-Caveat Lector- [radtimes] # 147 An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities. "We're living in rad times!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to assist RadTimes--> (See ** at end.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --Big Brother goes global --Panel urges better security at Defense agencies --Nice doesn't cut it in the face of the rabid Right --Manifest of Anti-capitalist Youth --Waging War on Dissent (NLG Report) --Hackers become more militant --ELF Making Good on Threat --Cloning Reality: Brave New World here we come =================================================================== Big Brother goes global <http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21556> By John W. Whitehead WEDNESDAY JANUARY 31 2001 The Internet, like no other technology in history, is truly a global medium.. In a way that was only dreamed of 10 years ago, communication is now possible from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world. But criminals have latched onto this global presence, too, creating viruses that wreak havoc on hard drives from Moscow to Malaysia to Minnesota. With the birth of the global criminal, it was inevitable that there would be a global response. That time has come. A group known as the Council of Europe has drafted an international treaty on cybercrime, which could go into effect as early as this summer. The Council, made up of 41 nations, has worked on the treaty since 1997, although recent global viruses lent urgency to its proceedings. The problem is that in its eagerness to lay a snare for the global cyber-criminal, the treaty has trapped basic civil liberties in its net. Reflecting what some observers have called "a law enforcement wish list," the document threatens to short-circuit fundamental civil rights. First, any international agreement purporting to deal with criminal activity on a global scale is fraught with problems from the beginning. What might be a crime online in some countries may be protected First Amendment speech in the United States. What might be a crime serious enough to warrant online surveillance by law enforcement would likely differ from country to country, depending on the severity with which cultures view certain behavior. This latter concern was one of the animating forces behind the protests of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, an international coalition of cyber-liberties and human rights groups from countries as diverse as Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The GILC points out that, under the treaty, interception of online communications by law enforcement is only to be used for "serious offences to be determined by domestic law." However, many countries define serious crimes very broadly when police seek to wiretap a suspect. Of course, the unique global nature of the Internet means that even if the United States chooses not to use surveillance (although efforts like Carnivore, the FBI's online surveillance program, suggest this won't be the case), other countries could interfere with the expression of American citizens online, violating both their First Amendment rights to free speech and their Fourth Amendment rights prohibiting unreasonable searches. The treaty would also force Internet users to turn over decryption keys to government officials. Long a point of heated debate between the Internet community and law enforcement, decryption keys could give the government personal information it cannot access through lawful means. In some cases, it could even violate an Internet user's right not to self-incriminate, a fundamental due process liberty recognized throughout American history. In essence, the treaty on cybercrime, drafted behind closed doors and stuffed with goodies for eager law enforcement officers, threatens to respond to global crime online with a global assault on civil liberties. It is a maxim of modern life that the less connected police are to the community which they serve, the more likely they are to violate the civil liberties of the citizens. In most cases, the policeman who lives next door is unlikely to search your home without a warrant, to violate your free speech rights or to interfere with your basic freedoms. Why? Because he knows you as a human being, not a faceless member of the mob he's been sent to control. In America, we know that sending federal law enforcement to do a job often results in serious violations of our basic liberties. Whether it's the legal immigrant boy shot by federal officers while herding sheep or the victims of an overzealous Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the further we remove law enforcement from the community, the more we court serious damage to the Bill of Rights. It almost goes without saying, then, that a global response to crime online will inevitably result in an assault on civil liberties unlike any before. It is virtually impossible for law enforcement officials charged with a global mission to view the ordinary Internet user in Minnesota as a real human being with basic fundamental rights. The treaty, in actuality, has it backwards. The council should have first drafted the treaty on basic civil liberties in cyberspace. Once it had the freedoms established, then it could worry about the crimes. ---- Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and editor of Gadfly magazine. =================================================================== Panel urges better security at Defense agencies <http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0101/020101td.htm> By Liza Porteus, National