By The
Associated Press
Edited by Kristine Long
NEWS DIGEST
Netjraskan
TuMday. January 1994
9 9
Act, called RICO.
Writing for the court, Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist said RICO can
be invoked to sue over ideologically
motivated crimes, not just economi
cally motivated crimes.
Under RICO, a pattern of racke
teering amounts to two or more “pred
icate acts” from a long 1 ist of underly
ing crimes, including extortion.
NOW’s lawsuit alleges that a coali
tion of anti-abortion groups are en
gaging in extortion by use of harass
ment, assault, destruction of property
and other illegal acts.
In his opinion, Rehnquist said, “We
granted (review) to determine wheth
er RICO requires proof that either the
racketeering enterprise or the predi
cate acts of racketeering were moti
vated by an economic purpose. We
hold that RICO requires no such eco
nomic motive.”
WASHINGTON — Filling an
embarrassing gap in his national se
curity team, President Clinton pro
moted the Pentagon’s No. 2 man to
defense secretary Monday. He called
William J. Perry “a real pro,” a man
“you can depend on.”
The reaction from Congress was
enthusiastic, with predictions Perry
would wineasy confirmation. Though
he is little known to the general pub
lic, senators dealing with military is
sues are familiar with him from fre
quent testimony at hearings.
Seemingly a reluctant warrior,
Perry said he told the White House
Saturday he could not say yes at that
point because “I did not want to drive
my family into a decision - my deci
sion - without their support.”
After a talk with Vice President A1
Gore and then a meeting with family
members, he telephoned the White
House on Sunday to say he would
accept an offer if one were forthcom
ing.
“I did not have to be persuaded to
take this job,” Perry said.
Perry, 66, would replace outgoing
Secretary Les Aspin, who announced
his resignation under pressure from
the White House last month. Clinton’s
Dance Contest
Every Tuesday
9 p.m.
1823 "O" Street
NO COVER
FUNDRAISING
OPPORTUNITIES
FOR STUDENT
ORGANIZATIONS
Organized, outgoing
student groups needed
to represent various
products to students on
campus. Earn money
by scheduling events
on campus and
assisting our market
representatives with
promotional efforts.
For more
information, call:
American Passage
Media Corporation
(800)487-2434,
ext. 4131
215 West Harrison
first choice to take Aspin’s place,
Bobby Inman, withdrew last week in
a news conference filled with com
plaints about attacks from columnists
apd lawmakers.
Despite Inman’s shocker-and com
ments from a handful of other job
prospects that they were not interested
- Clinton said hiring a new Pentagon
chief was easy.
“It wasn’t hard to fill,” Clinton
said. “I asked Secretary Perry and he
said, ‘Yes.’”
Perry, who also served in President
Carter’s Pentagon, is a former engi
neering professor and mathematician,
a key early supporter of stealth tech
nology who was later proven right.
Unlike Clinton, he is also an Army
veteran, perhaps positioned to help
his commander-in-chief improve re
lations with military leaders and wres
tle with a shrinking Pentagon budget.
Republican as well as Democratic
senators were quick to praise the nom
inee.
“A great choice ... a real profes
sional with depth of experience,” said
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., a
member of the Senate Armed Services
Committee.
“I have worked well with Dr. Perry
in the past and he has done a good
job," said Sen. Strom Thurmond of
South Carolina, the ranking Republi
can on the committee.
Clinton said he made the choice
“based on his lifetime of accomplish
ments and his solid leadership at the
Pentagon.”
“He has the right skills and man
agement experience for. the job. He
has the right vision for the job,” said
Clinton, who credited Perry with be
ing on the “cutting edge of defense
issues.”
Clinton predicted Perry would re
form Pentagon spending procedures,
keep a tight reign on the shrinking
defense budget and maintain the na
tion’s strong military force.
He said many people have told
him, “Bill Perry is real pro - you can
depend on him.”
