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Townhall

by Bob Barr

All things considered, 2021 was a good year for Republicans.  In 2022 will the GOP build on its 2021 successes, or allow itself to be dragged back to 2020?

The answer is right in front of our eyes. This year has been a disaster for the Democrats largely because they refused to move forward, electing instead to remain mired in the past and fighting yesterday’s battles. If Republicans take the same course in 2022, they will likely reap the same disappointing harvest.

The events of last January 6 at the U.S. Capitol will predictably be a focal point for Democrat campaigns heading into 2022. They really have nothing positive from 2021 on which to campaign, so they will use 1/6 as a lure to drag Republicans down, too. The last thing Republicans need is to take that bait and fight on that playing field; doing so would be a sure way to turn off moderate Republicans, as well as independent voters who the GOP must reach in order to regain majorities in the House and Senate.

This, of course, is easier said than done. In addition to Democrats chumming the waters, some on the GOP’s own team refuse to move forward. They see 1/6 as a positive flashpoint and Biden’s heavy-handed response to it as a wedge issue to churn up anger on the Right. This would be a major strategic mistake

As right as these Republicans are about the federal government’s overzealous response to 1/6, it is not the winning message going forward. Voters, especially those not already committed to the GOP, yearn for a vision for the future rather than to be repeatedly enraged by the past.

The tone Republicans should strike is found in one of Ronald Reagan’s most famous speeches, where he defined America as a “shining city on a hill.” This was a clear and timeless reminder of the greatness America can reach if the principles of free markets and individual liberty are allowed to thrive.

For an America tired of fearing COVID, inflation, crime, and losing what little precious freedoms they still enjoy, Reagan’s truly is the message for the moment; but it needs to be delivered by leaders who can express it and who have the backbone to follow it through.

Fortunately, there have been several gubernatorial standouts for the GOP answering this call. When facing a social and economic nightmare created by federal incompetence these governors turned lemons into leadership, with undeniably positive results.

Democrat-led states continue to suffer from the Left’s hapless response to COVID, while Republican-led ones (in particular Georgia, Florida, and Texas) continue to show incredible resilience against a rudderless federal government listing wildly from side to side.

On top of their economic successes, Republican-led states and localities have maintained public safety without locking down citizens like criminals. These governors and mayors were the first to realize America must learn to deal with COVID rather than run from it, if a sense of normalcy is to return. Meanwhile, Democrats continue to pump doom and gloom, even as they admit they have no idea what they are doing.

Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s recent, incredible victory in Virginia presents Republicans with a roadmap for victory in 2022. Rather than relying on divisive rhetoric to motivate the GOP base, Youngkin presented a clear and consistent vision for restoring conservative governance that appealed to Republican and independent voters alike. Sure, he was aided in his effort by a Virginia Democrat Party that relied on worn-out messages delivered by tone-deaf messengers, but the win was delivered by Youngkin and those candidates on his ticket.

The GOP entered 2021 battered and bloody, but as the year ends the Party is poised to crush Democrats in 2022.

The question Republicans must ask themselves at this juncture, however, is do they want to be dragged back to November 2020 and January 2021, and risk suffering the same consequences that befell Democrats this year by doing just that? Or should they march forth with a vision for the future, keeping in mind what they actually have accomplished this year by not looking backward? The answer would seem to be a no-brainer.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

For as long as I can remember, whenever I went through the checkout line at our local supermarket, the cashier would ask politely, “Did you find everything you were looking for, Sir?” Until recently, I routinely answered, “Yes, thank you,” although I would think to myself, Of course I found everything, this is the United States. No longer.

For the past year, when I am asked that question by the always very polite supermarket cashier, my answer has become, “No, but thank you for asking.” In my mind, I find myself wanting to ask the cashier, have we become a Third World country?

Welcome to the Brave New World of Biden’s America, where empty grocery store shelves and gas station pumps festooned with the little yellow bags indicating empty pumps have become the norm.

Dealing with empty grocery store shelves and gas pumps, however, is not the only or even the most serious evidence that America today is not the America of previous eras, especially the nation that, since the end of WW II, has served as the world’s beacon of political and economic freedom.

