Nobody's Business

Shutting Up Shutterbugs

Having spent last week at an intensive photography workshop — hence the absence of posts — it's only fair that I blog about photographers upon my return.

Here's the case of a press photographer who was arrested for just doing her job during a breaking news story. And here's an account of a young man with a cell phone camera who, standing on his own property, took a picture of police officers who had gathered to arrest an alleged drug dealer. A huffy cop then accused camera-phone guy of impeding the investigation, whereupon the amateur lensman was unceremoniously handcuffed and jailed.

Both these evildoers were ultimately released without charge. They shouldn't have been booked in the first place. Police officers frequently seem to forget that citizens have every right to monitor law enforcement activities. Authorities should have no reservations about this if what the cops are doing is legal and above-board.

This kind of abuse of power abounds. See, for instance, here, here, and here.

Why Smoking Bans Are a Bad Idea

Thomas Lambert, an associate professor at the University of Missouri – Columbia School of Law, deftly takes apart the arguments of smoking-ban advocates.

For instance:

Sweeping smoking bans may actually increase the incidence of smoking. A large percentage of smokers acquire the habit at a young age, and they frequently do so because smoking is 'cool.' Smoking is cool, of course, because it is rebellious. The harder antismoking forces work to coerce people into quitting smoking, and the more they engage the government and other establishment institutions in their efforts, the more rebellious — and thus the 'cooler' — smoking becomes. Even advocates of the use of smoking regulation to alter social norms acknowledge that overly intrusive regulations may result in this sort of 'norm backlash.'

And:

If patrons and employees are willing to pay more for a smoke-free environment (via, respectively, higher prices for the business's goods and services or lower wages) than smokers are willing to pay for the right to smoke, then business owners will be motivated to ban smoking. Otherwise, they won't. Thus, there's no need for the government to force establishments to go non-smoking; the market will provide an optimal number of nonsmoking facilities. 

But what of the poor people who have to work in smoking-allowed establishments?

 Isn't there an externality in that they are forced to bear costs (and assume risks) over which they have no control? Again, the answer is no. Workers exercise control by demanding higher pay to compensate them for the risks and unpleasantries they experience because of the smoke in their workplaces. Adam Smith theorized about such 'risk premiums' when he wrote that '[t]he whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labor and stock must, in the same neighborhood, be either perfectly equal or tending to equality . . . . [T]he wages of labor vary with the ease or hardship, the honorableness or dishonorableness of employment.' He was right. A vast body of empirical evidence demonstrates that employers do in fact pay a premium for exposing their workers to risks and unpleasantries. Such risk/unpleasantry premiums motivate employers to select the optimal amount of smoke in their restaurants. They also alleviate any injustices occasioned by what might otherwise appear to be a violation of employees' rights. Thus, smoking in public establishments does not, in any meaningful sense, impose genuine negative externalities in the form of risks and unpleasantries to the patrons and employees of such establishments.

Read it all.

Blogging Light

I'm doing an intensive photography workshop all week, with classes from 8.a.m. to 8 p.m. In addition, I'm not sure I'll have easy Internet access in the evenings. Inevitably, Nobody's Business will suffer somewhat, and there might be several days when I don't post anything at all. Rest assured that I haven't forgotten you. Things should be back to normal a week from today.

When Animal Lovers Attack

One of the most revealing words in the U.S. language is 'but.' As in, "I believe strongly in free speech, but..."

When you hear that word, used in that context, it's a pretty good sign you're dealing with a seriously censorious individual who's either too chickenshit or too deluded to admit that the Bill of Rights is but toilet paper to him.

Case in point:

"No one respects free speech more than we do, but inciting criminal cockfighting is not protected speech, and cannot be tolerated," Jonathan Lovvorn, the Humane Society's vice president of animal protection litigation.

You hear that? No one respects free speech more than Mr. Lovvorn and his colleagues do. He would no doubt appreciate copious brownie points for that bravely held conviction, but alas — there is the little fact that he and his organization are suing Amazon. That's because the online retailer dares to sell cockfighting magazines that the Humane Society deems undesirable — the Gamecock and the Feathered Warrior.

Amazon isn't backing down. "We're going to continue to make these titles available," said a spokeswoman for the company. "It's up to the customer to determine what they feel is appropriate for them to purchase." What a concept.

For a government-backed ban on certain niche magazines — such as Casino Player ands Strictly Slots — see here.

The Scary Truth About SWAT Raids

Winston Churchill is commonly credited with having said, "Democracy means that when there's a knock in the door at 3 am, it's probably the milkman."

Not so in America, where SWAT teams, in full paramilitary gear, perform nighttime raids on marijuana smokers and poker enthusiasts. Not infrequently, the cops burst into the wrong house or apartment, and perfectly innocent people get hurt or killed. Mind-boggling fact:

Since the early 1980s, the U.S. has seen a 1,300 percent rise in the number of SWAT team deployments, from 3,000 per year in 1981, to more than 40,000 per year in 2001 (the number is likely even higher today).

