The Cato Institute is a libertarian public policy think-tank that spends much of its effort lobbying Capitol Hill decision makers. All of their 'briefings', as they call them, are held in the Longworth House Office building, just beside the Capitol. We attended two of them in December and were happy to learn that registering for a briefing entitles you to a free box lunch.  They are obviously anxious to attract as many House and Senate staffers as they can.  The format is fairly standard.  One, two, or three speakers talk for 20 minutes each followed by a Q&A session.

Total Information Awareness

The first talk we attended was on the new policy being discussed by the administration that involves doing so-called data mining (checking records of credit-card transactions among others) to weed out terrorism suspects.  The Cato Institute thinks that the policy is an assault on civil liberties and so is against it.

Environmental Policy

The second talk that we attended was on Environmental Policy for the 108th Congress. We were surprised to learn a couple of days later that the talk was televised (C-Span, Monday Dec.16 at 2 p.m.). The policy recommended was to remove the policy decision-making power from regulatory bodies such as the EPA and restore it to its rightful place in the Congress.