Having to circumvent shortages of one product or another in food purchases or searching for a full gas pump are things that can be dealt with, at least in the short term. Working around more serious indications of the decline in our heretofore expected standard of living are problems not so easily dismissed.

Inflation, long a hallmark of economies of developing and Third World countries unable or unwilling to rein in impediments to free market economics, is now in the United States at levels not seen since the disaster that was the 1970s Jimmy Carter presidency.

This year’s inflation, which looks to continue apace in 2022, is primarily the product of forces within our control — conflagrant federal government spending and deliberate shuttering down of domestic energy sources by the Biden Administration.

Other indices of a nation’s rise in status to a fully developed country, and in our case as the world’s only superpower after the 1989 fall of the Soviet Union, include:

• secure borders,
• controlled crime,
• sound education,
• faith in public institutions,
• a cohesive national identity,
• a strong middle class,
• a positive vision for the future,
• the sanctity of contracts, and
• a strong military focused externally.

Frighteningly, in considering each of these (and other) fundamental indices of a nation’s posture at or near the apex of global modernization, the United States appears clearly to be backsliding.

Our southern border remains not only poorly secured, but not secure at all, resulting in the predictable dilution of our country’s sense of citizenship.

The middle class, bowing under the pressures of major inflation and widespread loss of jobs, is shrinking rather than expanding or even holding its own.

Serious crime in major cities from New York to San Francisco is ravaging communities and reducing hope for millions of working-class families, even as it causes an exodus of those financially able to do so.

The federal government decrees that lawful contracts between landlord and tenant can be arbitrarily voided, and the courts sustain such abuse of power.

In our closed, two-party political system, voters, candidates and political operatives share a deep and open distrust of the most basic index of a democratic society – a fair electoral system.

I could go on and on, but as someone who grew up until graduating from high school living in countries far less developed than ours, perhaps the most disturbing evidence that America has lost its status as the world’s “shining light” of freedom is that our military and our federal law enforcement institutions are being used for improper purposes.

There is clear evidence, for example, that ongoing federal investigations and prosecutions are being driven not by objective and fair enforcement of criminal laws, but by adherence to a set of political beliefs held by supporters of the current administration. At the same time, we see increased military presence on our streets and a push to “cleanse” the armed forces of those perceived to have disfavored political views.

These are the characteristics of a nation not committed to individual freedom and liberty, but signs of a government concerned solely with control and self-survival.

As a child, I lived overseas in such countries. I never dreamt I would be doing so in my own country.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

The confluence of COVID-19 and the election of Joe Biden has created a federal leviathan that considers no problem as too small or off-limits for federal involvement. This makes Republican governors the last line of defense against a full federal takeover of states. Thankfully, in this respect the GOP is stronger than one might think.

Republican governors by and large have not let 2020’s election defeat distract them from proving themselves to voters ahead of the crucial 2022 and 2024 elections. Most notable among this group are Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida, Greg Abbott of Texas, Kristi Noem from South Dakota, and Brian Kemp from my home state of Georgia.

Tested simultaneously by the pandemic, the federal government’s response to COVID, Biden’s disastrous economic policies, and urban crime, these governors have shown repeatedly to voters the value of governing according to consistent, conservative principles.

It is no coincidence that those states that are doing better than others are those governed by Republicans, who understand that the best response to COVID-19 was not to run into the basement and turn off the lights.

Beginning with Georgia, and soon followed by Florida and Texas, states quickest to reopen after the initial COVID “lockdown” consistently have demonstrated far more resiliency to this perfect storm of economic and social challenges, than states opting to rely on the heavy hand of government.

For example, while California’s and New York’s unemployment rates are 7.3 and 6.9 percent respectively, Georgia’s remains at an all-time low of 3.1 percent; Florida and Texas also remain low, at 4.6 and 5.4 percent.

This is no fluke. There is an ongoing, seismic realignment of economic centers in the United States, as major corporations and small business entrepreneurs flee states run by politicians who only see them as piggy banks and punching bags. The ability of “Red” state governors to keep workers working and taxes low, has contributed to a flood of businesses launching in or relocating to these states.

