they can come into Bethlehem anytime they want. They prevented people from taking refuge at the Church of the Nativity as happened before. People from the U.S. have come to help reconstruct the Church and the Center from the damage from the last Israeli invasion, but have not been able to get through because of the curfew. I don't expect much from the meeting between Bush and the Pope. We're fed up with meetings. Bush told Sharon to withdraw, he didn't for a long time, and now he has re-occupied Jenin and Hebron as well as Bethlehem. All these interim agreements have not gotten security for Israelis, peace for the region or justice for the Palestinians."
-- Joan Chittister, executive director of Benetvision: A Resource and Research Center for Contemporary Spirituality located in Erie, Penn., Chittister is author of "In Search of Belief" and "The Story of Ruth: Twelve Moments in Every Woman's Life." She is a regular columnist for the National Catholic Reporter.
"The moral chastisement has usually come from the Pope to the political leaders of the world, so it's understandable that the Vatican is upset about Bush raising [the subject of] the scandal. If the credibility of the Church is eroded from within, its social impact
will be diminished. Bush recognizes that there was strong hierarchical support for him in the last election. If the Church's credibility is weakened, it stands to be a political loss as well as a moral one. While Bush wants to focus on the role of the Church in the U.S., the Pope wants to focus on U.S. foreign and military policy."
