DRUG CZAR SEEKS TO RESUME OFFICE'S USE OF NET 'COOKIES'

WASHINGTON -- White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey said yesterday he wants
to turn his office's Internet "cookie" machine back on to find out what
turns kids on about drugs.

But lawmakers warned McCaffrey that continuing controversies over White
House drug office snooping on Internet users, and paying Hollywood
scriptwriters to put anti-drug messages in TV sitcoms, are undermining
public confidence in the government's $1 billion, five-year anti-drug campaign.

"We can't afford to have kids thinking that every anti-drug message
portrayed on TV was planted by the government. Likewise, we cannot afford
to have their parents fearing that they are being spied upon every time
they visit a government Web site for information or help," said Rep. John
Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Government Reform criminal justice
subcommittee.

McCaffrey insisted that payments to Hollywood scriptwriters, and tracking
of Internet use of drug sites, are key parts of his advertising campaign to
inform youths about the dangers of drugs, and to reduce drug use in the
United States.

The retired Army general asked Congress to give him two years more to show
his anti-drug efforts can curb youth drug use.

Mica questioned the effectiveness of the program. He noted that the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention's annual drug survey shows teen drug use
increased over the last decade, with 26.7 percent of students reporting
they had used marijuana in the previous year in a 1999 survey, almost
double the 14.7 percent in 1991. Cocaine also increased over the same period.

McCaffrey told reporters after the session he is planning to expand the use
of financial incentives for TV networks and scriptwriters who broadcast
anti-drug themes in sitcoms and dramas to include Hollywood's movies.

Over the last two years, the drug office has paid scriptwriters and
networks about $22 million for "programming content" -- placing anti-drug
messages in TV shows. Networks also received credits for airing anti-drug
messages in their shows, allowing them to run commercial advertisements in
place of government-sponsored anti-drug ads.

McCaffrey said the program has been altered this year, and he will no
longer review scripts in advance, or give payments for writers to insert
anti-drug themes in scripts. Instead, payments will reward writers and
producers who send the anti-drug message only after the movies or TV shows
are released.

McCaffrey said up-front payments might interfere in the "creative process"
of making a film, but post-release rewards would not. "I'm not going to
inject a message in a film," he insisted.

McCaffrey also said he wants to overturn a directive issued by White House
chief of staff John Podesta last month, ordering the drug czar to turn off
computer-tracking cookies that White House computers were dropping in the
personal computers of visitors to anti-drug Internet sites operated by
McCaffrey's office.

Cookies are software programs used primarily by advertising firms to track
users as they visit Internet sites.

Civil liberties and privacy groups have railed against government snooping
on the Internet.

Yesterday, a new system designed to allow law enforcement agents to
intercept and analyze huge amounts of e-mail in connection with an
investigation came under attack.

The system, called "Carnivore," was first hinted at on April 6 in testimony
to a House subcommittee. Now the FBI has it in use.

When Carnivore is placed at an Internet service provider, it scans all
incoming and outgoing e-mails for messages associated with the target of a
criminal probe.

In a letter addressed to two members of the House subcommittee that deals
with Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure issues, the American Civil
Liberties Union argued that the system breaches the Internet provider's
rights and the rights of all its customers by reading both sender and
recipient addresses, as well as subject lines of e-mails, to decide whether
to make a copy of the entire message.

A spokeswoman for Rep. Charles T. Canady, R-Fla., who heads the
Constitution subcommittee, said that the congressman had no immediate
comment on the letter.

Scripps Howard News Service And Associated Press