Georgia announced recently what Governor Kemp called its largest single economic development project – electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian’s new $5 billion manufacturing plant – which will add an estimated 7,500 jobs to the more than 80,000 recently created in the state. Texas too, has proven to be an attractive new home for California corporations fed up with progressive browbeating. Elon Musk specifically pointed to this bullying as a reason why he was moving Tesla headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin.

Not surprisingly, Georgia remains the number one place to do business, with Florida and Texas joining the Peach State in the top ten. Neither New York nor California makes the cut.

Democratic governors may look at the success of their Republican peers and scratch their heads, but there is no secret to the sauce, other than the demonstrable fact that combining capitalism and federalism works.

When the federal government attempted to shut down the economy, these governors pushed back to protect their businesses from ruin. More broadly, when it is the contemporary trend to look to the federal government to solve myriad local problems (from smash-and-grab flash mobs to violence in schools), Republican governors refused to surrender their autonomy to Uncle Sam. Florida’s DeSantis proposed reviving a civilian military force that could not be commandeered by federal authorities, while Georgia’s Kemp cracked down on violent crime in Atlanta after city leaders refused to recognize a reality that conflicted with the Democratic Party’s social justice narrative.

The results speak for themselves. In states with strong Republican leadership, economies are booming, crime is being contained, and citizens are enjoying the right to determine for themselves what is best for their families. In states that have surrendered their autonomy to Leftist puppet masters in D.C., citizens bounce from one arbitrary mandate to the next, while watching businesses all around them shut down.

So long as voters elect principled, conservative leaders who have the brains and the spine to keep the federal government out of state and local issues affairs, they will continue to enjoy the fruits of such leadership. For those in less free states, they are welcome to join us here in Georgia and elsewhere in the south – but they had best leave their liberal politics at the state line.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

President Joe Biden is 79. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is 81. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is 79, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, at 71 years old, is the baby of the bunch. The average age of America’s top political leadership is a whopping 77.5 years old. This is nearly 40 years older than the median age of the U.S. population, which stands currently at 38.1 years.

This trend may change after Biden’s first term ends in January 2025, but only if both major political parties choose to nominate younger candidates. The problem, as we close in on the end of Biden’s first year in office, is that the two most talked-about 2024 candidates would themselves be approaching octogenarian status in three years — Hillary Clinton at 77 and Donald Trump at 78.

2024 is a long way off, and Republicans might decide to break the Trump hold on the Party and opt for a younger candidate plucked from the GOP’s solid farm team. One top contender, for example, is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who will turn a youthful 46 in 2024.

The potential, anyone-but-Hillary 2024 Democrat nominee field remains foggy, but if Vice President Kamala Harris opts to run, she will just have celebrated her 60^th birthday by election day 2024. If former presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren were to vie for the office again in 2024, at 77 she would be the same age as Hillary. Sen. Bernie Sanders will be a mind-blowing 83 years old in 2024, and he shows no sign of losing his desire for higher office.

There are, of course, other and somewhat younger potential Democrat contenders, but few if any serious candidates who can claim a viable national persona.

The problem seems to be younger voters’ disinterest in actually voting.

Notwithstanding that the age at which individuals are permitted to vote dropped from 21 to 18 following ratification of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution in 1971, the percentage of younger voters (18 to 24) has never surpassed the 49.6% that voted in 1972. Consistently, voters in every older age group voted in a higher percentage than those in the younger age brackets. In 2020, nearly 72% of voters aged 65 and older voted, compared to just 48% of those in the 18 to 24 age group.

Since our country’s first presidential election in 1788, 46 men have served in that office. The average age of those individuals when sworn into office has been 55 years. What accounts for the fact that the most recent occupants of that high office, and the front runners to do so in the next election cycle, are aged far in excess of that median? More important, does it matter?

Historically, most presidents considered by experts to have been the best and brightest, were not even close to their seventies when inaugurated — George Washington was 57,  Thomas Jefferson was 58, Lincoln a youthful 52, and Theodore Roosevelt an energetic 43.

