Cato Daily Dispatch
March 16, 20005
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.cato.org/dispatch/03-16-00d.html
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* Chinese Leader Sends Dire Warning Across Strait
* What's Wrong With This Picture: A Public Privacy Commission?
* Officials Want to Buy Guns Only From Compliant Companies
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CHINESE LEADER SENDS DIRE WARNING ACROSS STRAIT
Three days before a closely contested presidential election in
Taiwan,
Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji bluntly warned the island's
voters
yesterday against choosing a pro-independence president, saying
the future
rides on their selection, according to The Washington Post.
(
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17738-2000Mar15.html)
"Let me
advise all these people in Taiwan," Zhu said. "Do not just act
on impulse at
this juncture, which will decide the future course that China
and Taiwan
will follow. Otherwise I'm afraid you won't get another
opportunity to
regret."
In "Let Taiwan Defend Itself,"
(
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-313.html)
Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies Ted Galen
Carpenter
explains that similar threats in 1996 emboldened Taiwan and led
to Lee Lee
Teng-hui's decisive reelection. In "Washington's Incoherent
Policy on
Taiwan," (
http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-04-99.html) warns of
dire
consequences as the Clinton administration has supported a
one-china policy
on the one hand while promising to "'take very seriously' any
attempt by the
PRC to use force against Taiwan."
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WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE: A PUBLIC PRIVACY COMMISSION?
Congressmen Asa Hutchinson (R - Arkansas) and Jim Moran (D -
Virginia) want
to create a federal privacy commission that would decide what
new
regulations should apply to American companies, according to
Wired News.
(
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34968,00.html) A bill
introduced
yesterday would give a 17-member panel 18 months to review
current privacy
laws and make "recommendations on whether additional legislation
is
necessary." The measure would take the same approach as a
similar commission
created by Congress to wrestle with the issue of Internet
taxation.
"[Americans] are alarmed at the accessibility of their medical
records, they
are worried how their financial information is being used, and
they want to
know what they can get on the Internet without strangers
downloading
personal information about them," Hutchinson said.
In "How Privacy Regulation Will Chill Commerce,"
(
http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-13-99.html) Director of
Information Studies
Solveig Singleton challenges the notion that top-down regulation
is the
solution to privacy concerns and argues it would threaten
innovation and
commerce. In "Innovation Versus Privacy,"
(
http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-16-99.html) Singleton argues that
information
collected by private firms would be used for the benefit of
consumers
through personalization and regulation would only stifle
technological
innovation.
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OFFICIALS WANT TO BUY GUNS ONLY FROM COMPLIANT COMPANIES
New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, is
urging federal
state, and local governments to buy guns only from manufacturers
that sign a
code of conduct, according to USA Today. The code includes
building in
trigger locks, cutting off "irresponsible" dealers, and
submitting to
inspection. Yesterday, Republican Governor George Pataki also
proposed
sweeping gun controls.
In "Trust the People: The Case Against Gun Control,"
(
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa109.html) David B. Kopel writes
that the gun
control debate comes down to the basic question: "Who is more
trustworthy,
the government or the people?" In "Gun Policy in the Aftermath
of
Littleton," (
http://www.cato.org/dailys/05-26-99.html) Cato
Fellow Doug
Bandow writes that gun control is misguided and that studies
show that guns
are used five times as often to prevent as to commit crimes.
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In today's Daily Commentary: If NATO implements its policy to
resettle
ethnic Albanian refugees in Serb areas, the U.S. will be an
unwitting tool
of the Kosovo Liberation Army and its goal of ethnic cleansing.
By
Christopher Layne.
http://www.cato.org/dailys/03-16-00.html
