CARLTON FLETCHER: Government plans to take on tobacco, cellphones

Someone to fool us, someone like you. We want you Big Brother.

— David Bowie

Some high-ranking governmnet officials have apparently decided the American people can’t take care of themselves. So they’re planning to do it for them.

A newspaper reporter, posing as a congressional security agent, has apparently gained access to information from very secret top-level hearings on consumer product safety. The reporter, who has not yet published his findings, leaked some of the classified information that is sure to cause a huge stir among the American people.

According to the reporter, two of the ideas being seriously considered by government officials — to the point, he claims, that they will become law within the next two to three years — are the complete ban of cellphone usage in automobiles and a gradual ban of all tobacco products.

Civil liberties groups, outraged prominent citizens and Libertarian organizations have already started preparing an attack on the proposed legislation.

Leaks from what is expected to be an extensive report on the hearings show that the federal government is considering a cellphone ban in automobiles so complete that devices used to jam signals are being considered as required equipment in all vehicles. The report says that, under proposed legislation, all new cars would be required to include the devices, while older model cars would have to be retrofitted within three months of passage of the law.

Discussion about penalties for violators reportedly ranged from fines and confiscation of all cellular devices for a first offense and mandatory jail time, plus hefty fines, for any subsequent offenses. Some involved in the hearings suggested making cellphone providers responsible for creating technology that will disable cellular devises in vehicles within the next three to five years. Suggestions ranged from significant fines to suspension of service for companies that fail to comply with the expected mandates.

Tobacco products, long protected by the government despite data that show a direct link to the products and cancer, as well as other respiratory illnesses, are apparently on their way to losing that protection. Discussions during the hearing, which reportedly drew heated protests from congressmen in tobacco-producing states, eventually moved toward complete eradication of tobacco products.

While no end-date for tobacco production was set during the hearings, the report indicates increased heavy taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products would be a major first step. Suggested taxes endorsed by most at the hearings would immediately push the cost of cigarettes to between $25 and $40 a pack. Eventually, according to the report, production of tobacco would be banned, and government revenue agents would use defoliants and other crop retardents to halt growth.

Much of the discussion at the hearings revolved around controlling the expected negative reaction of other government officials and the public once word of the initiatives was released. There was also concern about the expected fight from the communications and tobacco industries.

Suggestions to combat the negative reactions ranged from an ad campaign that focuses on health issues associated with cellphone use in vehicles and the myriad dangers of tobacco products to creating a paramilitary-type task force that would be given latitude to use whatever means necessary to ensure compliance.

The hearings, which reportedly were sanctioned by the “highest levels of government,” are expected to continue through most of the rest of this year, but the mood of most involved is to “move into action phase as quickly as possible.”

The reporter who managed to infiltrate the hearings and gather the information that will be a part of his report has been very tight-lipped about his plans for dissemination. He is reportedly in seclusion now, under the guard of private security while he completes what is expected to be a bombshell of an expose.

The reporter has not given an official statement since word of his infiltration was leaked, but he did offer one comment when asked his plans for releasing his report: “I wish all this was true,” he said, “but April Fools.”