Life expectancy has increased dramatically over the course of our history, and stands now at nearly 80 years. But arguing that today’s septuagenarian political leaders offer higher energy, greater mental acuity, and enhanced ability to wield the tools of power in the internet age, as compared to their younger counterparts, is a tough argument to make.

This is particularly the case when considering that the median age of the U.S. population (38.1) like that of most more highly developed countries, significantly exceeds that of most less developed countries and those with emerging economies. For example, India’s median population age is a full ten years younger than ours, Iran’s is eight years younger, and Brazil’s nearly four.

Competing against countries like India, for example, with a far younger population and one that is highly tech-savvy, even as the men and women at the helm of our national decision making are in their late 70s, simply and inarguably places the United States at a distinct, and potentially dangerous, disadvantage on the world stage as we compete in this 21^st Century.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

Neither California nor California-based judges miss an opportunity to display their anti-Second Amendment bias, most recently in a pair of federal court rulings upholding the state’s bans on so-called “assault weapons” and on firearms magazines able to hold more than 10 rounds.

The state’s anti-firearms laws, and their support from the still-liberal Ninth Circuit panel of judges, highlight a problem that continues to bedevil Second Amendment supporters – that is, defending the Bill of Rights’ guarantee of the “right to keep and bear arms” in terms of need rather than principle.

In a report I authored for the Heritage Foundation earlier this year, I argued that defending the Second Amendment by asserting individuals have a need to own a particular type of gun or accessory – which is how many conservatives frame their arguments against gun-control laws – leaves advocates of the Amendment vulnerable to precisely what the federal appellate courts have done in so many recent opinions declaring such “needs-based” restrictions to be constitutional.

For example, in the 7-4 decision upholding the magazine ban, the Ninth Circuit deemed the measure constitutionally acceptable because it “interferes only minimally” with the Second Amendment, and because “there is no evidence that anyone ever has been unable to defend his or her home and family due to the lack of a large-capacity magazine.”

To borrow from the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia, this is “pure applesauce.” These judges cannot possibly know whether such evidence exists, or that the lack of evidence now does not mean it will not be there in the future. The Court’s ruling is based simply on the judges’ opinion on whether there is a “need” for such a firearms accessory, thereby justifying another chip taken from the foundation of the fundamental right to self-defense embodied in the Bill of Rights.

So long as defenders of the Second Amendment compete on this playing field, it will remain extremely difficult – bordering on impossible – to fend off legislative attacks such as those by California.  Each win by the Left provides justification for the next step to limit guns, ammunition, or firearms accessories.

Many gun-control advocates actually understand that it is not a firearm’s accessories or even the type of gun, that determines its lethality in the commission of a crime (though they rarely admit to this understanding). But to them, and for the judges who support their arguments, there is little reason to be concerned with facts that conflict with their anti-gun narrative, since they are not forced to justify their reasoning under any meaningful scrutiny.

If gun-control advocates are allowed to continue making needs-based arguments in support of laws restricting particular firearms, accessories, or ammunition as not being essential to “bearing arms,” Second Amendment advocates will be forced continually into playing defense, even though from a historical and constitutional perspective, that responsibility clearly should rest with the government.

Rather than attempting to show why a particular rifle platform or magazine is “needed,” conservatives instead must come to be sufficiently confident in their constitutional arguments – go on offense and force the government to present evidence, under strict scrutiny, as to why those rights should be curtailed by some arbitrary measure, such as the number of rounds in a gun’s magazine or clip.

This approach certainly would require more evidence than some coincidental relationship of magazine size to mass shooting events. Such a low (actually non-existent) standard of proof, however, is what has been happening for decades, as courts have permitted federal and state governments to chip away, bit by bit, at the foundation of the Second Amendment by claiming that no piece removed represented a significant “need.”

As Samuel Adams, one of our Founders wrote in The Rights of the Colonists, the “natural rights of the Colonists” are life, liberty, and property, along with the overarching right of the Colonists “to support and defend them in the best manner they can.”

