Fingerprints, Obscenity and Foreign Investment
The Liberty Coalition releases an open letter opposing a new federal fingerprint registry.
Free speech advocates challenge local obscenity standards in Florida as hypocritical.
Investments by sovereign wealth funds in U.S. companies raise controversy.
1. PRIVACY
The Liberty Coalition releases an open letter opposing a new federal fingerprint registry.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Center for Entrepreneurship Director John Berlau on the proposed threat to privacy:
“…this week a measure creating a federal fingerprint registry totally unrelated to national security or violent crime may clear the Senate with little debate. The legislation would require thousands of individuals not suspected of any wrongdoing to send their prints to the feds. What issue is so important that it warrants creating a fingerprint database without public debate? Believe it or not, the housing slowdown.”
2. LEGAL
Free speech advocates challenge local obscenity standards in Florida as hypocritical.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on the unfair standards applied in sexual harassment lawsuits:
“Juries have found employers liable for sexual humor overheard by the plaintiff that’s no grosser than what you can find in a sitcom on prime-time TV, and sexual discussion no more graphic than what many women enjoy reading in magazines like Glamour, Redbook, and Cosmopolitan. In the somber surroundings of the jury box, few jurors will admit that they like sexual humor, even if they in fact do.”
3. BUSINESS
Investments by sovereign wealth funds in U.S. companies raise controversy.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Eli Lehrer on the logic of foreign investment in the U.S.:
“Those who oppose foreign investment claim that foreign governments seek to invest in the United States for various sinister reasons. Personally, I’m not quite clear why nations bent on our destruction would place assets in a place where we can easily seize them if they do anything hostile. It would actually be a lot easier to tame countries like North Korea if they invested in the United States.”