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Posted on 02/25/2006 5:48:32 PM PST by elkfersupper
Today the Federal Trade Commission published a Federal Register notice seeking public comments on “marketing activities and expenditures of the food industry targeted toward children and adolescents.”
Last November, Congress ordered the FTC to prepare a report on this subject by July 1 of this year. The FTC is now seeking “empirical data” and other relevant information for use in the report.
A public comment request is unremarkable and generally unobjectionable.
But the FTC's notice also states that
[t]he FTC is interested in receiving publicly available information that can be used to prepare the report.
However, because it is unlikely that information sufficient to prepare the report is publicly available, the Commission likely will later issue orders under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act (15 U.S.C. § 46(b)) to obtain needed information from food industry members.
In other words, the FTC will force companies to turn over private information without a subpoena.
The statute cited by the FTC purportedly authorizes the agency To require, by general or special orders, persons, partnerships, and corporations, engaged in or whose business affects commerce . . . to file with the Commission in such form as the Commission may prescribe annual or special, or both annual and special, reports or answers in writing to specific questions, furnishing to the Commission such information as it may require as to the organization, business, conduct, practices, management, and relation to other corporations, partnerships, and individuals of the respective persons, partnerships, and corporations filing such reports or answers in writing. Such reports and answers shall be made under oath, or otherwise, as the Commission may prescribe, and shall be filed with the Commission within such reasonable period as the Commission may prescribe, unless additional time be granted in any case by the Commission. (Emphasis added.)
Calling a subpoena a “general or special order” is a sleight-of-hand designed to confuse an unambiguous constitutional violation.
The Fourth Amendment states: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. (Emphasis added.)
There is no “probable cause” for the FTC to forcibly search any company under the pretext of preparing a report for Congress. Indeed, the legislative language authorizing the report only maintains that Congress “is concerned about the growing rate of childhood and adolescent obesity and the food industry's marketing practices for these populations.”
Congressional “concern” about a subject beyond the federal government's enumerated powers—the framers gave Congress the power to fix the “standard of weights and measures,” not the weights of children—is not probable cause.
Lemme guess....no more Cap'n Crunch.
Hope all the nanny-state activists are happy.
Nanny-State Ping!!!!!!!!!
Can't say they weren't warned.........
Our government has clearly lost sight of its purpose.
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Ronald McDonald: That EEEvil Clown; A Pied-Piper leading our poor, innocent children straight down the road to arteriosclerosis.
Hang him high!
Regards,
PS: And so it begins. Can't say we didn't tell ya so...
Adulterers will be branded "A", smokers will be branded "S". Lazy people will be branded "L"., dopers will be branded "D".
I'll probably be tattooed with the whole alphabet.
I dunno about all that, Elk, but I know one thing:
That murderous Ronald McDonald must be stopped right now,
followed by That Silly Rabbit, Red and Yellow (the M&Ms), the Hi-C Pitcher guy, and as another poster mentioned, the nefarious Cap'n Crunch!
For the children! If even ONE of them could be saved from himself, it would all be worth it!
Right?
Regards,
Corporate profits and all that.
Sounds like it's high time to shut the FTC down. They clearly have nothing important to do. Pull the plug and use the money for border enforcement.
I really hope you are wrong, but alas, I'm inclined to agree with you.
I have been saying for more years than I care to mention, but I have always been pooh-poohed because "you're a smoker and that's all yu care about." But that has never been the case with me. Yes, tobacco is what got me interested in the entire issue, but I can see the big picture.
To paraphrase the infamous anti-smoker John Banzhaf "We honed our arguments on the tobacco companies and junk food is next"..........his comments were made in the days and weeks after he and some others filed suit against McDonald's. He blows off the initial losses in the various suits against them saying, (again paraphrasing) "we lost lots of tobacco cases, until we found the right venue to push it."
They were warned, but they have far too much fun, making believe that it's only the smokers, who will ever be "touched" by this, to remove their blinders. :-(
I'm pretty sure that before this jihad is over, our children will all be marching off to the facroties with their daily ration of tofu and water (after calisthenics, of course).
You said a mouthful right there. And it is totally amazing how many of them appear on these threads. But now I see how they will be able to turn this in their favor against smokers once again........
My kid loves tofu........but she does prefer milk to water....actually she prefers ANYTHING to plain water.
I get 2 very different attitudes regarding what my child eats. One is the "why do you let her eat so much junk food?" and the other is "Doesn't this child ever eat junk food?"
My daughter is not a picky eater and will eat just about anything you put infront of her.......how many 7 year olds does anyone know that will more often grab a bag of carrots out of the fridge instead of a brownie for an after school snack? She wanted orange juice with breakfast thi morning, but we were out, but we had oranges and so she squeezed her own juice :)
If she wants junk food, she can have it, is my attitude because she so rarely does.
IF this was in schools or OTHER gov't locations...I'd say OKAY....but in the public.....SHEESH!
I'm convinced that as long as they eat at the family table and get outside as much as possible, kids will be healthy and happy.
Aaaargh !!!
How has this country thrived and survived without the government telling us how to live?
It's a puzzlement!
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