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29. January 1, 1998 Fresno, CA

Members of a Hispanic political organization burned an American flag outside City Hall to protect US arm sales to Mexico.

30. May 15, 1998–New York, NY

As part of a protest outside of NBC by about 75 Puerto Ricans who were offended by a "Seinfeld" episode in which the character, Kramer, accidentally burns a Puerto Rican flag, an American flag was burned.

31. May 23, 1998-Somers, CT

Town employees discovered that 14 flags and flagpoles that had been put up for the Memorial Day celebration had been vandalized. The flagpoles all had been bent and flags were stuffed in the toilet or thrown on the roofs of portable restrooms. Other vandalism was done to the park.

32. May 21, 1998 Tampa, FL

A 72-year old Hudson man reported that someone pulled down an American flag from his property and burned it. He did not know who burned the flag or why. 33. May 30, 1998 Florida

A man was flying an American flag with a motorcycle embossed on it outside his home until police showed him an obscure 1919 state law that forbids any image being placed on the flag.

34. July 6, 1998 Durham, NC

17 flags that were being collected by a former Navy Chaplain were set ablaze by vandals. The Chaplain was collecting the flags in order to properly retire them and sprinkle their ashes over the graves of veterans.

35. August 7, 1998 Arlington, VA

2 American flags were burned on headstones in a cemetery.

36. Late August 1998 Dorado, PR

An American flag was burned during a pro-independence rally outside the Southern Governors Association meeting.

37. September 1, 1998 Davenport, WA

A juvenile in Davenport was arrested for burning a stolen American flag with a flare he had stolen from the patrol car of a Lincoln County Deputy.

38. September 11, 1998-Boulder, CO

A late night arsonist climbed atop a park bench and lit the flag afire that flies between the city hall and the public library.

39. September 17, 1998 Santa Fe, NM

3 drunken men were arrested outside of the Sweeney Convention Center where a "Fiesta Celebration” was being held. The men claimed to have found the flag. At the time of the arrest, one of the men told police he had burned the flag to protest how the U.S. treats his country. (His national origin was not reported.)

40. October 27, 1998 Sioux Falls, SD

When responding to a call about a loud noise, police in Sioux Falls discovered that an 18 year old man, who appeared to be intoxicated, had burned an American flag. 41. November 3, 1998 Hanover, PA

A 14 year-old boy was charged in York County Juvenile Court with desecrating the flag after he and another boy, who was not charged, were apprehended by police at the scene of a burning flag. The police believe that the flag burning resulted from boredom and was not a political statement.

42. November 13, 1998 High Point, NC

A flag was ripped from its flagpole and burned on the Dr. I.T. Mann American Legion Post 87 in High Point. The flag had been flying at half staff in recognition of a Legion member's death. Its tattered remains were found on a picnic table near the Post's back door.

43. December 24, 1998 Sharon, MA

Two temples were damaged during services. Rocks were thrown through the windows of both temples and a menorah was damaged at one. Police found a flag burning on a tree near one of the temples shortly after the vandalism occurred.

MEMORANDUM

April 28, 1999.

To: Senator Chafee

From: Bob Greenawalt

Re: Meeting with Senator Packwood

You are scheduled to meet with Senator Packwood today at 12:00. He would like to discuss a change to the restrictions currently placed on activities conducted by Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS).

BACKGROUND

A real estate investment trust (“REIT”) is a corporation that combines capital from many investors to acquire or provide financing for all forms of real estate. A REIT is similar to a mutual fund in that no corporate level tax is levied on the income earned by the REIT as long as it is passed on to the investors.

REITs are restricted to investing in passive investments, primarily real estate and securities. Specifically, a REIT must derive at least 95 percent of its income from real property rents or from securities. Also, a REIT cannot own more than 10 percent of the voting stock of a corporation and no more than 5 percent of the value of its assets be stock of a single corporation.

PROBLEM

Some REITs are conducting active businesses through subsidiaries, which would be impermissible if operated by the REIT directly. The Administration is concerned that operating active businesses through subsidiaries erodes the corporate income tax base. At the same time, the Administration recognizes that many of these businesses are legitimate outgrowths of a REIT's traditional operations. Thus, the Administration has proposed (and Senator Packwood is supporting) changes to the REIT rules to allow a small level of active business to be conducted by REITs. Senator Packwood is meeting with you to ask for your support of this legislation.

