Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I am Eric E. Sterling, President of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation here in Washington. We are a small, educational non-profit concerned about police, criminal justice, and drug policy. We were founded by a conservative businessman and philanthropist from Boston, Robert C. Linnell, and are supported by The Linnell Foundation. We engage in no lobbying, and we are not opposing or supporting Mr. Walters' nomination.

I'd like to thank Bradley Jansen and the Free Congress Foundation for organizing the letter we have signed to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and this press conference.

We are delighted to join our colleagues in the Coalition for Constitutional Liberties this morning to urge the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary to look closely at the nomination of Mr. John P. Walters, the nominee to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy. In the course of the Committee's hearings, we urge the Committee to inquire into Mr. Walters' views on a number of issues regarding the affairs of ONDCP.

I have been an analyst of national drug control policy since 1979 when I joined the staff of the House Committee on the Judiciary. I participated in the Congressional oversight regarding the formulation and coordination of drug policy from 1980 through the end of 1988, and was the Judiciary Committee staffer involved in the legislation creating ONDCP in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988.

ONDCP has grown enormously since then. It now coordinates an extensive advertising campaign to discourage children from using drugs and to encourage parents and grandparents to talk to their children about drugs. This program has been enmeshed in scandal. The GAO and the House Government Reform Committee have been investigating overcharges and billing irregularities by the ONDCP's contractors. This is mundane mismanagement. What is truly disturbing is the indifference of ONDCP to citizen privacy, and its misunderstanding of the appropriate limits upon the government in a free society.

Regarding privacy, ONDCP purchased web site banner ads to connect citizens to their web sites that provide drug information. They arranged to have these banner ads pop up when citizens entered terms like "marijuana," "cocaine" or "ecstasy" on major Internet search engines However, contrary to Federal information systems policy, when the citizen visited the ONDCP web sites, electronic codes (commonly called "cookies") were inserted into the computers of visitors that could permit the government to surreptitiously learn of other web sites visited. To my knowledge, Mr. Walters never expressed any reservations about privacy invasion elements of the ONDCP cookie scheme. This scheme was bad policy for three reasons.

First, this kind of surveillance was probably unlawful and unconstitutional. Congress never authorized the White House to plant surveillance tools in the computers of Americans across the land. Indeed, the Fourth Amendment guarantees that we are secure in our "persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches," and that searches are only authorized by judicial warrants issued for probable cause and specifically describing the place to be searched.

Our computer files are "effects," which are protected by the Fourth Amendment. Millions of Americans use the Internet daily to contact their banks, pay bills, monitor and direct investments, make the most private, sensitive financial transactions, and to communicate with attorneys, and other agents. Our use of the Internet is like going to a file cabinet for our private papers. Millions of people keep their personal files and correspondence in computers maintained by Internet service providers. The files are remote from the home or office and are only accessible by the Internet – but were all potentially tracked by the ONDCP cookie.

Second, this practice threatens political speech and debate about a critical and controversial issue. Ever-increasing numbers of Americans are questioning national drug policy – even establishment journalists like David Broder of The Washington Post. Governors Johnson of New Mexico and Ventura of Minnesota have suggested a variety of proposals to change drug policy. Citizens naturally turn to the Internet to learn more about these issues so that they can participate in this national debate. They use the Internet like their private library, calling up "bookmarked" or favorite Web sites the way they take books from a shelf.

When the government conducts clandestine surveillance of people who are researching drug policy, it is intimidating, and dangerously chills the opportunity for free, open debate.

Third, this is counter-productive as a matter of drug policy. People looking for information about "addiction," "cocaine," "marijuana," etc. are often looking for help or advice. But they fear the stigma of being labeled a drug abuser which is why they use the anonymity of the Internet. Family members often anonymously look for information to help loved ones who need help. When the public worries that by simply seeking information about drug addiction, private information is captured secretly, we inevitably discourage those who most need this potentially life-saving information.

Regarding the role of government, Congress directed the ONDCP media campaign to buy anti-drug advertising on the condition that the media outlet provide a free ad for each one purchased. ONDCP decided that this extremely valuable advertising space could be retained by the media if they would put White House approved messages in the content of television programming, and even in news stories. In exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising space and time, the White House supplanted the role of newspaper editors in shaping news stories and their content. Creative artists in Hollywood sent their scripts to Washington to be cleared in advance. This is a kind of censorship that sounds like the typical control of the media in a totalitarian society and has no place in the United States. While all of us may support messages that discourage children from using drugs, the precedent that White House social policy can be secretly inserted into movies, TV shows and news stories has horrendous implications.

In various reports to Congress and the people, ONDCP has misrepresented its accomplishments and created bogus performance targets. My comments on those misrepresentations are available at the National Review's Web site at www.nationalreview.com/document/document041200.html.

After Mr. Walters left ONDCP in 1993, he became a critic of national drug control policy. Everything that happened between 1981 and 1993 -- during the Reagan and Bush presidencies -- was a success; everything thereafter was a failure. But rather than look at the policies and their consequences objectively, he has largely contented himself with a partisan and distorted view.

The issues of drug policy should not be a partisan political footballs. They also should not be an excuse for circumventing constitutional protections of privacy and civil liberties.

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