Journal's Technology Daily The U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century on Wednesday called for sweeping changes within the government's defense agencies to address emerging threats such as cyberterrorism. "There ought to be central, strategic planning in national security," said former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., who, along with former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., co-chaired the congressionally mandated commission that released its third report on national security. "We believe very deeply the threats to our homeland, in terms of chemical [and] cyberwarfare ... have to be dealt with." The commission also recommended a doubling of the government's investment in science and technology research and development by 2010. Overall, it said the R&D budget should top $160 billion by then. The commission recommended strengthening the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the scope of the science adviser, formerly Neal Lane in the Clinton administration. Bush has yet to name someone to that position. In addition, the commission proposed that Congress establish a National Security Science and Technology Education Act (NSSTEA) that would: reduce interest on student loans for students who pursue degrees in science, math and engineering; provide loan forgiveness and scholarships for people in these those fields who enter government and military service; create a national security teaching program to foster science and math teaching at the K-12 level; and increase funding for professional development of math and science teachers. =================================================================== Online Journal - http://www.onlinejournal.com Nice doesn't cut it in the face of the rabid Right By Johnny Angel December 7, 2000 Wanna know what has really crippled the progressive/moderate movement in America, why we seem so impotent in the face of the endlessly blaring nuttery on the Right? Basically, it's a lack of anger, a lack of outrage over the idea that the rest of the world doesn't share our views, the life's blood and passion of America's neo-conservatives. The fact is the Right is perennially pissed off. Pinch-faced, cross-eyed pissed off. It always has been and loudly so since Marconi's genius became mass marketable, from racists Father Coughlin and Gerald Smith during the Depression to convicted felons Gordon Liddy/Ollie North today. And why is this, you may ask? Because the kind of psyche, rheuma, soul, whatever word you'd like to use that is always boiling over cholerically belongs to the empty-headed animals of the American Right--why do you suppose that the bile level on political talk radio is up at the eyebrow line? As John Lydon said so eloquently in PIL's 1986's anthem "Rise," "anger is an energy"--and the Left doesn't have it. Not until we've been reamed, steamed and dry-cleaned will this change. Even then, the nature of our internal beast is not combative -- our own well-adjustment is a political Achilles heel. Not to mention dissonance and confusion in 2000, the roles of Left/Right have reversed. Frankly, we on what was the Left have assumed the traditional role of the true freedom-loving conservative--laissez faire on social issues, economic prudence on debt and deficit, antipathy to "zero-tolerance" and "mandatory sentencing", true adherence to the Constitution (especially as it pertains to the 1st, 4th and 5th Amendments, all loathed by the selective patriots on the Right), and most importantly, a sense that fair play trumps all concerns, that there must be uniformity in how the laws are applied. The American Right operates on the (lack of) principle that their simian symbol of success, GW Bush derided on a daily basis in his 200 million dollar campaign--"if it feels good, do it", was a 60's mantra that Bush cited as the example of the decline of Western Civilization, as proof of spiritual corruption gone haywire. Yet, as has been shown in Florida in the last few weeks, the Bush and GOP camps have "done it" whenever the mood hit them, with no regard to either the law or the will of the people, using mob rule and violence to quell manual vote counts in Miami, or assembling endless legal stonewalls or Harris cronyism to assure a victory. And what will be the first priority of a Bush administration? A trillion dollar tax cut (or, more accurately, a rollback to 1989, so as to eradicate Bush Sr.'s tarnished record) that will bring back deficits and high interest rates. Conservative? Hardly--Barry Goldwater is rolling in his tomb. Selective outrage, blood pressure-raising pique, hauteur for no discernable reason, these are now the character traits of the people that make up today's Republican Party. Our problems with this juggernaut are duo fold--not only are they motivated, they're unified against what they perceive as a common enemy--us. Ironically, the rank and file of the Angry Right have much more in common with their supposed foes in the working and middle class than they do with their wealthy, manipulative leadership (a source of incredible anxiety to them, there is nothing they hate and fear more than the idea that they're no better than anyone else)--but another character trait of today's conservative is the unquestioning devotion to cherished totems like righteousness, religiosity, the military and the traditional role of the woman in the family. Beat that drum hard enough and long enough, and the inability to reason (the downfall of any regressive) takes over--with a side order of propaganda-fired rage as well. Can't see