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A Reuters story about Democratic House leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi said her job was to “challenge President Bush’s conservative agenda.” Can it be said that the president’s agenda is truly conservative? That may be true on matters of economic policy and most judicial appointments, but on certain issues of national security even some conservatives would disagree.

Conservative New York Times columnist William Safire strongly objected to a bill that came out of the Republican-controlled House after the November 5^th elections that he said was so bad in its treatment of individual rights and privacy that it had to be changed. He said the bill contained a proposal for a computerized data base that would include vast amounts of information on people and would amount to a “supersnoop’s dream.”

There was other conservative criticism of the bill. Phil Kent, president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, said that the legislation “basically amends the Privacy Act of 1974 and allows an unprecedented surveillance of the commercial transactions of ordinary Americans.” Kent said the bill would authorize the government to examine personal and financial information, such as credit card activity or medical records, without a warrant, or even probable cause.

The purpose of the Homeland Security bill was supposed to be to protect Americans. But the House version turned out to be a special interest giveaway for campaign donors. Acting on behalf of the White House, Republicans inserted language to protect big drug companies from liability when they produce vaccines with ingredients that hurt children. This special-interest provision was put into the bill that was sprung on the Senate without prior warning. The bill was 484 pages in length and was posted for the first time at 5:17 a.m. Wednesday morning with a House vote only hours later that day. According to Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, there had not been a single hearing or debate on all the language slipped into the bill.

Limited liability protections for companies are already in place for vaccines that cause injuries to children. But the House wanted to expand this protection to include controversial vaccine components, such as the preservative Thimerosal, manufactured by Eli Lilly & Co. Parents have blamed the preservative for cases of autism among their children and have filed class-action lawsuits against the company. Cases of autism, which leave a child unable to function normally, have risen dramatically.

Section 304 of the bill was also controversial. The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons noted that it would allow federal health employees to force you to get vaccines and drugs or any other “substance” that the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services declares is necessary in a “public health emergency.” That would include universal smallpox vaccination. There were no exemptions in the law for conscientious or religious beliefs, and the secretary can continually extend the declaration without Congress’s consent. If this is a “conservative” agenda, many conservatives would disagree.

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