Legislation to rein in the tobacco industry has been described as an "historic change." That much is true--but not in the sense its proponents intended. This legislation represents a frightening, unprecedented violation of individual rights.

Under its proposed terms, the government will become the de facto owner of all the tobacco companies; the nominal owners will just follow Washington's orders, as their property is effectively expropriated. Consider, for instance, the regulations on advertising and marketing.

All print ads will be censored for content, and the use of figures such as the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel will be outlawed. The industry will be prevented from publicly issuing its views on scientific or medical aspects of smoking. The government will additionally forbid tobacco companies from using outdoor advertising, sponsoring public events, imprinting their logos on non-tobacco products (such as T-shirts), or employing any color other than black in their print ads. Not satisfied with such despotic controls over a product people voluntarily purchase, the government will also force the companies to pay for ads condemning their own products and urging the public not to buy them.

Has the First Amendment been abolished? Imagine the flood of protests the liberals would launch if the target of such restrictions were, say, an accused serial killer. Yet, because the victim is Big Business, they readily endorse such authoritarian measures.

What about the individual's right to his property--the right of sellers and buyers to freely deal with one another? There is, after all, no fraud involved with selling cigarettes. Everyone knows there are health risks associated with smoking. Why is the state denying the individual's freedom to make his own choices and bear responsibility for the consequences?

This campaign is a witch hunt, in which the tobacco industry is being punished for every individual's decision to smoke. (And, in a ludicrous extension of this injustice, the industry will be fined billions of dollars if teenage smoking does not decline by some arbitrarily fixed quota.)

The tobacco settlement is more dangerous than an outright prohibition of cigarettes, in that it establishes a precedent for totalitarian control over legally functioning businesses. There is a name for a system that retains the facade of private ownership while delivering actual control over people's lives to the state: fascism. This form of tyranny characterizes all facsist regimes in history. But in America, instead of some racial or religious minority, the unpopular minority selected as whipping boy is Big Business.

Politicians of the right and left claim that this fascist takeover of the tobacco industry promotes the "public good." This means that we as individuals are not to be permitted to make our own choices, but that government must decide what is good for us and force us to live accordingly. Well, that is the traditional argument of all dictatorships--one that certainly represents an "historic change" in the country once called "the land of the free."

If our government can justify this, what can it not justify? Any business offering a product that can be used, or misused, in any way that conceivably threatens the "public good" is now a candidate for state takeover. Why shouldn't government regulate sunbathing and outlaw ads for beach resorts, on the grounds that sunlight can cause skin cancer? Why shouldn't Washington tell us what to eat, how to dress and when to exercise? Why shouldn't bureaucrats--in order to protect us against ideas incompatible with the "public good"--dictate the content of books, movies and television shows (this last is in fact already in progress)?

Liberty is an empty concept if we are not free to make these choices for ourselves--even mistaken choices that may turn out to be harmful.

Our government has made smoking into a battleground for freedom. If we allow it to outlaw the Marlboro Man, we are paving the way for another symbol to take his place: the swastika.

Clearly, most Americans don't realize what is at stake. But anyone who values individual rights should unequivocally denounce this massive expansion of government power. It makes no difference whether you smoke or not. The fundamental issue is whether you are free to live as you choose, or are forced to live as the state commands.

David Harriman, editor of the Journals of Ayn Rand, is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.