This “duty of self-preservation” as Adams called it, is vested not in the government, but in individuals themselves. Now, just as in 1772, there is not and should not be, a requirement that any law-abiding citizen must justify a need for how he or she chooses to exercise that fundamental right, any more than a reader of the Washington Examiner should be forced to justify his or her “need” for that magazine in order to defend against government censorship of it.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

It is a metal that floats in water. It sparkles a beautiful red color when ignited. It is found in abundance in sea water and brine, as well as on lands in every continent other than Antarctica. It is lithium, and it is fast outpacing oil as the prime target of New Left environmentalists, even as it pits environmentalists against manufacturers of batteries used to power “environmentally friendly” electric vehicles so loved by the Biden administration.

Major industrial countries across the globe are fighting for ever more access to quantities of this metal, known as “white gold,” but none so seriously or successfully as China.

The battle being waged over lithium production is a serious one, with not only environmental issues at stake, but military and geopolitical ones as well. Despite this, it is not at all certain that the Biden administration will recognize its value and push back against those trying to limit or even halt domestic lithium production.

If the administration treats lithium with the same degree of disdain with which it has targeted oil and natural gas production, however, it will have correspondingly grave consequences far beyond the problems created for the electric vehicle industry.

Discovered and isolated as a unique metal early in the 19th century, lithium until recently was considered a cheap commodity in world markets. Large lithium mines and brine extraction facilities operated largely free from protests in the United States, South America, Australia, China and elsewhere.

Due to its use as a component in the production of nuclear weapons, the U.S. became the world’s largest producer of the light metal in the second half of the 20th century. Following a drop in demand for lithium in the aftermath of the Cold War, worldwide demand has surged in recent years as the world’s major economic powers, especially the United States and China, have pushed for ever-greater production of electric-powered vehicles, almost all of which rely on lithium batteries for power.

This increased demand has raised the environmental and social profile of lithium, with environmental and indigenous groups attempting to halt mining in various states, but especially in Nevada, which has the largest known deposits in the United States. Lithium battles are being waged in other locales as well. As detailed in a recent article in Wired magazine, at an area known as Rhyolite Ridge in California, defenders of plant life are mounting a major offensive against lithium mining, hoping to save a plant that grows there and which they find attractive, but which possesses no economic value whatsoever – “Tiehm’s buckwheat.”

Lithium is one of the most versatile metals, and its value goes far beyond lithium-ion batteries for Elon Musk’s Tesla electric cars and other “smart” devices. Companies that produce some of our military’s key weaponry know its value, for example, as a rocket fuel. Lithium also is a key ingredient in the production of lubricants, including those used by virtually every automobile repair facility and backyard auto mechanic in America.

Despite the many and varied ways lithium benefits all of us, the nascent war against its production hardly registers with the average American voter, though it should.

China a major producer of lithium, and neither President Xi nor the communist country’s ruling oligarchs exhibit the slightest concern for the impact lithium production might have on the environment or on any indigenous peoples’ rights in China or anywhere else. China is pressing ahead unabated with domestic production of lithium not only to meet the needs of its own industries, but as an export commodity as well.

China has been busy buying major interests in lithium producing facilities in other countries, including Australia and South America’s “Lithium Triangle” of Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia (where fully one-half of the world’s known lithium supplies are found).

If eco-radicals and indigenous peoples advocates succeed in pressuring the Biden administration to curtail domestic production of lithium, as they have done with oil and natural gas, the United States will become increasingly – but not surprisingly – dependent on foreign sources of the metal. This avoidable predicament plays directly into the hands of our major adversary on the world stage – China.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

“The whole aim of practical politics,” H.L. Mencken famously quipped in the 1920’s, “is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” How very true.

Although written a century ago, Mencken’s metaphor of an endless series of imaginary hobgoblins easily describes the string of new “variants” of the COVID virus, all which send petty tyrants from New York’s Bill de Blasio to Australia’s Scott Morrison, clamoring for new lockdowns and restrictions – for our safety, of course.

