WASHINGTON -- More than 50 conservative groups are warning that the U.S. government's drug war has led to an unacceptable casualty: loss of privacy.
They're planning a press conference Monday to ask the Senate to take up the topic when it considers President Bush's nomination of John Walters to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
A letter signed by 55 groups as of Friday afternoon urges senators to ask Walters "for assurances that he will reform the conduct of the drug war" to address privacy and civil liberties. He's scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary committee on Tuesday.
Since the letter carefully restrains from taking a position on Walters' nomination or the broader topic of drug legalization, it's attracted an unusual amount of agreement -- including groups such as the American Conservative Union, the Eagle Forum of Alabama, the Christian Coalition of California and the African-American Republican Leadership Council, many of which have endorsed the federal war on some drugs.
A far smaller number of liberal groups, including the ACLU, Privacy International and the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, also have signed on.
Brad Jansen of the Free Congress Foundation, who is coordinating the effort, called this "a coalition of groups that hold very different opinions on the drug war, and perhaps very different opinions on Mr. Walters, that have come together for this purpose."
Jansen said that after Walters' aides heard about the Republican-led coalition, they asked for a meeting. "Their concern was that this will be portrayed that Walters is bad on privacy," said Jansen, who added that the prospective drug czar does not -- yet -- have a record on privacy.
Critics of the drug war have long argued that because such laws restrict consensual behavior where there's no obvious victim, police inevitably turn to undercover operations and aggressive surveillance techniques to catch narcotics users. Drug prohibition has led U.S. courts to reduce Fourth Amendment protections, and narcotics investigations account for the vast bulk of police wiretaps.
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Bush on spam, privacy: The Bush administration will finally take a public stand on spam and online privacy, a top official said this week.
Nancy Victory, the new head of the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said her agency was in charge of crafting an "omnibus privacy policy" that businesses and government agencies could use to create clear privacy policies for their websites.
"Up until now, and I think this will probably continue, we've been very supportive of industry self-regulation" in the privacy realm, Victory said.
Expect the Bushies to tread lightly here. There's no huge benefit for the administration, and whatever it does, there are plenty of lobbyists on the other side who will be sure to complain and rally opposition.
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Paging Mistress Cleo: A Georgia state legislator claims to have been visited by the ghost of missing intern Chandra Levy.
Rep. Dorothy Pelote, a Democrat, said in a speech in the statehouse that she has been psychic since she was nearly drowned as a child: "I want you to know that I can prophesy. I can communicate with the dead."
The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, a skeptic's group, said they didn't believe her for a moment.
They said in a statement: "People like Rep. Pelote, who've had repeated psychic experiences and contact with special entities -- such as angels, spirits and extraterrestrials -- often turn out to be what psychologists call 'fantasy prone.'"
Pelote, alas, didn't ask Chandra where she -- or her body -- could be found.
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Goodbye, Gloria: It's time to bid a tearful farewell to Gloria Tristani, an FCC commissioner who never heard a lewd radio show she didn't want to censor.
Tristani, a Democrat who mounted a one-woman campaign against all things prurient during her time at the agency, said this week that she'd be leaving.
In her parting statement, Tristani urged her colleagues to keep their noses blue: "The commission needs to get serious about enforcing the law enacted by Congress to limit indecent material on the airwaves that reaches our children.... Indecency enforcement can require the agency to make difficult judgment calls regarding language and context, but that is no reason for the commission to shrink from enforcing the law."
Tristani has complained about a.m. talk show hosts using the word "piss" on the air and has said that bare skin on TV should be forbidden. She's indicated she may run for governor of New Mexico.
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Canadians, offline? Brendon Wilson, a Canadian geekavist, has pieced together a fascinating survey of how Net-savvy his elected representatives are.
After once waiting four months for his member of Parliament to reply to him, Wilson decided to see if his experience was typical.
You can read his results for yourself, but it's fair to say that Canadian politicos are unwired, unhelpful and suspicious. Turns out the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's "National Security" division was interested in Wilson's research. They wanted to know what he thought he was doing.
