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PAGE 4A
ForsythOpinion
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Legislators
must focus
on big needs
The Georgia General
Assembly convenes for
its annual session
tomorrow, and com- .
pared to recent years
there is some sense of
optimism as it does so,
at least on the financial
front.
While Georgia has -
not fully rebounded
from years of economic
malaise, when lawmak
ers take their seats
Monday they will do so
knowing that state tax
collections are on the
upswing and reserves
again are growing and
healthier than they have
been.
Recent sessions of the
legislature have been
dominated by the need *
to make serious budget
cuts throughout state
government; this year
promises to be a little
less lean.
That said, there’s also
more than a little trepi
dation as we prepare for
the annual gathering of
lawmakers.
With a little more
money to spend than in
recent sessions, and
with 2014 elections on
the horizons, there will
bé great temptation for
legislators to boost their
election profiles by allo
cating funds to pet
pélitical causes rather
than top government
priorities.
Every election year
there is a propensity for
those facing re-election
tofatten the budget with
plenty of political pork,
and while the state’s
economic picture is
improved, it certainly
ish’t rosy enough to
allow for spending
geared more toward
garnering votes than
improving Georgia.
What revenues there
are to spend are too
sorely needed on some
big ticket statewide
items to be squandered
by those hoping to keep
the folks back home
happy with election
influencing allocations.
Take education, for
example. Recent years
have seen the state
reduce its financial
commitment to educa
tion on multiple fronts,
resulting in local school
systems cutting days
from school calendars,
furloughing teachers,
freezing salaries, cut
ting programs and elim
inating badly needed
building projects. If
there are any spare
dimes in the state trea
sury, there is a good use
for them in the educa
tional system.
And it’s not just edu
cation. Transportation,
social services, health
care, courts, parks, pub
lic safety and environ
mental agencies all
have been on austerity
diets for several years
and would benefit from
an extra helping of allo
cations.
Hopefully our elected
leaders will recognize
the serious need for
intelligent debate on the
big issues rather than
becoming bogged down
in high-profile hot topic
items that generate a lot
of attention and publici
ty but are less important
in the overall picture of
state government.
More often than not
there is a difference
between good govern
ment and good politics.
We can only hope law
makers will recognize
the difference as they
gather under the Gold
Dome to conduct the
public’s business.
Edward Snowden should be on trial, not on a pedestal
g |
|
.
DEBRA SAUNDERS
Columnist
+Former CIA Director
Jdmes Woolsey ha- pro
nounced that the proper
plpishmentfm'National
Sécurity Agency leaker
Edward Snowden would be
for him to be “hanged by his
neck until he is dead.”
“The news media want to
hand him not a rope but a
“The Guardian editorial
ized last week that its high
profile source is a hero wor
thy of a presidential pardon.
Likewise, The New York
Times opined that the
o v el
should offer Snowden “a
plea bargain or some form
of clemency that would
allow him to retum home”
qimleuu‘mednnme
three decades he faces under
a ing criminal com
so that he can enjoy
hope of a life advocat
in for greater privacy and
fag stronger oversight of the
e
“Who knows? Mayhap
The Gray Lady can give
Snowden a blog whence he
can lecture readers about
privacy rights, as he did ina
recent Christmas greeting
video.
In one sense, Snowden,
30, is a sympathetic figure.
In an ocean of anonymous
leakers, he came forward to
put a name on the avalanche
of information he shared
with Guardian columnist
Glerin Greenwald and The
Washington Post’s Barton
Gellman. That singular act
gave credibility to the leaks,
ended any debate as to what
the NSA is doing and peeled
off the gauze that camou
flaged an industrial-sized
intelligence bureaucracy that
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High-tech bandits have stolen
constitutional right to privacy
By Martin Schram
MecClatchy-Tribune News Service
2014 must be the year when we
finally do something to protect our
privacy, now that seven months of
serial scoops about government
spying and snooping have gotten
our attention.
We are all on the case, sort of —
shaken out of our complacency
and apathy by those revelations of
America’s domestic and global
spying, in those top-secret docu
ments rookie contractor Edward
Snowden stole so easily from the_
impenetrable National Security
Agency.
Many Americans now worry
thal a raging Big Brotherism is
secretly robbing us of our privacy.
Indeed, the more we think about
it, the more we realize this ulti
mate violation we once thought
was just George Orwell’s night
mare of a futuristic 1984 has
become our reality today.
If we hope to take back our con
stitutional right of privacy, we
need to first figure out just what
we've lost to this rampant Big
Brotherism — and who is the
enemy who took it from us in the
first place. That's our mission
today.
* First, let’s take inventory of
what we’ve lost.
We know from Snowden’s early
scoop that the NSA is amassing
so-called “metadata” about the
phone calls of millions of )
Americans. The NSA keeps
records of phone numbers we call
or that call us — just the numbers,
not the content of conversations.
(If we are contacted by a suspected
terrorist, the feds match his num
ber to ours — and check out
“‘doesn’t have the courage to
criticize abuses of free
speechn his host country.”
To reach its “free
Snowden” position, the
Times quoted a federal
judge who found the NSA
program to be “almost
Orwellian” while ignoring
another federal judge who
upheld the program’s consti-
Sonslity.