us on the Left getting mad enough to get even, for the same reason that there is no Limbaugh on the Left--sure, we have our prejudices as well, but we don't embrace them as a source of pride, we have bouts of anger, but they are aimed at moving the intractable evils of some human beings as opposed to keeping the status quo at all costs. If we believe that privilege is sacred, it isn't because it's an exclusive weapon to keep the masses in their places, but a benefit that must be used to alleviate suffering without condition; if we believe that there are cultural differences between certain groups of people, then we enjoy that aspect of the human condition, not try to steam-roll other cultures into a conformist straightjacket. This philosophy is harder to articulate and doesn't play to xenophobia or code-word racism like the voices of the Right do--and it doesn't play to the deep-seated fear and paranoia (ever heard a progressive rave about an invasion from China or North Korea, say?) that keeps the stentorian bellow of rightwing commentariat in full roar, 24/7. Who'd have ever thought it--we're too good for our own good! ---- Johnny Angel is a freelance writer who is frequently published in the LA Weekly, LA New Times, Mean, Hotdog, RollingStone.com, and is a syndicated columnist with the San Francisco Bay Guardian. =================================================================== From: "Leo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 The Manifest that follows was written and signed by people (mostly youth) that were camping in the youth camping of the WSF. About 200 people made a demonstration against the "social-democrat" tendency of the WSF and read the Manifest. --Leo Manifest of Anti-capitalist Youth against the World Social Forum Another World is Possible... Only Destroying Capitalism! Since Seattle, passing Washington, London, Milan, Melbourne Seoul, Prague to Nice, time and again tens of thousands of anticapitalist youth have denounced, with direct action, the great monopolies and international institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, WTO, and the European Union. These institutions are responsible for the exploitation of millions of workers, for the destruction of the environment, for relegating millions of persons in dire poverty. Now, here,in Porto Alegre , at the World Social Forum, the NGO's, the union bureaucracies, and the directors of the institutionalized political parties change the content of the struggle of the young anticapitalists to the reactionary policy of "humanizing capital". Humanizing capitalism with the French ministers that persecute immigrants, who form a government that, together with NATO, bombed Yugoslavia, killing thousands of people and repressed the anti-capitalists in Nice. Humanizing capitalism together with the bankers and the multinationals. Humanizing capitalism together with the governments who, like the PT [Worker's Party], continue paying the foreign debt, repressed the strike of the professors of Rio Grande do Sul and the occupation of a federal building in Porto Alegre, and continue repressing the street merchants and the homeless on their squatted land. Governments that continue to make payments to the multinationals. In truth the "stars" that direct this government and mayoralship, self-proclaimed democratic and popular, interested in the 2002 elections, resolved to serve as a test tube for a new capitalist order. One sustained by a social democracy that permits bourgeois exploitation and pleases the middle-classes with democratic play-actings such as the Participatory Budget that aims to impede protests via the co-optation of popular movements. Rounding out the picture are the various "left" parties that even while criticising this policy, capitulate before a more thorough questioning. Humanizing capitalism is utopian and reactionary. Thus, we, anti-capitalist youth from the Youth Camp, form a part of the anti-capitalist movement and stand in solidarity with the youth denouncing the World Economic Forum in Davos. We say: The World Social Forum is a ruse of those who wish to detour the anti-capitalist fight towards the policy of collaboration of classes and elections, continuing to apply the misery of capitalism. Thus we continue our efforts in the construction of a national anti-capitalist network under the cries of : "Down with the World Economic Forum, IMF World Bank and WTO"; to which the World Social Forum is not an alternative, "down with the plan Colombia!", "Long live the Palestinian Intifada", "No to the payment of the domestic and foreign debts!", "No to the Privatizations!". Capitalism kills, we will kill capitalism. It is up to the youth, the workers, and the poor anti-capitalists, loyal to the spirit of Seattle, Nice, Prague and Davos to impede the distortion of the anti-capitalist intervention and its use by its enemies. Signed, Juventude e Luta Revolucionaria, Jornal Espaco Socialista, Comite Marxista Revolucionario, Anarco-Punks, Movimento Che Vive (RJ), Coletive pela Universidade Popular (Porto Alegre), Secretaria Estadual de Casas de Estudantes de Goias, Movimento Nacional de Meninos e Meninas de Rua, Federacao Anarquista Gaucha, Grupo Cultural Semente de Esperanca, Acao Global por Justica Local, Resitencia Popular RJ/PA, Nucleo Zumbi Zapatista - ABC Paulista, Estrategia Revolucionaria, Socialismo Libertario Brasilia, Federacao Anarquista Uruguaia, Acao Revolucionaria Marxista (RJ), Frente de Luta Popular, Juventude Avancar na Luta, Ligua Bolchevique Internacionalista, Espaco Cultural Quilombola - Aracatuba - SP, e demais