THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 4, 1996 TAG: 9611020031
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A9 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: ANN SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: 74 lines
Times are tough, my fellow Americans, for civil liberties. We live in the era of the quick fix.
Violence in the schools? Put teenagers in uniforms. Crime in the streets? Curfew the kids. Too many reckless teen-age drivers? Drug-test the under-18 crowd before handing out licenses.
These gems are courtesy of our president, who knows that a lot of nervous parents, but not their put-upon kids, vote.
Bob Dole is also a quick-fix guy. We can solve our problems, says Bill Clinton's Republican opponent, by amending the Constitution.
Think decency and faith have lost their luster? Amend the Constitution to allow prayer in the schools. Think pride in country has faltered? Amend to prohibit flag desecration. Think abortion is wrong? Amend, amend.
At least Dole never pretended to be a civil libertarian.
On the eve of the election, I'm trying to figure out how I can cast a vote against quick fixes and in favor of courage, honesty and tough, complex thinking for tough, complex problems. I still believe we can reach workable solutions without infringing on liberty, but things are looking a bit Orwellian.
Individual privacy rights have been on the government's chopping block since Clinton's ``modest'' proposal that all Americans carry a digitized ``health security card,'' encoded with bytes of intimate medical information.
This first step toward a national ID card is a frightening thought. (We may get there yet, through immigration legislation.) Who would compile the data? And control access? How might employers, insurance companies and miscellaneous hackers abuse the system?
Alas, high-tech government surveillance has been a Clinton administration quick fix for a myriad of problems, from terrorism to sex crimes, welfare, immigration and health care. The president and his veep have a penchant for national databases.
The new welfare reform act, for example, calls for creation of a national registry to ferret out ``deadbeat dads.'' Clinton vaguely eluded to this ``solution'' to child-support delinquency in the debates.
But a huge, interlocking government database, listing employees' names, addresses, Social Security numbers and other personal data, can't be administered without trampling on the rights of non-deadbeats.
The president has also embraced the federal version of ``Megan's Law,'' which requires convicted sex offenders to be registered so that neighbors will know a pervert lives among them. Sounds practical, right? Never mind that it punishes such people again, without cause, and fuels vigilante justice.
The truth: Crime happens everywhere. Safety can be promoted through personal awareness and through community actions that don't target individuals.
After the July downing of TWA Flight 800, Clinton renewed his call for expanded FBI wiretapping authority. And Vice President Gore's study group came up with an ``interesting'' recommendation: passenger ``profiling.'' How would this be accomplished? Bingo. Another national database.
Then there's the much touted Internet. Both Clinton and Congress championed blatantly unconstitutional censorship of this information tool. Obscenity can be banned under the First Amendment, but the overbroad Communications Decency Act went too far. Clinton (and Dole) knew it. But remember, nervous parents vote.
When a three-judge panel struck down this censorship, the president asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the decision. The case, ACLU v. Reno, is pending.
The truth: Parents must shield children from cybersmut, or any other smut that doesn't meet the legal standard for obscenity. When they don't, others' free-speech rights shouldn't suffer.
I've always thought presidents swore to uphold the Constitution, not to circumvent or ignore it. Instead, opportunistic candidates catering to an impatient electorate now threaten to put a quick fix on civil liberties. That doesn't get my vote. MEMO: Ms. Sjoerdsma, an attorney, is an editorial columnist and book
editor for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB