February 2018

Are Schools Less Important Than Sports Events and Concerts?

Townhall.com

Bob Barr

2/28/2018 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

This is the second of a two-part series by former Congressman Barr on issues relating to Parkland, Florida, and other recent mass shootings.

We now know more about the tragedy in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 high school students and employees were murdered by a former student. We know that the local police, led by the questionable leadership of Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, utterly failed the citizens they were supposed to protect. We know that the same can be said for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which failed to investigate reports that the shooter was deeply disturbed. And, we know that gun control advocates still are trying to force the same, tried and failed “common sense” gun control proposals onto the American public.

All of this new (and unsurprising) information only reinforces the need which I outlined last weekfor a broader and deeper understanding of mass shootings that only President Donald Trump is in a position to deliver; in the form not of a Tweet, but of a presidential commission staffed with experts from a variety of fields. However, while Congress, and the president himself, should refrain from making any sweeping changes before such a commission releases its findings, thereby ensuring such changes are more than just knee-jerk reactions, there are a number of meaningful steps that can be taken immediately.

Arming teachers has been a popular idea in conservative circles, which likely is an idea a presidential commission would investigate; but a more measured and immediate solution is ensuring there is a uniformed, armed, trained, and ready police officer at each school. School officials should also ensure there are proper, physical safeguards in place to prevent unauthorized persons with firearms from coming into schools. The image of metal detectors greeting students is not an image we ever wished we would see, but it reflects the world in which we now live.

We go through such entry mechanisms at airports, sports events, concerts, and public buildings.  What does it say about our fiscal and social priorities as a country that we place more value on sporting events and music performances than on the safety of our children?

Secondly, Republicans should seriously consider raising the age of purchasing semi-automatic rifles built on the AR, AK, and similar platforms, to 21. Raising the age of purchasing any firearm to 21, like that proposed by nervous politicians such as Florida Governor Rick Scott is unnecessary and unproductive. However, there are clear differences in both the physical components and projectile characteristics of such rifles, that make them inherently more dangerous than bolt- or lever-action hunting rifles, or pump-action shotguns (all of which are appropriate for responsible young men and women between the ages of 18 and 21). Such characteristics make the AR-type platform far more like a semi-automatic handgun than traditional rifles or shotguns.

The AR-15 platform is the most popular sporting rifle in America, and in spite of the hysteria peddled by Democrats, the millions of such rifles in circulation are, with extremely few exceptions, used safely and legally every day. A blanket ban on them as proposed by Democrats and groups of students, is uncalled for; but raising the age of purchase for this specific class of rifles by three years is a modest restriction without undue burden on Second Amendment rights of young citizens desiring a firearm for sport, hunting, or self-defense.

Thirdly, Republicans should look further into the current system of data-basing mental health issues, and provide additional funding to improve record keeping and national access, as a part of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). This should be approved unanimously, and with little debate.

Finally, Republicans should consider – carefully — a proposal proffered by National Review writer David French earlier this month, for a “Gun Violence Restraining Order.” In short, the GVRO gives law enforcement officials the legal teeth to confiscate firearms from those proven to be an immediate threat, but only if the procedures provide — in law — full due process to any individual sought to be restrained.

Even though on the surface a GVRO seems like a no-brainer, the gravity of its effect should not to be taken lightly, as First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments are all at play. Such a powerful tool for law enforcement will no doubt invite abuse from corrupt public officials who could use ex parte hearings to their advantage, which is why any GVRO legislation must contain critical protections, including but not limited to those outlined by French, such as: narrow standing for those proposing the GVRO (such as family members), high burden of proof, quick due process for the defendant (especially in the case of emergency, ex parte hearings), and a short and defined effective period that must be renewed only with another hearing.

Although no law or regulation comes with an ironclad guarantee of stopping evil people from committing egregious acts, these are just a few steps Congress, as well as state and local governments, can begin immediately taking to reduce the risk of mass shootings, without emburdening Second Amendment rights lurking in the current proposals by Democrats and Nervous Nelly Republicans, like Gov. Scott.

Federally, it is essential that Congress, not the president, take these steps. Congressional action will remove doubt that inevitably would accompany unilateral executive action, and that would open the door to further erosion of the principle of separation of powers which, in conjunction with our Bill of Rights, forms a firm foundation against the excesses that gun control pundits constantly are attempting to force on us.

Fixing America’s ‘Invisible’ Infrastructure — The Wireless Spectrum

Investor’s Business Daily

America’s wireless spectrum — that long-neglected part of our vital national infrastructure – finally is receiving much needed attention by the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

XChanges that are important for broadband modernization, however, could be short-circuited by Washington’s continuing budgetary mess. The changes also could become an unintended victim to debates surrounding the creation of a new, “5G” network.

Citizens everywhere, especially those in rural parts of the country, have a stake in ensuring that neither contingency occurs.

Most of the attention paid to “infrastructure,” including by President Trump in his recent state of the union address, focuses on our physical infrastructure — bridges, highways, water systems, and rail.  Just as important, but far less noticed, is a vital but largely invisible component of America’s infrastructure — the wireless spectrum.

Just like a concrete interstate highway, the wireless spectrum has a finite capacity. Sooner or later, only so many users can “ride” its frequencies before it becomes overcrowded, clogged, and eventually, unusable.

Unfortunately, while a highway can be widened and more lanes added, the wireless spectrum used by broadcasters cannot.

There are only so many megahertz “lanes” or frequencies available for use. Because demand for space has skyrocketed in this digital age — with cell phones, social media, television, radio, law enforcement, 911 emergency systems, and more competing for signal strength — something had to be done to modernize the spectrum so it did not “collapse” under the weight of massively increased demand.

These problems demanded the attention of the federal government, which controls the wireless spectrum in the “public interest,” and in 2012 the Congress responded appropriately, by authorizing the FCC to auction off large segments of the spectrum to private companies.

The plan was that, through such a process, a significant amount of wireless spectrum would be made available to businesses that could then provide new and improved services to consumers as market forces dictated.

This process — “repurposing” in government-speak — in fact accomplished its purpose when the auction concluded in March 2017; benefiting companies like T-Mobile, AT&T, and many others, as well as Uncle Sam, which took in nearly $20 billion and allocated $7.0 billion for “deficit reduction.” The process, however, was not without a downside.

Costly upgrades are necessary for wireless broadcasters to modernize their equipment, realign broadcast channels, and incur other, related expenses. Congress in 2012 anticipated such a problem, and authorized $1.75 billion in what can be considered eminent domain reparations, so television broadcasters could adjust their equipment and facilities to operate on the realigned spectrum.

Unfortunately, that $1.75 billion has proved insufficient for necessary infrastructure improvements resulting from the spectrum realignment.  Thus, nearly a thousand television stations — mostly locally owned — and more than 600 “forgotten” radio stations that use those same towers to broadcast their programs, are facing significant costs that the congressional planners failed to fully foresee nearly six years ago.

In other words, an unintended, but still costly, unfunded mandate.

The potential consequences for American consumers, especially those residing in rural America, are severe. The Rust Belt relies on these local TV and radio stations for business, especially farming.

Unlike the vast array of choices found in most cities, some local communities are entirely dependent on just one or two local stations. Consequently, without correction, the government’s spectrum reallocation would unjustly select winners and losers within the country.

Fortunately, a bipartisan group of House and Senate members has addressed this shortfall by proposing legislation to allow these affected TV and radio broadcasters to use a small fraction of the auction’s profits for ensuring they can continue broadcasting on the new wireless spectrum.

Current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai also has recognized that the Congress needs to authorize additional funding for these broadcasters so they can remain on the air.

Leaders in both the Congress and the administration recognize that the only fair thing to do is to provide funds for this overlooked unfunded mandate problem.  Furthermore, the funds are there; in the form of the $7.0 billion “profit” the government realized from the auction.

Unfortunately, what would appear to be a no-brainer could fall victim to the ongoing budgetary stalemate in the nation’s capital; and the waters in which these issues will be considered could be severely muddied by the recent debate about whether the government should be involved in the development of a new “5G” broadband network.

Either contingency would indeed be a shame, as it would undercut a rare instance in which the government is trying to do the right thing for the right reason at the right time. And time is running out.

• Barr served as a congressman from Georgia from 1995 to 2003.

School Shootings Demand Deep Study, Not Faux Solutions

Townhall.com

Bob Barr

2/21/2018 7:57:00 AM – Bob Barr

This is the first in a two-part series on issues relating to and arising out of the mass murders at the high school in Parkland, Florida last week.  The second piece by Congressman Barr will appear next Wednesday. 

The Los Angeles Times, a newspaper with the fourth-largest circulation in the country, published an editorial on last week’s mass murder in Florida.  The newspaper’s long-time columnist George Skelton opined that “[m]ass shootings will continue in this country until we finally ban mass-shooting weapons.”

Skelton’s missive was as philosophically deep and intellectually cogent as an attempt by a middle school student to analyze the intricacies of national defense strategies in a multi-polar world order. While I do not doubt that this writer takes his work and his analysis seriously, the views he expresses add absolutely nothing of true substance to the ongoing debates about either what motivates and facilitates mass murderers, or understanding the tools with which these evil acts are committed. In this regard, Skelton reflects nothing but the emerging world view that simplistic solutions will solve complex problems.

Skelton’s approach mimics that of gun-control advocates such as “Everytown USA,” an entity supported by well-known gun control hypocrite Michael Bloomberg.  This approach rests on the belief that outlawing this, that, or some other gun will stop evildoers such as the individual who visited such horrors on innocent boys, girls, men and women in Parkland, Florida last week.

The Los Angeles-based writer resides also in the company of countless Democrat office holders who trip over themselves to be the first to propose the same failed gun control initiatives in the hours, if not the minutes, after such a tragic event.  Their views and analyses are no more relevant to arriving at or even near solutions to the problem of mass shooting in our country, than would be postulating the future of global weather patterns based on peering out the window at a thermometer each morning.

Rather, such views as expressed by Skelton and his fellow gun control apologists spring forth as pre-packaged ideas in large measure because their real target is not the evil inside the heart and mind of the individual perpetrator or his enablers; but the far-better known and much larger target — the National Rifle Association.

In the minds of such faux experts, the NRA controls virtually all levers of power at all levels of government, especially in Washington; and is therefore to blame for the failure of government to “stop” mass murders committed with a firearm. Skipping over the fact that no single entity “controls” the Congress – indeed, in terms of outside spending in elections, the NRA does not even make the top five list (or even the top 450 in direct contributions to candidates who support its mission) – blaming government for instilling the evil that obviously resides in the minds of mass murderers, is so illogical as to be laughable.  But laughable, it is not; as witnessed by the number of otherwise knowledgeable persons who continue to jump on the “gun control” bandwagon.

Despite the child-like “solutions” proposed by Skelton, et al., the problem we face in terms not so much of gun violence writ large (which has dropped steeply from just a decade ago), but of mass shootings, is serious in the extreme; and demands leadership at the highest level of government on down to the local sheriff, police chief, and ultimately, the family.

For President Trump, the first move should be immediately establishing a commission on mass shootings. Unlike that established by George W. Bush, which consisted mainly of law enforcement and educational authorities, and focused primarily on defensive strategies for schools, Trump’s commission should consist of real experts from across the spectrum: law enforcement, educators, psychologists, criminologists, FBI profilers and threat assessors, constitutional experts (since this issue spans the First, Second and Fourth amendments), and others.

The commission must have a defined term of six months to a year, along with subpoena power.  It must be given the congressionally-appropriated resources to fully execute its mandate.  That mandate must be as broad as the problem our society faces, without preconceived or political agendas, and importantly, with “nothing off the table.”  If it is a commission on “gun control” or on “the Second Amendment,” it will be a waste of time and money.

The commission must grapple with the most difficult and elusive of problems:  Who are these killers? Do they have anything in common? What drives them to violence? Why do some act quickly, while others plan for years? Were they flagged before the violence, and if so, what institutional safety checks failed to stop them, and why? What are the mechanics of their plans?

Then and only then – once these experts have truly tackled these fundamental questions – can we begin to construct solutions.  Otherwise, we are simply deluding ourselves with a false sense of accomplishment, even as we essentially guarantee future tragedies.

Stop Sessions’ anti-pot crusade — Let states regulate marijuana

What does marijuana have in common with Schedule I controlled substances like heroin, LSD, and “date-rape” drugs? “Nothing,” the average American would likely reply. I agree. Unfortunately, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions holds the opposite view and continues to lump pot in with far more dangerous drugs.

It appears that Sessions is using federal law enforcement to further his personal view that all marijuana use is wrong. This is the same mindset behind the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. from 1920 to1933. That proved unsustainable, just as the total federal ban on marijuana has been shown to be a failure.

Since President Nixon launched the War on Drugs more than four decades ago, billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent each year fighting the perceived scourge of marijuana, employing the same fundamental strategy decade after decade. And year after year, Americans continue to smoke marijuana in increasing numbers, according to the government’s own figures.

Common sense tells us that not all illegal drugs are alike. Heroin is far more dangerous and addictive than marijuana. LSD is powerful hallucinogen that is far more incapacitating than pot. And anyone using a drug to leave a woman helpless so he can rape her is committing a terrible crime far more serious than smoking a joint.