ativistas anti-capitalistas. =================================================================== Waging War on Dissent, a report by the Seattle National Lawyers Guild and WTO Legal Group is on the web as a PDF file and available for printing or downloading. <http://seattle.indymedia.org/local/images/NLG-REPORT.pdf> This report is an in depth look at the increasingly heavy handed tactics used by corporations and law enforcement during recent mass-demonstrations. The report goes into: - disruption of legitimate protest - the increasing militarization of law enforcement - organizing in the face of increased repression The report also provides a detailed examination of the array of "less lethal" weaponry, the role of corporations and their ultimate game plan. Hard copies of the report are still available through the mail. Please send inquiries, donations etc to: wtolegal c/o Paul Richmond PO 95242 Seattle, WA, 98145 (206) 405-4651 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please specify "report" on any donations. =================================================================== Hackers become more militant by Brent Lawson The Hamilton Spectator The attacks from the silence of cyberspace struck with military precision. A total of 26 government Web sites in three countries were hacked into and defaced at virtually the same time. Then, hackers hit software giant Microsoft Corp., shutting down access for millions of users in North America. This week's well organized attacks were a reminder that cyberspace remains a battleground on many fronts, with groups eager to claim credit for what they view as political action rather than cyber vandalism. The Web invasions occurred almost exactly one year after attacks on such high profile sites as Amazon.com, Yahoo and eBay which cost millions of dollars and prompted widespread fears about Internet security. The success of the recent strikes suggests the world's most powerful sites remain vulnerable to determined computer hackers. Last week, a 16-year-old from Montreal known as Mafiaboy pleaded guilty to 56 charges of mischief in connection with some of those attacks. But this week's forays on to government sites in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia were hardly the work of a few isolated hackers. The cyber raids are seen as a reflection of the growing militancy of disgruntled Web users who have organized into groups with a para-military structure. Cyber security expert John Walker of Hamilton-based CSS Internet News said such groups claim to possess a clear purpose. "They are trying to tell governments to stop trying to control the Internet." An international group called Pentaguard is claiming credit for the incursions on 26 government Web sites. Another group called CyberArmy claims to have 35,000 adherents. Members can perform "anti-censorship" tasks to earn such classifications as trooper, lieutenant and marshall. The Web site offers this description: "We campaign against those who abuse the free nature of the Internet. We believe that spammers, child pornographers, Web-based scammers and malicious hackers are enemies of the Internet.... "CyberArmy is a group of netizens who believe in a deregulated Internet, which is free from external control." Walker said such attacks have the reverse effect, providing ammunition to people who favour more regulation of the Internet. "What they are actually doing is giving government every reason in the world to tighten controls. Control is what it's all about. Control brings profits and taxes. If they can't control it, they can't tax it." Keith Lowry, vice-president of security operations for Pilot Network Services Inc., said the attacks confirm that the Net has serious security problems and the situation is worsening. "There are people who are out there to destroy.... They call it 'to free' information from other people." Lowry said the connectivity of the Internet and the ready access to Web sites provides more scope for those who want to attack infrastructures. But he doubts governments can even hope to keep up with the rapidly evolving Internet, let alone provide effective regulations. "I don't believe governments can control it. I don't think they have the manpower, the resources or the technical expertise to do it." By the time governments are ready to act, the issue they were concerned with has often been overtaken by new technology and systems. "It takes them a year to enact legislation. By the time they get there, what's happened is already history." The California firm provides security protection against unauthorized access, tampering and viruses for over 70,000 networks around the world. Lowry compared government attempts to control cyberspace to trying to put a net around the atmosphere. "The Internet is too big, too pervasive, too technologically advanced for slow-moving governments." =================================================================== ELF Making Good on Threat <http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/elf010130.html> By Dean Schabner Jan. 30 - The Earth Liberation Front has carried out more than 100 acts of destruction in the last five years, wreaking $37 million worth of damage. To date, police have one suspect, and the group, leading a rising wave of environmental extremism, is promising to escalate its attacks. STORY HIGHLIGHTS Apocalyptic Environmentalists, Political Cynics Violent Terrorists or Religious Radicals Expanding Scope, Extending Range Last week, investigators got their first break, arresting Frank Ambrose, of Indiana, in connection with a tree spiking incident