ANALYSIS

On balance, the Administration's proposal is a reasonable step. The only question for you to decide is whether there is any reason for you to lend your name to this effort. You have not been contacted by any Rhode Islanders asking that you support this proposal.

Senator CHAFEE. Finally, Mr. Chairman, I don't believe we can mandate respect and pride in the flag. In fact, in my view, taking steps to require citizens to respect the flag sullies its symbolism and significance; 99.9 percent of Americans respect the flag, and I believe, Mr. Chairman, there is no need for this amendment.

I want to thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, John. We are glad to have you here. I might mention that when General Brady mentioned that when he said hundreds, he said that a lot of them aren't reported, and that was his additional explanation.

Let's now turn to Senator McCain. I gave you a better introduction than I am giving you right now before you got here. But let me just say this: There was a tremendous article in the Investor's Business Daily a couple of days ago, yesterday or the day before, about your service, and we are just honored to have you here along with the others. So we will turn the time to you.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN MCCAIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM

THE STATE OF ARIZONA

Senator MCCAIN. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I will be very brief. I am very honored to be on this panel with some American heroes: John Chafee, who served in some of the fiercest battles in World War II and who is a member of what is now being called the “greatest generation"; Chuck Hagel, who served and was

wounded in the Vietnam Conflict; and, of course, my dear friend John Glenn. I often have described the fact that the only difference between Senator Glenn and me is that he used to, during the Korean War, shoot people down and I used to get shot down. That is a minor distinction, of course. And Senator Kerrey, who left part of himself and who served with such honor on the battlefield of Vietnam. It is a great honor for me to be in the company of some American heroes.

Mr. CHAIRMAN, I would ask that my prepared statement be made a part of the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.

Senator MCCAIN. And I would just like to illustrate my feelings on this issue by telling a story that I have told before, which is a very brief story. Mr. Chairman, it concerns an incident that happened while I was in prison in Hanoi. For years, the Vietnamese kept the American POW's in conditions of solitary confinement or two or three to a cell. The purposes were to break down organization, thereby reducing resistance and enabling them better to achieve their goals.

After approximately 1971, the Vietnamese changed our conditions from putting us in those conditions into large groups of 25 or 30 prisoners in each cell. One of the prisoners who moved into the cell with me was a young man by the name of Mike Christian. He was from a small town near Selma, AL, came from a very poor family. He did not wear a pair of shoes until he was in his teens. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy when he was 17, later he went to officers' candidate school, and went to pilot training and became a bombardier navigator on an A-6 airplane. Mike Christian had a keen appreciation for the opportunities that the military provides

us.

The uniform that we wore in prison was a blue shirt and trousers, sandals made out of automobile tires. I strongly recommend them. The same pair lasted me for 51⁄2 years.

As part of the change in treatment, the Vietnamese allowed us some articles and packages from home. In those packages were small articles of clothing such as handkerchiefs and scarves. Mike Christian fashioned himself a bamboo needle and over a period of several months sewed on the inside of his blue shirt, with a piece of white cloth and a piece of red cloth, the American flag.

Every evening before we would have our bowl of soup in our cell with about 25 people in it, we would put Mike Christian's shirt on the wall of our cell and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Mr. Chairman, I will freely admit that saying the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, as happens in many of the events we attend, is not the most important part of those events. In those conditions, being able to pledge allegiance to our flag and our country was a very important part of our day.

One day the Vietnamese came into our cell, searched the cell, and in the course of their search found Mike Christian's shirt with the flag sewn inside of it. They removed it. That evening they came back and opened the door of the cell and called for him to come out, and then closed the door of the cell and beat him rather severely for the next several hours, at the completion of which they threw him back inside the cell.