Netna&kan
Editor Jeremy Fitzpatrick
Managing Editor Adeena Leftln
Assoc. News Editors Jeff Zeleny
Steve Smith
Editorial Page Editor Ralnt>ow Rowell
Wire Editor Kristine Long
Copy Desk Editor Mike Lewis
Sports Editor Todd Cooper
Assistant Sports Editor Jeff Orteech
Arts & Entertain- Sarah Duey
ment Editor
Photo Chief Steel McKee
Night News Editors Jeff Robb
Matt Woody
DeDra Janssen
Melissa Dunne
Art Director James Mehellng
General Manager Den Shettil
Production Manager Katherine Policky
Advertising Manager Jay Cruse
Senior Acct. Exec. She
Sheri Krajswskl
Publications Board
Chairman Doug Flee
43M2I7
FAX NUMBER 472-1761
The Dally NebraskanAJSPS 144-060) is
published by the UNL Publications Board,
Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St . Lincoln, NE
68586-0448, Monday through Friday during
the academic year; weekly during summer
sessions.
Readers are encouraged to submit story
ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan
by phoning 472-1763 between 9 a.m. and 5
Km. Monday through Friday. The public also
is access to the Publications Board. For
information, contact Doug Fiedler, 436-6287.
Subscription price is $50 for one year.
Postmaster: Send address changes to tom
Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34,1400
R St,Lincoln J4E 68588-0448 Second-class
postage paid at Lincoln, NE.
ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT
_DAILY NEBRASKAN_
Consumers For Better Tanning
Before choosing a tanning salon, check your
Lancaster County Business Bureau, Lancaster
County Attorney's Office or White Collar
Crimestoppers.
Crime, health care top address
WASHINGTON — President
Clinton fine-tuned and practiced
his first Sfhte of the Union address
Monday, a speech aides said would
emphasize the
need to move
this year on
health care,
anti-crime and
worker retrain
ing legislation.
“He’s still
thinking
BdHEMaMSQ though he has
been through at
least five drafts, an aide said.
In the nationally broadcast
speech to a joint House-Senate ses
sion Tuesday night, Clinton will
reach out to middle-class Ameri
cans with a strong pitch for federal
action against crime while trying to
rekindle interest in his universal
health-care plan.
Senate Republican Leader Bob
Dole of Kansas will deliver a Re
publican response, his office an
nounced.
Although health care remains
the prime priority of Clinton in his
second year, polls suggest that crime
may be outpacing it as the major
concern of most Americans.
“He won’t be laying out the spe
cificsof any new policy,” said White
House press secretary Dee Dee
Myers.
“He’ll be talking about health
care, why that’s important; crime,
and how that affects us and what we
need to do about it; welfare reform,
a little further down in his speech,
but not because it’s less important.
And he’ll talk about his accom
plishments from last year.”
The president spent several hours
working on the latest draff of the
measure affer getting past the ma
jor event of the day; announcing his
selection of William Perry to suc
ceed Les Aspin as defense secre
tary.
Although Clinton’s economic
speech to Congress last February
had many of the trappings of a State
,of the Union address, Tuesday’s
address will be his first official one.
Although presidents rarely an
nounce major policy initiatives in a
State of the Union address, Clinton’s
aides were portraying this as a piv
otal one designed to build support
for his second-year initiatives.
The nation’s improving econo
my and Clinton’s recent improve
ments in public-opinion polls have
allowed the flexibility to move be
yond the economic proposals that
were the cornerstone of his presi
dential campaign.
In addition to health care, crime
and welfare reform, the president is
expected to stress “worker retrain
ing and lifetime leamingand ...ideas
about re-employment, Myers said.
Colombian officials search for gunmen
APARTADO, Colombia — Felix
Rodriguez stood trembling outside
the morgue.
“Why did they kill my son?” he
asked a reporter.
The 17-year-old youth was one of
least 33 people gunned down as they
danced and drank in the street early
Sunday.
It was the worst massacre in five
years in a country where 200 people
died the past 12 months in political
violence in this region of northern
Colombia.
Hours later the victims lay piled
atop each other in the small morgue of
this steamy, banana-growing town.
Family members, moaning and cry
ing, waited outside.
The shack-lined, rutted dirt road
where people were partying hours
before was a scene of blood stains
buzzed by flies, overturned chairs,
empty bottles of booze and terrified
residents.