for which the ELF claimed credit. Law enforcers, however, are not calling it a major breakthrough in their five-year war with the elusive activists. "It's always a positive when there is some success," said Tom Lyons, a U.S. Forest Service special agent in charge of law investigation in the Northwest. "That can only help to deter and show law enforcement agents' intent to deal with this issue nationwide. It's well publicized that organizations like ELF operate in small cells around the country, and this man's ties [to ELF] are the subject of speculation." The "elves" of the ELF have become more and more active since they claimed responsibility for setting fires that caused $12 million worth of damage at the Vail Mountain ski resort more than two years ago. According to the activists and the law enforcement agencies that battle them, there's likely to be a lot more of their costly mischief. "This year, 2001, we hope to see an escalation in tactics against capitalism and industry," ELF said earlier this month in a communique to Craig Rosebraugh, the Portland, Ore., man who acts as unofficial spokesman for the group. In the statement, ELF also claimed responsibility for a fire at a lumber company office in Glendale, Ore., that did $400,000 worth of damage. Crime fighters in the FBI and the Forest Service are taking them at their word, especially considering that the Bush Administration has been talking about opening the national parks to mining and logging and stepping up the search for oil in the Alaska wilderness. "It's a question that's been on my mind and on a number of people's minds," said Kim Thorsen, Forest Service department director of law enforcement and investigation. "The new administration's policies are different from those in the past. It's very possible that this coming summer season is going to be very contentious, if we start cutting more trees and we start mining. It's an issue we're going to have to be very aware of." David Szady, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Portland division, said that ELF has already begun to increase its activity, noting that though there was nothing as spectacular as the Vail incident last year, 2000 was the group's busiest yet. Apocalyptic Environmentalists, Political Cynics ELF claimed responsibility for 16 fires last year at construction sites for luxury homes in Colorado, Arizona and New York, and law enforcement officials link them to the Anarchist Golf Association, which destroyed two grass seed research centers in Oregon. The group is also blamed for a fire at a Forest Service tree biogenetic research site in Wisconsin. In all, they claimed responsibility for $2.2 million worth of damage in 2000. While Thorsen seemed ready to link the possibility of more "ecotage" to the policies of the administration in Washington, at least one person who has studied the movement sees no reason to believe that ELF cares at all who is in the White House. Bron Taylor, a professor of religion at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh who has studied the radical environmental movement for more than a decade, said that one of the defining elements of the activists is their political cynicism. "With these guys, I don't think they look at any administration as being better than any other," Taylor said. Taylor, who has published dozens of articles in scholarly journals dealing with various aspects of the environmental movement, said he gained his understanding of the activists not just from their public statements and actions, but from numerous interviews, many conducted anonymously with people he said he believed were ELF members. "You can't understand these guys if you don't understand the ethical and spiritual motivations behind them," Taylor said. "There are continuities between their ethical and spiritual motivations, and those that have motivated the environmental vanguard for the last 125 years. You have grafted onto that a particular reading of environmental science and of governmental politics that tends to be on the one hand apocalyptic in terms of its view of the environment and on the other deeply cynical in its political analysis." Violent Terrorists or Religious Radicals He describes their reverence for nature as a religious feeling related to the beliefs of Native Americans in which all living things have souls and are seen as sacred. According to Taylor, "deep ecologists" such as those in ELF have a firm belief in three essential tenets: That ecosystems have an inherent worth that cannot be judged in relation to human needs; that human actions are bringing the earth toward mass extinctions; and that political action is insufficient to bring about the wholesale social changes needed. Because of their rejection of the possibility that government will make the kind of policy changes they deem necessary, ELF activists are not concerned about swaying public opinion, in Taylor's reading of the group. Their goal, he says, is to create a situation in which it is simply unprofitable for lumber companies to cut down trees or construction companies to build luxury "trophy homes" in wild areas. While this makes them ready to take actions that are considered by much of society to be radical, their reverence for nature and their belief - whether articulated or not - that life in any form is sacred, keeps them opposed to intentionally harming other people, even their ideological opponents. "It is a laugh to me when they call us violent or terrorists," Lee Dessaux, a hunt saboteur said in a 1997 interview quoted in Taylor's article "Religion, Violence and Radical