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Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 03 Oct 2001 09:20:28 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED AUG. 22, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
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Anxious to convince visitors that the state's casinos were on the up-and-up, Nevada jurisdictions long ago adopted requirements that casino dealers apply for police "work cards" to certify they had backgrounds free of criminal activity.

As with any government bureaucracy, the "work card" system created jobs and cash flow, while proving convenient to police agencies that (truth be told) would prefer that every citizen be required to present a government-issued photo ID upon demand, anyway.

Predictably, over the years, the number of job categories requiring "work cards" expanded.

Finally last month, common sense began to reassert itself as the Clark County Commission repealed work card requirement for maids, cooks, waitresses, janitors, and other hotel and casino employees not directly involved with cash or the gaming tables.

But now, even though employees newly hired for those jobs will no longer be required to undergo the ignominy of waiting in line to be fingerprinted and photographed like criminals, the Metropolitan Police Department says it's required by state regulations to keep on file for 10 years the photos, fingerprints, Social Security numbers, and other data gathered on such non-gaming employees in the past.

Here is prima facie evidence of what such schemes are really all about. If their initial background checks had revealed any of those employees to be escaped prisoners or multiple felons, they would have been denied work cards in the first place -- at the very least.

Therefore, this is not a database containing the photographs and fingerprints of known felons: just the opposite. The files in question are those of law-abiding, gainfully-employed citizens who are -- to the extent the work card system has any credibility at all -- "squeaky clean."

When the Social Security Act was first being considered, more than 65 years ago, religious factions in this country raised strong objection to the assignment of a "national ID number" to American citizens, citing the Bible teaching from First Chronicles of the plague sent upon the people of Israel for cooperating in King David's plan to number his people. More secular critics also noted the way the "Papers, please" police states were making use of such numbering schemes in countries like Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany.

Proponents took the groundswell of opposition seriously enough to guarantee that such numbers would remain confidential between an applicant and the federal retirement administration, going so far as to print "Not for Identification" on the cards for more than 30 years.

But -- you guessed it -- Clark County's work card files are indexed by federal Social Security number.

"Folks are entitled to privacy and folks are entitled to have some assurance that the information is being used for the original purpose it was intended for, and the longer you hold onto them the less likely that is happening," volunteered County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera last week.

"We keep criminals in the database, not working people," agreed state Sen. Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, who works as a waitress at a Strip casino. "If they've got a clean enough record to work in a casino, they're clean enough not to have their names in a (police database.")

Mr. Herrera and Ms. Carlton are right. State Library and Archives Administrator Sara Jones could change the code requiring maintenance of such records through a public hearing process in as little as 90 days. She should do so immediately.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. To receive his longer, better stuff, subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. (The price goes up in January.) His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair