Posts Tagged ‘Private Property’

Private Property, Vermont’s forgotten Human Right Forum in Rutland will be having Christopher Costanzo, John Mitchell, and Laurie Morrow.

Mr. Costanzo lives in Bethel, Vermont and is a former state chair of the Vermont Libertarian party. He grew up both in the United States and overseas as the dependant of an American foreign service officer. As an adult Mr. Costanzo had various government tours of duty overseas as a diplomat and as an intelligence officer. He retired from the federal government as a senior operations officer with the CIA, and then worked for ten years in the private sector as an international consultant. He holds a degree in history from Harvard, where his main interest was in American constitutional and cultural development.”

Mr. Mitchell is a graduate of Dartmouth College and its Amos Tuck School. After receiving his Army commission at the Infantry School at Ft. Benning, he joined the National Guard in New York City and began his other career in the corporate world. Advancing through a variety of positions at six different corporations with international operations, including a timely couple of years in and out of Saudi Arabia, he located in Vermont as President of the Vermont Marble Company, a subsidiary of a privately owned Swiss company. He retired last year from active business and remains a Director of the Associated Industries of Vermont and the Ethan Allen Institute. He resides here in Rutland.

Mrs. Morrow earned her PhD in English from the University of Kansas, and served as an English professor in Louisiana. She has won many awards throughout her career, including one from the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, DC. In 2002, she started True North, a conservative/Libertarian radio program that became number 1 in its time slot in the spring of 2006.

The Secretary of State’s Office denied several Libertarian candidates spots on the ballot because the United States Postal Service failed to deliver their consent forms by last Friday’s 5 PM deadline.

Most of the candidates filed consent forms and had them postmarked by Thursday September 14. According to postal employees next-day delivery is the standard in Vermont. Unlike private carriers such as Fed-Ex, the USPS won’t guarantee next-day delivery service, even for priority mail which at least one of candidate used.

Five of the original seven candidates the VTLP chose to focus on will remain on the ballot. David Atkinson and Hardy Machia will appear on the ballot as Libertarian/Republicans because they were able to drive the 1-2 hours to hand deliver their consent forms. Andrew Thomas also had his consent form hand-delivered, so he will appear on the ballot as a Libertarian. Liberarians Jeff Manney, Ben Todd, and Bob Wolffe will appear on the ballot as Republicans. Kevin Volz lost his primary. Due to USPS delay Tom Carpenter will not appear on the ballot, which means that Democrat Steven Howard will be unopposed in his State House race.

The VTLP decided not to pursue legal action, and instead decided to focus on getting our candidates elected.

Robin Lane spoke at the ACLU privacy conference this week. She has a very insightful view of property rights and privace.

Lane stated, “I have long associated privacy with a right, a freedom, a form of protection, but what does my right to privacy actually protect? Privacy protects identity. Identity is a form of property, and privacy is the freedom from trespass of that property. No one but me is entitled to make use of my identity.”

Privacy as a Property Right is an issue that spreads across the political spectrum. Liberals, conservatives, and libertarians ought to be able to support protecting our property rights and privacy.

You can read the rest of Lane’s comments on her blog.