No one claimed responsibility for
the massacre. Government officials
blamed leftist rebels. But several other
massacres in Colombia initially
blamed on rebels turned out to have
been committed by army troops or
right-wing death squads.
President Cesar Gaviria held an
emergency security council meeting,
then clamped a dusk-to-dawn curfew,
prohibited the sale of alcohol and the
carrying of weapons in Apartado, 300
miles northwest of Bogota.
Gaviria promised to send more
soldiers and issued a $625,000 reward
for information leading to the arrests
of guerrilla leaders.
Survivors denied government re
ports the street party had followed a
rally at the same site for the Hope,
Peace and Freedom party.
Court limits anti-abortion protests
WASHINGTON — Abortion
rights advocates may use a federal
racketeering law to sue protesters who
block women’s access to abortion clin
ics, the Supreme Court ruled unani
mously Monday. The ruling threatens
Operation Rescue and other anti-abor
tion groups with financial ruin.
The decision, while focused only
on interpreting a federal law, is a big
victory for the National Organization
for Women, which took the case to the
high court, and for the Clinton admin
istration.
Lower courts had thrown out
NOW’s nationwide class-action law
suit that invoked the anti-racketeer
ing law against Operation Rescue and
other groups. Monday’s decision re
instated that lawsuit.
Wendy Wright, a spokeswoman
for Operation Rescue, called the deci
sion “a complete travesty of justice.
The Supreme Court justices obviously
do not understand how far-reaching
this case is.
“This opens the floodgates for
RICO to be used against anybody who
uses free speech in a way that offends
somebody else, or freedom of religion
or freedom of assembly.’’
Eve Paul of Planned Parenthood
said, “We’re delighted. NOW has to
go back and establish the facts, that
there were criminal acts. I’m sure
NOW will be able to do that.”
-
This opens the floodgates for RICO (Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) to be
used against anybody who uses free speech in a
way that offends somebody else.
—Wright
Operation Rescue spokeswoman
—- ft
However, the ruling falls far short
of resolving all legal issues surround
ing anti-abortion activities.
Just last Friday, the high court
agreed to clarify—by July—how far
courts and local governments may go
in restricting protesters outside aoor
tion clinics.
That case pits the free-speech rights
of anti-abortion protesters against the
rights of women seeking abortions
and of abortion clinic employees to be
free from harassment, intimidation
and other illegal conduct.
The court in 1992 reaffirmed the
core holding of its landmark Roe vs.
Wade decision of 1973—that women
have a constitutional right to abortion.
The focus of Monday's ruling was
more on illegal conduct than on peace
ful protest outside abortion clinics,
and whether such conduct can lead to
lawsuits under the federal Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
Act, called RICO.
Writing for the court, Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist said RICO can
be invoked to sue over ideologically
motivated crimes, not just economi
cally motivated crimes.
Under RICO, a pattern of racke
teering amounts to two or more “pred
icate acts” from a long list of underly
ing crimes, including extortion.
NOW’s lawsuit alleges that a coali
tion of anti-abortion groups are en
gaging in extortion by use of harass
ment, assault, destruction of property
and other illegal acts.
In his opinion, Rehnquist said, “We
granted (review) to determine wheth
er RICO requires proof that either the
racketeering enterprise or the predi
cate acts of racketeering were moti
vated by an economic purpose. We
hold that RICO requires no such eco
nomic motive.”
Judge rules Packwood must turn over diaries
WASHlNCj ION — A federal
judge ruled Monday that Sen. Bob
Packwood must turn over his dia
ries to the Senate Ethics Commit
tee, which is investigating allega
tions of sexual misconduct, obstruc
tion and witness intimidation.
U.S. District Judge Thomas
Penfield Jackson acknowledged that
the material sought by the commit
tee was “extremely personal and
private in nature.”
But he said the committee,
which subpoenaed the diaries, will
review the materials in a manner
that “respects Senator Packwood’s
legitimate expectations of privacy
and is, therefore, reasonable" un
der the Fourth Amendment to the
Constitution.
Jackson also said Packwood en
joyed “no Fifth Amendment privi
lege against 9clf-incrimination.”
Jackson set a hearing for Thurs
day to decide procedures for the
diaries to be provided. The diaries
currently are in the court’s custody.