From the Cato Institute

November 4, 2005

In a brief of the Cato Institute as Amicus Curiae in support of petitioners in Kelo v. City of New London, Cato scholars, Mark Moller, Tim Lynch, Robert Levy and Richard Epstein, argue: "The romantic assumption that legislatures act only for the common good leads to travesties like this New London project. This Court should follow the lead of the Michigan Court in Hathcock and overrule Midkiff insofar as it holds that any assertion of a generalized public benefit should be routinely blessed under the rational basis standard of review."
Registered Traveler Program Takes Off in June

"A program that speeds pre-screened travelers through security will begin June 20, launching what airports hope will be a new era of checkpoint screening," USA Today reports. "Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley announced the start date Thursday at a congressional hearing. The Registered Traveler program will allow people who have passed a background check to go through checkpoints quicker. Participants must pay a fee, go through a records check for criminal warrants, and provide a fingerprint and eye scan. They'll be checked against databases of known terrorists."

In his testimony before the House Subcommittee on Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity, Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, had this to say: "There are problems with Registered Traveler. It is unseemly to have government agents associated with segregating 'preferred' travelers from others. The Registered Traveler program essentially denies fairness, due process, and privacy protections to volunteers. And the 'voluntariness' of the program could disappear at any time. Because it is a government program, no promise about it being optional can be assured.

"The problems with Registered Travel are premised on the error in having government provide security services to the air transportation industry. There are emotional and political justifications for it, but there is no principled, security-based, or economic rationale for providing a massive security subsidy to airlines."