The Times also ignored
testimony that “telephony
metadata” prevented as
many as 50 potential terror
ist attacks, including a 2009
plot to blow up the New
York subway.
In essence, the Times is
stuck in 2007, when then
candidate Barack Obama
railed against the “false
choice between the liberties
we cherish and the security
we provide.” Obama aban
doned that campaign rheto
ric after he won election and
became responsible for the
nation’s security.
The Times, however,
clings to the 2007 fantasy
couldn’t secure itself.
On the other hand, if
Snowden can lift about 1.7
miilion classified documents
without penalty, any con
tractor can leak state secrets
with impunity. No other
superpower on the planet
would entertain such self
destructive folly.
Snowden has argued that
he had a moral duty to chal
lenge an intelligence
machinery that was out of
control. Hudson Institute
senior fellow Gabriel
Schoenfeld, author of
“Necessary Secrets:
National Security, the
Media, and the Rule of
Law,” is not impressed.
Snowden outed U.S. intelli
gence “for engaging in
activity that almost every
state engages in.” The for
mer contractor then went
into hiding in China and
Russia, where he enjoys
o by
itis di " quoth
Schoenfeld, that Snowden
lectures Washington but -
This is a page of opinion — ours, yours and
others. Signed columns and cartoons are the
opinions of the writers and artists, and they
may not reflect our views.
everyone we call.)
Understandably, the metadata
revelation triggered consternation
from all who think it is a violation
of privacy for the government to *
even keep a record of numbers we
call or who call us. President
Obama recently said he might rec
ommend that phone companies,
not the NSA, should keep this
data.
But your privacy can be violated
in ways more extensive than col
lecting metadata. Example:
1. Your email content (not just
the address of the recipient) on
some servers is routinely scanned
— searched for key words. Google
has acknowledged that Gmail mes
sages have been scanned by
machines, not humans, so users
can get pop-up ads about topics of
interest. If you write a friend about
body building, you may soon get
health product ads. Write about an
immigration concern and you may
get an immigration attorney’s ad.
2. Your Internet searches are
being tracked and stored on some
search engines. When you search
how to make a cake or a nuclear
bomb, or want to see a thinoceros’
horn or recreational porn — you
may get ads aimed at your search
content.
3. Your smartphone may be out
smarting you — some features
enable your phone carrier to know
your location at all times.
That last theme — police seek
ing to track a suspect by putting a
device on his car — led to a now
famous Supreme Court concurring
opinion. In the 2012 case of U.S.
v. Jones, Justice Sonia Sotomayor
transcended the specific issue and
wrote, most presciently:
*“lt may be necessary to recon
that surveillance is not a
national security tool.
Snowden shares that fantas
tic view, so the paper of
record doesn’t want him to
pay the criminal price for
Even some intelligence
dons entertain the idea. Last
month, Rick Ledgett, the
head of the NSA's Snowden
task force, told “60
Minutes” that he considers
amnesty for Snowden — in
exchange for Snowden’s
handing over the rest of the
secrets he purloined —
“‘worth having a conversa
tion about.” Ever since, I've
had this sneaking suspicion
that some D.C. black hats
want to cut a plea bargain or
pardon deal that could make
the embarrassing press sto-
Former CIA spokesman
Bill Harlow is not unfamiliar
with that sneaking suspi
cion, He thinks Snowden is
2 “traitor.” If the administra
tion is toying with a deal, he
said, it would send a cata-
sider the premise that an individual
has no reasonable expectation of
privacy in information voluntarily
disclosed to third parties. This
approach is ill suited to the digital
age, in which people reveal a great
deal of information about them
selves to third parties in the course
of carrying out mundane tasks.”
You are here: Each of those
invasions is far more intrusive than
NSA's storage of metadata. In all
three examples, we endure blatant
invasions of our privacy because
we are considered to have given
our consent, Sometimes consent is
required to use the service. Other
times, companies just make it very
difficult to opt out.
Now ask: Can a government
agency someday gain access to
those private computer and cell -
phone company records? Can a
prospective employer (government
or private) someday check your
computer search records to see
whether you searched for some
thing spelled with three X's?
. Congress must investigate anew
these digital-age privacy invasions
that, as Justice Sotomayor
observed, are a fact of our lives
today. Our laws must catch up to
our technology.
The creative minds of Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison and
their contemporaries would be
mind-blowingly fascinated by our
high-tech life today. But they
would surely be shocked to see
that the constitutional guarantees
they so painstakingly crafted for
the ages have come to this.
Martin Schram is a veteran
Washington journalist, author and
TV documentary executive. You may
email at martin.schram@gmail.com.
strophic message to would
be leakers. To wit: “Just
make sure you steal
mfl“"
It's almost funny when
you follow the editorial
boards’ logic. The papers
argued that Snowden is a
hero because he leaked
material about which the
public has a right to know.
ing amnesty or leniency if
Snowden would agree to
hand over any remaining
documents rather than share
them with the world. A trial
would give Snowden the
opportunity to tell his story,
the American public a
chance to find out what
exactly Snowden leaked and
Washington the burden of
proving a criminal case —
but the Times and The
Guardian apparently prefer a
backroom deal.
Debra J. Saunders is a syndi
cated columnist. You may
e-mail her: dsaunders@
sfchronicle.com.