Barr is generally good on privacy and the 4th amendment. However, his record is not consistent on civil liberties. Importantly, Barr voted for the Patriot Act. Although he later opposed the law and regretted his vote, it is important how one acts under stressful situations when given the choice to support freedom or security. Ben Franklin warned us that those who choose security, as Barr did, deserve neither, and will have neither. Can we trust Barr to make better decisions as President?
Furthermore, his regret may not be a full as libertarians would like. He did not oppose reauthorization of the law, instead arguing that the House should pass the Senate's version of a reauthorization bill:
- "Crucially, as a former prosecutor and intelligence official, I am convinced the Senate bill would not in any way hamper federal counterterrorism operations, as some claim. Rather than restricting the type or amount of information that can be collected through surveillance, physical searches or the gathering of personal records, it would simply add a few modest safeguards, such as new reporting requirements or judicial approval, to protect against abuse or misuse. More important, it would help ensure that these powerful tools are trained on those who would do us harm and not wasted on gathering information about American citizens who have no connection whatsoever to foreign terrorists."http://bobbarr.org/default.asp?pt=newsdescr&RI=673
First, we must ask if libertarians really want to be represented in national politics by a CIA agent. That aside, pay attention to what Barr is arguing here. He is claiming that the Senate reauthorization bill would not make it difficult for intelligence agents to spy, but instead would just impose a few modest safeguards. It is clearly not the libertarian position that, in the face of a tyrannical law granting the federal government unconscionable power over its citizens, what is needed is a few modest safeguards. What is needed is to scrap this horrific law from the books forever. Barr, who claims to be a watchdog for privacy, missed the boat here. Also, note his priorities - the bill's ability to prevent time-wasting are more important to him than even those modest safeguards.
We should also consider the case of Genarlow Wilson, the Georgia teenager sentenced to 10 years in prison for receiving oral sex from his 15 year old girlfriend. Even the state legislature, unable to justify such insanity, blushed when this case came out. They quickly passed an amendment to the law decriminalizing Wilson's act. Yet Wilson remains in prison, despite the lack of any law on the books which he can be shown to have violated. Barr felt that those who sympathize with Wilson are simply examples of a rotten, liberal culture, and argued that Wilson should remain in prison for his full term. Here's one comment made by Barr:
- "Wilson committed acts that the people of Georgia had determined through their lawful, elected representatives across the state —- Republican and Democrat, black and white, rural and urban —- should be punished. Whether one agrees or not with that decision or with the subsequent one not to soften the law retroactively, both decisions were arrived at lawfully and properly."http://bobbarr.org/default.asp?pt=newsdescr&RI=864
This is nothing but simply legal positivism, although with the added twist that even if an unjust law is later corrected, Barr seems to think nothing can be done for those unjustly punished, not even releasing them from prison. But what kind of libertarian position is this? A libertarian does not hold that if the people of Georgia, through their representatives, determine that some act should be punished, then this is a proper decision. Instead, a libertarian holds that, if the people of Georgia, through their representatives, determine that a victimless act should be punished, then they are wrong. Perhaps Barr has never heard St. Augustine's statement that an unjust law is no law at all. A legal positivist cannot be a libertarian.
On the drug question, remember that Barr rose to prominence as a drug warrior. Lest you think that is all in the past now, and he is ready to commit to the libertarian position of not interferring with individual control over their own bodies, think again. Let's roll the videotape of Barr's most recent comments on drugs:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350248,00.html
He also argues, in this same clip, that libertarians believe lots of things, and there is no specific libertarian position on particular issues, a patent absurdity. He also advocated for the principle of state's rights, which is not always compatible with the libertarian position that people have rights. He claims it would be wrong for the federal government to interfere with tyrannical state laws, while the libertarian position would be to oppose aggression at all times, regardless of its source.