Moreover, Americans generally are aware that numerous medical studies have established that THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the primary active ingredient in marijuana, possesses significant positive properties for certain maladies, including glaucoma, cancers, seizures and post-traumatic stress disorder. Even many people who oppose recreational marijuana use don’t want to deny the drug to sick people who could benefit from it medically.

Yet Sessions remains an adamant foe of all marijuana use. Full disclosure: I held the same view when I was a U.S. attorney in Georgia from 1986 to 1990 and when I served as a Republican congressman from Georgia from 1995 to 2003. But as more evidence emerged about marijuana in the past 15 years I reevaluated my position. I now believe states should determine how they want to regulate marijuana, without federal interference.

Sessions continues to maintain that marijuana is a “dangerous drug” that the federal government must “combat,” regardless of whether a state’s citizens have voted to legalize it.

In taking such a hardline approach to even medical marijuana legalization, the attorney general seems to have placed himself at odds with his boss. In numerous interviews in 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump was quite clear that questions regarding “medicinal use” of marijuana should be decided by the states and not the federal government.

This position, which President Trump has not expressly disavowed, reflects the fundamental principle of federalism: that matters affecting the citizens of a state should be decided by each state, unless they are clearly national issues or delegated to the federal government by the Constitution.

President Trump’s position is in accord with a wide swath of the American electorate – 94 percent of adults (including 90 percent of Republicans) support legalized adult use of marijuana for medical purposes, according to a recent Quinnipiac Poll. And a majority of Republicans favor legalization of marijuana in general, according to a Gallup Poll released in October.

President Trump’s analysis also is in accord with the view of the Justice Department in the Obama administration – that using limited federal resources to prosecute people who use marijuana makes no sense.

Importantly, President Trump’s view is also consistent with a majority of members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The House has voted every year since 2014 to prohibit the federal government from using any appropriated funds to prosecute medical marijuana cases in states where it has been legalized. This is the latest flashpoint between Sessions and the Congress.

Congressional supporters of this extremely limited exception to broad federal prosecution of offenses involving “controlled substances” are at a loss to understand the attorney general’s position.

As an American citizen, Jeff Sessions is free to espouse whatever opinions he likes on marijuana and marijuana users. And under current federal law, he is correct that a state law legalizing marijuana use does not legally override federal law.

But Sessions is going beyond his proper role when he employs the power of his position as our nation’s top law enforcement official to use taxpayer resources as a cudgel with which to misalign federal policies and forcibly override the decisions of 30 states and the District of Columbia to legalize some form of marijuana use – medicinal, recreational or both.

Moreover, Sessions’ actions are not remotely consistent with the long-accepted principles underlying our constitutional republic. And his position is not supported by factual analysis.

Sessions and other marijuana hardliners contend that prosecuting users of medicinal marijuana in states that have legalized it is necessary because such use leads to violence, gang activity and funding of other criminal enterprises. But there is no evidence to support this conclusion, and even were it so, there are more than sufficient laws still on the books with which the feds can attack such activities.

Virtually everyone in Washington purports to support the principle of federalism, at least in word. Under federalism, the national government and state governments each possess a large degree of sovereignty. The Constitution grants few express powers to the federal government, reserving the remaining powers for the state.

Both Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, for example, issued a statement last May endorsing the principle of federalism. And the most recent Republican Party Platform re-emphasizes the GOP’s firm commitment to federalism as its governing lodestar. But brush away the smoke and quite a different reality emerges.

Ultimately, if President Trump and the Republicans in Congress refuse to halt the attorney general’s mean-spirited and philosophically hollow policy, they will show themselves to be true faux federalists, and will pay a price in electoral battles to come.

Then there is the question of priorities. Neither the Department of Justice nor the federal government as a whole enjoy unlimited resources (thank goodness!). Prioritizing those resources – whether as a federal prosecutor, a member of Congress, or the attorney general of the United States – is and should be a primary responsibility of the officeholder.

Priorities change over time and circumstances. Failing to recognize this reality and continuing to adhere rigidly to yesterday’s priorities when facing today’s (or tomorrow’s) threats is not only costly but irresponsible.

To me – and to a significant majority of Americans – major threats facing our country today that are within the federal government’s portfolio of responsibilities do not and should not include pursuing marijuana users. This is true whether individuals light up for medical or less noble reasons, and regardless of whether earlier times might have supported such a priority.

My concern for the principle of federalism always has served as a filter through which I have endeavored to evaluate government powers and actions.

