In the Public Interest

In 1980, the U.S. Congress passed a law to protect adults who prey on children. You read that correctly. Public Law 96-252 prohibits the Federal Trade Commission from enacting rules that would protect the nation’s children from commercial advertising that exploits their vulnerable and trusting natures. This law is corporate power incarnate. It should be…

The gigantic computer files on the personal lives of Americans — as buyers, patients, children, students, workers, citizens, and taxpayers — continue to grow. The right of privacy, which is constitutionally protected, receives much lip service but little organized defense. Yet survey after survey shows people are worried and upset over repeated disclosures of violations…

The brazen, bullying Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is at it again. Only this time he is trying to intimidate a group of big business executives who are urging Congress to enact one important campaign finance reform — banning the unlimited “soft money” contributions to political parties. In an ocean of election money corruption and deepening…

The ups and downs of consumer protection efforts during this century teach an important lesson. Reforms don’t last. They either get appealed, as have many states’ unfair interest-rate laws, or they go unenforced, as have many tenants’ rights laws, or they find their regulatory agencies tied up in the spider webs woven by corporate law…

Noting that “these days, the business of birth starts early with the cutting of the umbilical cord,” consumer advocate Ralph Nader has asked the American Hospital Association to urge member hospitals to keep commercialism out of the maternity wards. In a letter to AHA President Dick Davidson and Board Chair Fred Brown, Nader wrote that,…

There used to be a time when big corporations were worried about rebellious and anticorporate students on university and college campuses. Rallies, teach-ins, boycotts, and other forms of protest took on corporations for polluting, discriminating, exploiting consumers, backing military dictatorships, and other misbehaviors. In 1970, Earth Day events involving nearly 2,000 colleges shook and exposed…

THE LOCAL ARTICLES describing the life of George L. Sherwood, who passed away at age 82 on July 28, were accurate and kind but could not do justice to this remarkable resident of Winchester, Conn., for his profound contributions to local democracy. The civic fiber of local communities has always relied on a small number…

The virtual-reality marketplace of the Internet is booming with sales. Transactions between businesses are in the tens of billions a year. And retail revenues are also in the billions already. Economic forecasters are predicting that the first annual trillion dollars of sales will be reached in two or three years. If more and more people…

For years, consumer activists have asked Al Gore to reverse the U.S. policy of punishing developing country governments that tried to make essential medicines more affordable for sick people. And Gore ignored the calls. Matters suddenly changed on June 16 when a small group of AIDS activists began clamoring and demonstrating at events by Vice…

It’s a dream media world for Ralf Hotchkiss. When he travels around the United States, television crews meet and follow him. Hordes of reporters attend his events and press conferences. He is on the special invitation lists for the White House, Park Avenue and Beverly Hills extravaganzas, including the Academy Awards Gala and Presidential Inaugurations.…