As I wrote last week, news about the “omicron” variant had global leaders racing to be the first to reimplement “safety” measures designed to keep the variant out of their country, even though there was no evidence omicron was any worse than previous strains, or that similar efforts made any difference in the past.

These tyrants, petty as they may appear to be, are a very real danger to freedom, though in a way much different from their predecessors in Soviet-era KGB or East Germany’s Stasi. These are not innately malicious government actors in the vein of 1984. They are just…stupid. COVIDiots, if you will.

In America, we have the Constitution that thankfully limits (eventually, at least) the damage COVIDiots may cause at the local, state, and federal levels; other countries are not so lucky. Rather than learning to live with COVID by taking reasonable and measured steps to limit its impact, countries like Australia persist in pursuing scorched earth policies in which economic and social freedom are viewed as impediments to be surmounted so the government can fulfill its responsibility to “keep people safe.”

The fusion of government overreach with rank stupidity has produced truly frightening examples of government abuse. Recently, for example, police in Australia launched a manhunt to find “escapees” from one of the country’s “Centres for National Resilience” (a euphemism for internment camps to detain people the government considers to be COVID public health threats). The detained citizens actually had tested negative for the virus, but since they failed to obtain the government’s permission to leave the compound, they became fugitives.

Neither science nor common sense factor into Australia’s policies or in those implemented by New York City Mayor de Blasio. The mayor decreed last week that every employee of every business in the Big Apple must be vaccinated and that every patron of every business must show identification and proof of vaccination before being allowed to enter any business establishment in the City.

This is the very definition of stupidity, made worse by the hypocrisy of the incessant browbeating by these same authorities that their critics need to “follow the science.” Yet, who are those not following the science?

In what world of “science” does natural immunity not factor into mandatory vaccination plans? How is it “science” to lock people in internment camps for weeks to stop the spread of a virus that has, so far, not ever been stopped from spreading across borders? And, what is the “scientific” rationale for using potentially deadly force to re-detain people who are free from the virus?

The answer to these and other inquiries of course, is that there is no medical or scientific basis whatsoever; leaving the only explanation for their continuance in the face of resulting economic and social harm, to be stupidly and lust for power – a truly toxic mixture.

In another famous quip, Mencken remarked that “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” To some degree, he is right again with what we are seeing from elected officials during COVID. For some time now, we have elected Democrats and Republicans who have no true regard for the limits of government power. It should come as no surprise then, that government officials empowered by ambiguous and overly broad “emergency powers,” overstep their bounds. It is their nature.

This is an important lesson to keep in mind when Americans head to the polls next year and in 2024. It is our opportunity to remove the COVIDiots from office, and replace them with freedom-minded individuals who will work not to conjure the next “emergency” by which to extend their power, but to return our Republic to at least a semblance of what our Founders constructed it to be.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller 

by Bob Barr

Most Americans believe that if they have been seriously harmed by actions of the federal government, they are at least entitled to bring their claim before a court of law and have it fairly and transparently decided. They would be wrong.

Thanks to a seven decades-old doctrine, called the “state secrets privilege,” all that government lawyers need to do to prevent a case against the government from proceeding is to claim that national security information would be revealed, and the case is stopped dead in its tracks regardless of the merits.

As outrageous as this doctrine is, federal courts for decades have permitted Uncle Sam to escape being held accountable for misdeeds, such as unlawfully surveilling individuals, by claiming “state secrets.” There is a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, however, that might at long last and to some degree limit the government’s power to assert this blanket defense.

Holding the federal government accountable in a court of law never has been easy. An aggrieved person has to overcome numerous legal hurdles, not the least of which is sovereign immunity, a principle we inherited from our former English masters, which shields government officials from many, if not most, civil legal actions. Beyond piercing the sovereign immunity shield, a person asserting a claim against a government agent or agency for violation of his constitutional rights must surmount other difficult hurdles, including standing and timeliness, among others.

Notwithstanding these legal roadblocks, however, there is opportunity for an individual asserting that his constitutional rights have been injured by actions of the federal government to bring legal action and to at least make the government respond meaningfully. If, however, the government claims that “state secrets” are involved, and that forcing it to answer the individual’s complaint or to provide evidentiary materials would reveal information harmful to the national security, then neither the parties nor the judges can inquire further. The private parties are flat out of luck.