After a year-long study, Cato policy analyst Radley Balko has literally written the book on the SWAT team proliferation: Overkill, the Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America (he modestly calls it a paper, but it sure looks like a book if you get the hard copy. Or you can download the electronic version here).

For a taste of what's in Overkill, read Balko's latest column. Noting that the increase in SWAT raids is directly related to the escalation of the drug war, he writes:

Because most drug crimes are consensual crimes, there's no direct victim to report them. Therefore, police have to rely on informants to tip them off to whose dealing, and where. These informants are notoriously unreliable. They tend to be criminals themselves, looking for leniency. Or they could be rival drug dealers, looking to bump off the competition.

The problem is, these violent, highly-confrontational SWAT raids are conducted based on information first gleaned from informants. Which means the information isn't always accurate. Which means an untold number of innocent Americans have been subjected to the horrifying predicament of having armed men invade their homes in the middle of the night, and needing to decide immediately upon waking if the intruders are cops or criminals, and if they should submit or resist.

Child Informers

Maybe the Hong Kong authorities took their cue from Ceausescu? The Guardian reports:

The secret police of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu recruited thousands of children to spy on schoolfriends, parents and teachers, according to communist-era archives. They show that the Securitate blackmailed children across Romania into becoming informers in the late 1980s, as the whiff of liberalisation in the Soviet bloc prompted Ceausescu to tighten his grip on the country. ... The children were expected to tell their Securitate handlers about their friends' and families' opinions on the Communist party, and whether they listened to western radio stations, had contact with foreigners or made jokes about Ceausescu.

A $1.1 Million Phone Bill

If you lose your cell phone, it's a good idea to cancel your service. Caveat: such logic does not apply when you're a public servant. In that case, you're honor-bound to waste as much money as possible, preferably by doing nothing.

In 2004, thieves stole two satellite phones from British troops in Iraq. It took the alert folks in the U.K.'s Foreign Office eighteen months to cut off service to the devices. All that time, Foreign Office officials paid the neatly itemized bills without so much as a raised eyebrow. The total, according to the National Audit Office, was almost £600,00, or $1.1 million.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone in sheer waste and ineptitude, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last year spent $68,000 on dog boots (?!) that were never used, plus a king's ransom on a range of other questionable purchases. This was revealed by the General Accounting Office (GAO) the other day.

A spokesman for the department, Russ Knocke, sniffed that "More resources have been spent on investigating these anomalies than the amount of resources actually lost." You almost have to admire the chutzpah. Jacob Sullum at Reason's Hit and Run is a tad incredulous:

Got that? It's the GAO that's wasting taxpayers' money, by investigating how other people are. Think of how much money we could save if only the GAO would stop paying attention to this stuff.

Karaoke's Moral Hazards

China's Ministry of Culture wants to clean up the smut that rings forth from the nation's ever-popular karaoke machines.

Most Chinese tunes are pretty tame by U.S. standards. So what songs might not pass Beijing's crooners cut? A "Top 10 Unclean Song Contest" held a few years ago by Heaven and Earth People magazine might provide some clues. Among those judged the most unclean was "Boat Tracker's Love," condemned for lyrics such as "I can't wait for the sun to set so you can kiss me as much as you want to." Those less inclined toward maritime themes might consider "Office" by Xuecun, with the line, "We spend a lot of nights together as you cheat on your husband by telling him you're working overtime." ...

In recent years, Beijing has launched a wave of initiatives to try to reach the 283 million Chinese ages 15 to 30, with limited success. These efforts include restrictions on the appearance of racy clothing, cleavage or purple hair on state-run television; a government-produced rap rendition of Mao Tse-tung's teachings; filial piety contests; and "clean" online games in which model soldiers darn socks to earn the ultimate prize, a signed virtual copy of Mao's Little Red Book.

Hong Kong's Child Cops

During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese children were encouraged to rat on their "reactionary" parents. (The American version of this phenomenon is something like this.) Now, in a creepy echo of those good old days, 200,000 uniformed young 'uns in Hong Kong have been enlisted as spies in the war on drugs piracy.

The so-called Youth Ambassadors campaign will start on Wednesday with 1,600 youths pledging their participation at a stadium in front of leading Hong Kong film and singing stars and several Hong Kong government ministers. The Youth Ambassadors represent a new reliance on minors to keep order on the Internet. All members of the Boy Scouts, Girl Guides and nine other uniformed youth groups here, ranging in age from 9 to 25, will be expected to participate, government officials said.

The program is generating interest from — hey, guess who.

Customs officials here have already been contacted by their counterparts in the United States, Macao and mainland China, and are ready to work with other jurisdictions to help set up similar programs.

Wedlock Lite

No sex before marriage? The Saudis have found a loophole.