Finally, there is the underlying and indisputable fact that the ways in which the government invades and undermines individual liberty today are far more numerous and invasive than when I last took an oath as a member of Congress. The War on Drugs has spawned many of these liberty-limiting powers – including the huge expansion of financial crimes and the massive use of electronic surveillance.

Our Founding Fathers recognized that every instance in which the government takes and uses power necessarily means individuals have lost a degree of liberty. This was problematic 15 years ago when I left Congress. It is frightening now. As a result, my decision to oppose the federal government’s anti-marijuana crusade was an easy one to make.

Former Rep. Bob Barr was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia from 1995 to 2003. He now practices law and heads Liberty Strategies, a consulting firm in Atlanta.

Where Were All the FISA Critics When We Really Needed Them?

Bob Barr

2/7/2018 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

It was to be the “Memo heard round the world”; one that would rival the impact of the “Pentagon Papers” disclosures that ultimately brought down a president in the Watergate scandal. The “explosive” memo was “set to rock D.C.” as headlines screamed, building the anticipation for its release.

Instead, like most “[insert buzz word]-gates” peddled by Beltway bureaucrats and Mainstream Media gossip queens who fancy themselves dramatic and knowledgeable actors on an international stage, the memo came and went, with each side jockeying for camera time to claim its earth-shattering importance or its triviality. Sadly, once again amidst the partisan squabbling, the real point of it all has been largely missed.

Whether the memo vindicates Republican claims that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was targeted out of partisan corruption, or as Democrats suggest, it is merely a work of political fiction designed to discredit Robert Mueller’s “Russia Probe,” depends entirely on a subjective and political interpretation of the memo’s contents. In other words, those reading the memo for partisan points will extract from it precisely what they wish.  In so doing, however, these readers will miss a far more important – and chilling – undercurrent, with substantive implications considerably more important than who, or which party, wins the next election.

Here is what the “Nunes Memo,” named after its original author, California Rep. Devin Nunes, objectively tells us. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), using a widely discredited and unsubstantiated “dossier” created for use in the 2016 presidential election against Trump, served as the basis for obtaining a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant, which gave the agency power to surreptitiously surveil the campaign. Partisan pundits can debate the politics til the proverbial cows come home; but such conversations do nothing to change the fact that federal law currently permits federal agents, in the middle of a presidential campaign and transition, to seek and obtain a secret FISA order apparently based on nothing more than a piece of campaign-opposition research.

Where the Nunes Memo might be short on partisan ammo, it certainly makes up for – in spades – in damning evidence of a Surveillance State run amok; in particular, the FISA process itself. If an unproven piece of campaign propaganda can serve as the basis for a secret surveillance operation against the highest-level opponent of the party currently in control of government power, then clearly we have a serious problem that transcends political squabbling.

If this problem represented a new and unforeseen controversy with which the Congress now had to deal, one might forgive its lack of focus and forethought. But the problem reflected in this “Memogate” is not new; it was not unforeseen; and its impact far overshadows one political party, any individual, or an election.

The controversy reflects a disgraceful lack of concern, understanding and action by the leadership of the House and the Senate, in coming to grips with a fundamental question of civil liberties:  Why does the Congress continue to permit the National Security Agency (NSA), the FBI, and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies, to surreptitiously surveil individuals – pursuant to a one-sided and secret procedure – and gather information that can be used to prosecute American citizens, in complete and utter disregard for the protections against such actions in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution?

In the aftermath of the memo’s release, Republicans are bemoaning the FISA process that allowed for the surveillance of the Trump campaign and transition, and of individuals connected thereto.  But, where were these critics two months ago?  Where were they just one month ago, when they had a perfect opportunity to rein in FISA; to ensure that its constitutionally-deficient provisions were made subject to our Bill of Rights?

Sadly, the vast majority of Republican members of Congress, including Nunes himself and many of his colleagues now wailing against FISA, were tripping over themselves to reauthorize and in fact expand the law’s reach.  Republican supporters of unfettered government surveillance were joined in that rush to judgment by many Democrats in both houses of Congress, in a bipartisan stampede to protect government surveillance powers from having to be concerned with the “technicalities” of the Fourth Amendment, designed to protect against warrantless and baseless secret collection of citizens’ communications.

At the end of the day – January 19, 2018 to be precise – President Trump joined the Surveillance Club and signed into law a six-year extension (and expansion) of the very FISA powers about which he and his supporters now are so angry.

So please, spare us the false indignation about FISA.  If Republicans and Democrats are actually serious about FISA, they should go back and undo the damage for which they voted less than a month ago; and quit the superficial, partisan theatrics.