Environmentalism: from Earth First! to the Unabomber to the Earth Liberation Front" in Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence. "I say, if we were, don't you think we'd have killed people by now?" They still haven't either killed or seriously hurt anyone in more than 100 incidents over five years since they burned a truck at Forestry Service office in Oregon, but law enforcement officials fear it is only a matter of time. "They keep saying that we're not going to hurt anyone, and I think they're sincere, but what happens is you can't control the zealots - we saw that with [Oklahoma City bomber Timothy] McVeigh," Szady said. "Our other fear is that someone is going to be killed accidentally." Expanding Scope, Extending Range Not only has ELF picked up its pace, it seems the "elves" have also begun to branch out and move around the country. Whereas early on their ecotage was primarily directed at the logging industry, and primarily in the Northwest, their recent campaign against suburban sprawl brought them attention in the Northeast. "These people are popping up all over," Szady said. "The names can change, but we think the people are the same." To date, it seems that the FBI and others trying to catch the "elves" haven't been able to find out for sure, though. Szady refused to say whether the FBI has had any success attempting to infiltrate ELF, but there have been no arrests in any of major the incidents for which "elves" have claimed responsibility. "We have to take a very coordinated effort on the local, state and federal level, with all involved agencies working together," he said. "We're also hoping to get cooperation from the people in those organizations who might feel that some members have stepped over the line." The Indiana arrest, carried out by state Conservation agents, shows that various law enforcement organizations are cooperating in the fight against ELF, but doesn't mean an end is in sight. ---- SIDEBARS Without Hierarchy, ELF Eludes Law http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/elf_side010130.html RELATED STORIES Tree Spiking Suspect Linked to ELF - http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/treespike010126.html Environment Group Admits Burning Homes - http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/elf010103.html Saving the Earth, One Arson at a Time - http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/eco_activists.html Extreme Environmentalists Target Industry - http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/eco_targets.html Eco Militants Frustrate the Law - http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/eco_law.html =================================================================== Cloning Reality: Brave New World here we come 1/31/01 By Wesley J. Smith NATIONAL REVIEW Brave New World has arrived at last, as we always knew it would. On January 22, 2001, Britain's House of Lords voted overwhelmingly to permit the cloning and maintenance of human embryos up to 14 days old for the purposes of medical experimentation, thereby taking the first terrible step toward the legalization of full-blown human cloning. Meanwhile, an international group of human-reproduction experts announced their plans — current legal prohibitions be damned — to bring cloned humans to birth in order to provide biological children to infertile couples. They expect to deliver their first clone within 18 months. The ripple effect on human history of these and the events that will inevitably follow may well make a tsunami seem like a mere splash in a playground puddle. Human cloning is moving slowly but surely toward reality despite intense and widespread opposition throughout the world. Many resisters worry that permitting human cloning would remove us from the natural order. As the venerable Leon R. Kass has so eloquently put it, cloning brings conception and gestation "into the bright light of the laboratory, beneath which the child-to-be can be fertilized, nourished, pruned, weeded, watched, inspected, prodded, pinched, cajoled, injected, tested, rated, graded, approved, stamped, wrapped, sealed, and delivered." Kass's point is that once human life is special-ordered rather than conceived, life will never be the same. No longer will each of us be a life that is unique from all others who have ever lived. Instead our genetic selves will be molded and chiseled in a Petrie dish to comply with the social norms of the day. And if something goes wrong, the new life will be thrown away like some defective widget or other fungible product. So long, diversity. Hello homogeneity. Perhaps even worse, widespread acceptance of cloning would be a deathblow to the sanctity/equality of life ethic — the cornerstone of Western liberty from which sprang our still unrealized dream of universal human rights. The premise of the sanctity of life ethic is that each and every one of us is of equal, incalculable, moral worth. Whatever our race, sex, ethnicity, stature, health, disability, age, beauty, or cognitive capacity, we are all full moral equals within the human community — there is no "them," only "us." Cloning stands in stark opposition to this equalitarian dream. It is — and always has been — the quintessential eugenic enterprise. Eugenics, meaning "good in birth," directly contradicts the self evident truth enunciated by Thomas Jefferson that all people are created equal. Eugenicists believe that the moral value of people is relative, or to put it another way, that some of us are better than others of us. Eugenicists seek to "improve" humanity by breeding