There are internal government policies supposed to limit the use of the state secrets doctrine in litigation. A memo issued in 2009 by then-Attorney General Eric Holder to Justice Department lawyers, federal departments and agency heads directed them to be judicious and careful in asserting state secrets claims so as to “provide greater accountability” and “strengthen public confidence.”

Unfortunately, the known history of the state secrets doctrine gives little comfort that it has been asserted in accord with good faith.

The first time in the modern era that the government decided to try this method of fighting a lawsuit filed against it was early in the Cold War. Widows of three civilian contract personnel sued the Air Force over the deaths of their husbands, who were killed in the crash of a military plane testing electronic equipment. When the case reached the Supreme Court in 1953, the justices upheld the government’s state secrets assertion, thereby denying the widows the ability to pursue their claims.

Years later, when materials in the 1953 case were declassified, it became clear that the case involved no national secrets whatsoever — only evidence that would have been embarrassing to the government.

Still, the privilege continues to provide broad cover for government actions. It has been employed in recent years to limit public access to information concerning the extent of the government’s foreign intelligence surveillance programs, its use of torture, the size of terrorist watchlists and other information the government does not want to be made public.

The government’s ability to hide behind the completely opaque state secrets cloak, however, will be tested next year, when the High Court decides whether a federal judge who is presiding over a case involving alleged unconstitutional surveillance, can review disputed materials in chambers (that is, in private ) simply to determine if the government’s claim of national security harm is legitimate.

The fact that the government is so vigorously opposing even this extremely limited chink in its state secrets shield, tells us much about what it does not want people to see.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

A bureaucrat with an ego and an authoritarian streak is bad. A bureaucrat with these traits and a Chicken Little complex is downright dangerous, as we have seen most clearly since early last year when COVID-19 first reared its ugly head.

Now, nearly two years in, these Chicken Littles are at it again, thanks to the emergence of a slightly new “strain” of the virus; the so-called “Omicron” variety. Leading the charge is the Chicken-Little-in-Chief, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

In recent interviews, Fauci’s irrepressible ego and lust for control proves yet again why the man has no business being allowed anywhere near any levers of power.

In an interview last weekend with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” for example, Fauci bragged about “representing science” and his job of “saving lives”; all the while denouncing individuals who, unlike himself, have actually been elected to represent and speak for American citizens.

Fauci — whose career as science’s one true “expert” on COVID was unfortunately launched by former President Trump but elevated to sainthood by Trump’s successor — accused his critics, most pointedly Sen. Rand Paul, of intentionally “lying” to the American people because they have had the audacity to question the good doctor’s pronouncements (which have often turned out to be wrong).

Always eager to grab the spotlight for himself, Fauci has lost no time in declaring what must be done for Planet Earth to survive the Omicron strain of the COVID virus.

In the real world, however, what he and his COVID comrades across the globe are doing can barely be described as “science” – with a straight face, that is.

Following preliminary reports of the new strain of COVID in South Africa, world leaders, egged on by their “science” and “health” advisors, nearly jumped out of their skin to shut down borders, implement new lockdowns, and beat the drum of “Pandemic 2.0.” Just a few days later, a doctor treating patients in South Africa doused their alarmist cries with cold water, when she reported that symptoms of this new strain were odd, but actually quite “mild.” Mild.

In other words, the entire global panic over Omicron is based not on any solid research or confirmed threat, but the paranoia of the spread of a new COVID variant that appears to be demonstrably less severe than what we have endured already. Nobody – not Joe Biden, Dr. Fauci, the WHO, or anyone else – has any idea just how significant the Omicron variant is now or will be later, though early analysis indicates it is less so. The dearth of information, however, has not stopped these officials from charging ahead with plans to implement a new round of economic and security mandates, based on nothing more than fear of “what could happen” if they do not act immediately.

This is not science. It is, at best, informed speculation – and that is being generous. In any event, such knee-jerk policies certainly provide no true justification for more restrictions and mandates than we have been forced to endure for nearly two years.