The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab in the center on which we slept and bare light bulbs in all four corners of the room. We cleaned up Mike Christian as well as we could, and as you can imagine, he wasn't in great shape. And I went over to lie down on the concrete on which we slept, and I happened to look over in the corner of the cell, and Mike Christian was sitting under the light bulb with a piece of white cloth and a piece of red cloth and another shirt, sewing another American flag. He wasn't doing that because it made him feel better. He was doing it because he realized how important it was for us to be able to pledge our allegiance to our flag and our Nation and how important it was to our morale. All of us are products of our experiences in life, Mr. Chairman, and that is my experience, and that is my view about the sanctity of the American flag and the way that it should be treated. I don't intend to engage in any constitutional arguments. I just feel very strongly that American blood has been shed all over the world with the flag as its symbol, and I believe that it deserves the reverence and respect as a symbol not only of freedom and democracy, but of a great deal of sacrifice.

I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to appear.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator McCain. We know you have to get back to the floor. We really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today.

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for being here.
Senator Glenn, we will turn to you.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN GLENN, FORMER U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF OHIO

Senator GLENN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I would ask that the longer statement be included in the record. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.

Senator GLENN. I will try and summarize here.

I am honored to be here today. This is my first return to Capitol Hill since I left here in January at the end of my last term, so I am honored particularly to be here with the associates at the table this morning.

I don't know of any group of people you could put together here that have demonstrated more their devotion to this country and to the flag and everything that it stands for than this group.

I was sitting here thinking, as John McCain was just speaking, about being on a trip with him to Vietnam, and he had asked to go back and see his old cell up there, and they would never let him in. And one day we were in one of the meetings, and they came in and said he could go back up. And he asked me to go with him, and I did. And he and Pete Peterson, who is now our Ambassador out there, went and they had a little trouble finding the place, and he finally found the old cell. And it was one of my very most memorable experiences on any trip I made out of the Senate of all the time I was here in those 24 years.

Nothing is any more abhorrent to any of us than disrespect for the flag. We all love the flag, and we are dedicated to it and what it stands for. And we have had past experiences as demonstrated

by the people that have been here so far this morning that indicate how we feel about that flag and about dedication to this country.

But, to me, it would indeed be hollow victory to protect the symbol by taking any chance at chipping away at the freedoms themselves. Now, maybe that is why the first item in the Bill of Rights, the first amendment to our Constitution, has never been changed or altered, even a single time, in all of American history. It wasn't changed during the Civil War. It wasn't changed during any of our foreign wars, World War I or World War II, or Korea or Vietnam, any other, and not during recessions, depressions, scares or panics. And even during times of great emotion and anger, like the Vietnam era, when flags were burned or desecrated far more often than they are today, our first amendment remained unchanged and unchallenged.

And yet now sometimes we are told that unless we alter the first amendment, unless we place a constitutional limit on the right of speech and expression-and they go together, speech and expression-that somehow the fabric of our country will somehow be weakened. And I just don't believe that.

There is only one way to weaken the fabric of our country, and it is not through a few misguided souls burning our flag. It is by retreating from the principles that the flag stands for. And that will do more damage to the fabric of our Nation than 1,000 torched flags could ever do.

The first amendment says simply and clearly that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, and that has been interpreted to include expression repeatedly by the courts.

For 200 years, in good times and bad, in times of harmony, in times of strife, we have held those words to mean exactly what they say, that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. And yet now ostensibly to prohibit something that rarely happens anyway, we are asked to alter those first amendment words to mean that Congress may make some laws restricting freedom of expression. This time those laws would be about flag burning. But what will the next form of political expression be that we seek to prohibit? For once we begin to slide down the slippery slope of restricting freedom of speech, it is impossible to know where that slide will end.

Now, let me say just a few words about the practical problems as I see it here. If this would pass, if the President would sign it and it becomes law, one of the practical problems about enforcing it-and that has been mentioned. John Chafee mentioned a little bit about that a moment ago. If Congress and the States are allowed to prohibit physical desecration of the flag, how are we going to define that? How are we going to administer that? Do we have a definition here of what a flag is? Is it only manufactured flags of cloth or nylon, like we fly over the Capitol here and send out to people? Do they have to be a certain size or description? Does it refer to the small paper flags we stick in cupcakes at political rallies that wind up on the floor or in the garbage? Is that desecration?

How about homemade flags? How about crayon-made flags by a child or something like that? Is that a legal flag to be protected by

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