Re: National speed limits and expansion of federal power...

[Chevelle <love5683@voicenet.com>]

It was only months ago that they passed a bill raising alot of speed limits
to the 75mph range.

                                Chevelle
At 06:06 PM 3/27/96 -0500, Deven T. Corzine wrote:
>At 11:47 PM 3/26/96, Jim Bell wrote:
>>They just recently repealed the national 55 MPH speed limit.  Even though it
>>was repealed by law, in the same way it was passed, plenty of people have
>>argued that the Federal government has no jurisdiction in this area.  Those
>>arguments are absolutely valid, even if they were ignored.  The danger in
>>giving the government implicit authority in areas not mentioned in the
>>Constitution is that it is not clear how far such justification extends.
>
>Actually, the national government didn't even *pretend* it had jurisdiction
>here.  Instead, they used an indirect approach -- they passed laws which
>denied some of the existing highway funding to states with higher speed
>limits than 55 MPH.  (Later this limit was raised to 65 MPH, given some
>additional restrictions such as proximity to population centers.)
>
>Any and all states were perfectly free (in theory) to ignore this "national
>speed limit" and set any limit or no limit at all.  In practice, no states
>exercised this hypothetical freedom, because they had already grown dependent
>on highway funds provided by the national government.  Thus, through indirect
>pressure exerted through the funding mechanisms, the national government was
>able to usurp perogatives which were clearly in the domain of the states.
>
>The national government has expanded greatly in size and powers in times of
>war and national crisis.  In particular, FDR spearheaded the massive growth
>of the national government in response to the Great Depression, and it has
>continued to grow ever since.  More and more often, the national government
>usurps traditional state's roles, even in situations of unquestionable state
>jurisdiction such as national speed limits.  The elastic clause was one key
>tool used for this expansion.
>
>Another key tool is the commerce clause, which has been seriously abused to
>secure new powers for the national government.  I don't think I'll go into it
>right now...
>
>>If the government can limit us to 55, then why can't they limit us to 40-bit
>>keys?
>
>The national government didn't impose 55 MPH speed limits on us, the states
>did it under national pressure.  As for whether they can legitimately limit
>cryptography use and technology, we don't have any clear answer yet, in any
>legal precedent.  Of course, most of us hold the opinion that cryptography
>should be considered Constitutionally protected as free speech, but politics
>get involved when these things get decided...
>
>Deven
>
>