Unfortunately, in an age when virtually every problem – real or imagined – serves to justify government action (always at the expense of individual liberty), few of those government officials who have served as overseers of the COVID response have been willing or able to relinquish the powers that fell into their laps early in 2020. Clearly, neither Biden nor Fauci have evidenced any inclination to do so, and no one considering the situation with any degree of objectivity expects them to change their predisposition to sow fear and reap control.

As I have written, the dramatic shift in agency mission from research to policy-making at Fauci’s bureaucratic home, the Centers for Disease Control, is deeply dangerous, if not ruinous for the health of our democracy and of our citizenry. If elected officials, tasked by the U.S. Constitution (not some made up “emergency” powers) to make public policy decisions for our country, cannot reasonably trust the information provided to them is objective and free from agenda-driven spin, the decisions they make are flawed from the get-go.

In this Chicken Little world in which we unfortunately live, however, flawed public policies are all we realistically can expect.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Buried deep within the massive infrastructure legislation recently signed by President Joe Biden is a little-noticed “safety” measure that will take effect in five years. Marketed to Congress as a benign tool to help prevent drunk driving, the measure will mandate that automobile manufacturers build into every car what amounts to a “vehicle kill switch.”

As has become standard for legislative mandates passed by Congress, this measure is disturbingly short on details. What we do know is that the “safety” device must “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired.”

Everything about this mandatory measure should set off red flares.

First, use of the word “passively” suggests the system will always be on and constantly monitoring the vehicle. Secondly, the system must connect to the vehicle’s operational controls, so as to disable the vehicle either before driving or during, when impairment is detected. Thirdly, it will be an “open” system, or at least one with a backdoor, meaning authorized (or unauthorized) third-parties can remotely access the system’s data at any time.

This is a privacy disaster in the making, and the fact that the provision made it through the Congress reveals — yet again — how little its members care about the privacy of their constituents.

The lack of ultimate control over one’s vehicle presents numerous and extremely serious safety issues; issues that should have been obvious to Members of Congress before they voted on the measure.

For example, what if a driver is not drunk, but sleepy, and the car forces itself to the side of the road before the driver can find a safe place to pull over and rest? Considering that there are no realistic mechanisms to immediately challenge or stop the car from being disabled, drivers will be forced into dangerous situations without their consent or control.

The choice as to whether a vehicle can or cannot be driven — for vehicles built after 2026 — will rest in the hands of an algorithm over which the car’s owner or driver have neither knowledge nor control.

If that is not reason enough for concern, there are serious legal issues with this mandate. Other vehicle-related enforcement methods used by the Nanny State, such as traffic cameras and license plate readers, have long presented constitutional problems; notably with the 5th Amendment’s right to not self-incriminate, and the 6th Amendment’s right to face one’s accuser.

The same constitutional issues abound with this new technology, but with the added confusion surrounding what Congress even means by “impaired driving.” Does it mean legally drunk, or perhaps under the limit but still “impaired” to a degree? Would police be summoned automatically by the system in order to make that determination? These are questions that should have been addressed openly and thoroughly during the legislative process, not left to later, back-room negotiations between interested parties other than individual car buyers – manufacturers, regulators, insurance companies and law enforcement.

Ironically, or perhaps intentionally, there also is no detail in the legislation about who would have access to the data collected and stored by the system. Could it be used by police, and could they access this information without a warrant? What about insurance companies, eager to know with what frequency their customers drove after drinking alcohol, even if it was below the legal limit? Such a trove of data presents a lucrative prize to all manner of public and private entities (including hackers), none of which have our best interests at heart.

Adding what amounts to a mandatory, backdoor government “kill switch” to cars is not only a violation of our constitutional rights, but an affront to what is — or used to be — an essential element of our national character. Unless this regulatory mandate is not quickly removed or defanged by way of an appropriations rider preventing its implementation, the freedom of the open road that individual car ownership brought to the American Dream, will be but another vague memory of an era no longer to be enjoyed by future generations.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.