out the "undesirable" traits of those deemed less worthy. Indeed, the pioneers of the eugenics movement worked for more than 50 years during the late 1800s and into the middle of the 20th Century to eliminate the genes of the "unfit" from the human gnome, first by encouraging proper eugenic marriages (positive eugenics) and more perniciously, by involuntarily sterilizing those deemed to have undesirable physical and personal traits (negative eugenics). Anyone with even a modicum of historical knowledge — alas, a scarce commodity in these post-modernistic times — knows where that led. In this country alone, 60,000-plus people were involuntary sterilized. In Western Europe, eugenics belief systems combusted with social Darwinism and anti-Semitism to produce the Nazis and thence to the Holocaust. Today's eugenicists are not racist or anti-Semites but they exhibit every bit as much hubris as their predecessors by assuming that they — that we — have the right to direct the future evolution of humanity, only now rather than having to rely on clunky procreative planning they literally grasp the human genome in their hands. Cloning plays a big part in these plans as the patriarch of the modern bioethics movement, Joseph Fletcher, a wild eugenicist, well knew when he wrote nearly 30 years ago that cloning would "permit the preservation and perpetuation of the finest genotypes that arise in our species." What are these supposedly "finest" genotypes? Most neo-eugenicist cloning advocates worship at the altar of the frontal lobe, valuing high intelligence and logical thinking in much the same way that founding practitioners of eugenics valued the blue eyes and blond hair they saw each morning in their own mirrors. Thus, Princeton University's Lee Silver hopes through cloning to create a "special group of mental beings" who "will be as different from humans as humans are from the primitive worms…that first crawled along the earth's surface." Yet Fletcher, Silver, and most others of their ilk almost always miss the point that smart people are not necessarily good people. And they rarely discuss designing people with the most important human capacities of all: the ability to love unconditionally, gentleness, empathy, the deep desire to be helpful and productive. Ironically, these highest, best human characteristics are often found in people with Down syndrome or other developmental disabilities — the very people who the neo eugenicists believe should be evolved intentionally out of existence whether through genetic manipulation or if necessary, selective abortion, and infanticide. Eugenics, as awful as it is, is only the beginning of the threat posed to the natural order by human cloning. Some cloners have decided that if they are going to "play God"; they might as well do it all the way by creating altogether new life forms. Indeed, scientists have already used cloning techniques to add jellyfish genetic material to a cloned monkey embryo, manufacturing a monkey that glows in the dark. Nor is human life itself immune from such "Dr. Moreau" forms of manipulation. For example, some in bioethics and bioscience support the creation of chimeras — part human and part animal — beings Joseph Fletcher called "parahumans" who he hoped would "be fashioned to do dangerous and demeaning jobs." In other words, Fletcher advocated the creation of a slave race of mostly-humans designed by us and for our use. "As it is now," the bioethics patriarch wrote in his typically snobbish fashion, "low grade work is shoved off on moronic and retarded individuals, the victims of uncontrolled reproduction. Should we not program such workers 'thoughtfully' instead of accidentally, by means of hybridization?" Fletcher's dark dream of human/animal chimeras is well on its way to reality. Not too long ago Australian scientists announced they had created a "pig-man" through cloning techniques, and allowed the hybrid to develop for more than two weeks before destroying it. Last year, a biotech company took out a Europe-wide patent on embryos containing cells both from humans and from mice, sheep, pigs, cattle, goats, or fish. Where such manipulations will lead may be beyond comprehension. Cloning presents humankind with the postmodernist version of the Faustian bargain. Through cloning, we are told, our greatest dreams can be realized: the barren can give birth, genetic anomalies and disabilities can be eliminated at the embryonic level, near immortality will be within our grasp as replacements, for worn out organs can be grown in the lab for transplantation without fear of bodily rejection. But the devil always demands his due — the higher the "value" of the bargain, the greater the price. In cloning technologies we may face the highest price of all: the end of the perception of human life as "sacred" and the concomitant increase in the nihilistic belief that humans are mere biological life; an increasing willingness to use and exploit human life as if it were a mere natural resource; eventually, the loss of human diversity itself — and these are just the foreseen consequences. The unforeseen consequences of mucking around in the human gnome may be worse than we can imagine. As Leon Kass has written, "shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder." ---- Wesley J. Smith is the author of Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America, recently published by Encounter Books =================================================================== "Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. 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