Freedom Line Blog

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

At 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing with new U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson entitled “The Secretary’s Vision for the Future – Challenges and Priorities.”  The hearing provides a perfect opportunity for Chairman Michael McCaul (R – Texas) and his committee to emphasize America’s commitment to Intellectual Property (IP) protections, and to ensure that combating IP theft – both the anti-counterfeiting operations and efforts to stop online IP piracy – remain on the front burner.

Correctly and justifiably, many divisions and agencies within the Department focus on national security, but it would also be useful for the Committee members to discuss others that have a role in our economic well-being.  A large and diverse coalition of businesses recently came together to write Secretary Johnson, stressing upon him the importance of protecting American ingenuity and our competitive edge by reinforcing the need for strong enforcement of IP.  American companies continue to create the world’s most innovative goods and products, and fully two-thirds of all U.S. exports come from industries that depend on the recognition of strong IP rights.

Unfortunately, whenever creators succeed in building brands that consumers come to trust, there will in turn be nefarious characters who seek ill-gotten profit from someone else’s good name and hard work.  Fake consumer products, medicines, apparel and other goods can be found online, and unsuspecting shoppers end up with inferior, even dangerous products from unknown sources both domestic and abroad.  Consequently, absent significant effort by U. S. enforcement agencies, those knock-off goods can end up in hurting both the purchaser and the company unfairly being copied.  Whether manifested by state-sponsored theft of U.S. military technology, Eastern-bloc crime bosses using revenue of fake goods to fund their syndicates or simply domestic swindlers trying to scam consumers, U. S. policy makers and officials need to do what it takes to stop the bad guys to help ensure fair play as well as our safety.

Emphasizing that point at tomorrow’s hearing will provide an important step in that path.

In light of our recent video on air travel, reason.tv opines as well.

In response to the attempted terrorist attack aboard a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day, President Obama is set to release a new wave of airport security measures.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has responded somewhat by giving pat-downs to travelers from Yemen, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and 11 other countries that are havens for terrorist activity.

Of course, the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab, was already in a U.S. database of 550,000 suspected terrorists, but that did not subject him to additional scrutiny under current law.  No word yet on whether the President’s new proposals will change this practice.

Read more of CFIF on Homeland Security and Terrorism.

Remember a year ago, when the biggest rationale for Republican supporters of Barack Obama was his “first-class temperament?” Well, as the Obama Administration prepares to enter its second year in the wake of a near-miss terrorist attack, there’s signs that “No Drama Obama” can’t even muster a pulse for his job’s highest responsibility: protecting the American people.

From a story in today’s Politico:

“In general, I think that the president’s inclinations as a leader work fairly well for this issue — no-drama Obama,” [Cato Institute defense and homeland security fellow Benjamin] Friedman said. “In some ways Al Qaeda is trying to be relevant and trying to be politically relevant, and in some sense they achieved that. He’s denying them that relevance by acting like it’s not the No. 1 thing on his agenda. We credit them with more power and credibility than they have.”

Obama heading to the golf course, Friedman said, “signals that it’s not a crisis, and he’s the president and he has a lot of things to do and this is just one of them.”

Friedman and his fellow-travelers on the left and the libertarian right are engaging in a quixotic bit of terrorism-as-child-rearing fantasy.  Are we really to believe that the highest maxim of combatting terrorism is “see no evil?” If the targeted Northwest Airlines flight had gone down as planned, would this low-key approach from the President be equally effective in discouraging Al Qaeda? And how has this administration’s orgy of euphemisms (you may remember such hits as “man-caused disasters”) done so far in deterring potential terrorists?

It’s naive to believe there’s no such thing as evil in the world. The only thing more naive may be believing that you can make it go away by ignoring it.

Forget Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano’s bungled response to the would-be Detroit airline bomber.  According to Slate’s Christopher Hitchens the bigger fiasco was the bureaucratic stasis substituted for swift action in the aborted bombing’s aftermath.

It was reported over the weekend that in the aftermath of the Detroit fiasco, no official decision was made about whether to raise the designated “threat level” from orange. Orange! Could this possibly be because it would be panicky and ridiculous to change it to red and really, really absurd to lower it to yellow? But isn’t it just as preposterous (and revealing), immediately after a known Muslim extremist has waltzed through every flimsy barrier, to leave it just where it was the day before?”

If this is true, the color-coded “threat level” system should be scrapped.  It is doubtful anyone feels safe under any color.  Per Hitchens, most Americans know that precious little can be done to prevent a murderer from succeeding if he intends to die in the process.  While not an argument to do nothing, this realization should prompt DHS big wigs to do better PR than announce a new color scheme or disrobement policy.  Americans deserve more from their government than prophylactic policies that seek to prevent the last terrorist’s security breach.  As Hitchens details though, anything else would be unprecedented.