Obama’s ‘No Fly’ List for FedEx and UPS
March 30th, 2013Via: The Future of Freedom Foundation:
The Obama administration is notorious for crony capitalism, through which big businesses reap huge riches by virtue of their cozy association with government. Big oil, big car companies, big agrobusinesses, big banks, and big drug corporations are among the legally privileged cronies who are profiting at the expense of nonprivileged competitors and of customers who pay higher prices.
Now the Department of Justice (DOJ) is trying to institute the shipping version of a “no fly” list on behalf of the big pharmaceutical companies and in the name of the war on drugs. The DOJ wants America’s two largest courier/delivery services to open and report on the shipments from online pharmacies, allegedly to staunch the flow of illegal pharmaceuticals. Here’s the catch: the DOJ wants packages opened even when there is no reason to suspect illegal contents.
FedEx spokesman Patrick Fitzgerald explained, “sealed packages … are being sent by, as far as we can tell, licensed pharmacies. These are medicines with legal prescriptions written by licensed physicians.” Fitzgerald added, “We are a transportation company that picks up and delivers close to 10 million packages every day. They are sealed packages, so we have no way of knowing specifically what’s inside and we have no interest in violating the privacy rights of our customers.”
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Online and foreign pharmacies are popular sources of legal pharmaceuticals because they usually offer low prices and high convenience. This competition constitutes a widening crack in the pharmaceutical monopoly that big drug companies would like to enjoy in the United States.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
