Transparency? Or transparent political ruse?

President Obama promised the most transparent administration in the history of the universe. I read the memos. Since then, he’s not quite lived up to the promise, including balking at the reporter shield law and backtracking on the release of detainee interrogation photos.

Now Obama appointee John Berry, head of the Office of Personnel Management, is promising transparency, too.

“I believe we must hold ourselves and the government to a higher standard,” Berry writes in a Nov. 5 memo, “one that honors and supports the President’s strong commitment to a Government that is transparent and open.”

Berry is requiring any appointment of a former political appointee — anyone who held such a job in the past five years instead of the customary year before an election (The fact this covers of the entire Bush administration is surely coincidental) — get prior approval from his office before being named to a competitive civil service job.

The conservatives at Redstate.com smelled a rat and penned a piece headlined: “Obama Administration Intends to Purge Republicans From the Civil Service.”

“Under his new rules, made retroactive for five years, the Office of Personnel Management will examine civil service employees who got their start as political appointees in the Bush administration and terminate those employees,” writes Erick Erickson. “The order is retroactive to 2004, that moment when a number of Republican congressional staffers and others sought to embed into the second Bush administration right after the election.”

I’m not sure the memo requires review of past employees or simply new hires starting Jan. 1, but a loyal bureaucrat could easily misinterpret.

The liberal Media Matters quickly jumped to the defense.

“In fact, the OPM memo does nothing of the sort,” Adam Shah writes. “It merely beefs up current OPM rules aimed at preventing political appointees from ‘burrowing in’ to the civil service, thereby receiving the job security benefits that civil servants — but not political appointees — receive. While the memo states that agencies must seek permission from OPM to hire people as civil servants if they have been political appointees ‘within the last five years,’ nothing in the memo creates authority for anyone to fire current federal employees. Therefore, the OPM memo does not ‘purge’ anybody.”

OK, but if this is no big deal, why the need for the memo in the first place? There may not be a purge but it sure sounds like a hurdle for future civil service jobs for Republicans. A job can’t be denied merely for political affiliation, but everyone knows a lot of excuses can found by true believers.

Rush Limbaugh, of course, found a problem with the memo.

Gawker turns tables on press with public records request

You live by the public records request, you die by the public records request.

John Cook at a Web site called Gawker has turned the tables on the press, especially The New York Times.

Cook and/or Gawker filed a public records request for e-mails between former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s press aides and the press about the time Spitzer was being outed as Client No. 9 in a prostitution ring investigation.  What was found was a remarkably accommodating press.

Gawker also obtained e-mails between the press and flacks for the current governor, David Paterson.

This is a snippet of what Cook writes about the findings:

“And they give the lie to the myth of the vigilant watchdog press that keeps the government on its toes. Next time you hear New York Times editor Bill Keller claim that newspapers are uniquely situated to do the “hard, expensive, sometimes dangerous work [of] quality journalism,” remember that his reporter broke the story of Spitzer’s dalliances with prostitutes. But also remember the time his reporter e-mailed the Gov. Paterson’s flack to request permission to call Paterson’s former mistress.

“This first installment documents the shocking amount of control that Keller’s Times allowed Anderson, a former Good Morning America producer and PR veteran of the Clinton White House, to exercise over his paper’s coverage. After bringing Anderson’s world down around her head by breaking the story, Times reporters previewed portions of their stories with her before publication, asked for her permission before contacting sources, and let her tell them how to characterize its reporting in the paper.”

It will be interesting to see what else those 1,300 pages of e-mails reveal.

Memo to self and staff: Be careful what you write to people whose e-mail is subject to public records requests.

Shield law compromise is better than nothing

After the White House earlier scuttled a proposed reporters’ shield law by demanding the final say should lie with the executive branch, it looks like a compromise has been reached that most can accept as better than the status quo of jailing reporters for refusing to reveal sources.

Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, was quoted as saying, “This is a huge deal, but it’s not a done deal, and quite honestly, until all of the media coalition members sign off on it, it’s not a deal.”

Under the compromise reached between the White House and Senate Democrats, judges would be the final arbiter in civil and criminal cases. In civil cases the party seeking information from a reporter would bear the burden of proof. In criminal cases the reporter would have to prove that the public interest in free flow of information out weighs the needs of prosecutors for the information.

A judge would not be able to block a reporter subpoena if prosecutors show a terrorist attack could be prevented or there would be significant harm to national security. How strong that evidence might have to be remains to be seen.

In an editorial today, The New York Times gave a tentative endorsement.

Now it is up to Sen. Harry Reid to put the measure to a vote.

 

There is no compromising with fanatical, irrational, militant religious zealots

Hillary Clinton in Pakistan this week. (AP Photo/Mansoor Ahmed)

 

The Obama administration is a little late to the party. While this week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others are speaking out against a U.N. resolution aimed at fighting so-called defamation of religions, an earlier compromise hatched by the administation gave up too much ground.

Michael Posner, the assistant U.S. secretary of state for human rights, democracy and labor, worked with Egypt to draft compromise language that condemns religion-oriented harassment and discrimination. He has been quoted as saying the administration wanted to distinguish between defamation and harassment.

Marci Hamilton

FindLaw.com columnist and law professor Marci Hamilton argues the administration bent over too far.

That compromise “expresses its concern that incidents of racial and religious intolerance, discrimination and related violence, as well as of negative racial and religious stereotyping of religions and racial groups continue to rise around the world, and condemns, in this context, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, and urges States to take effective measures, consistent with their obligations under international human rights law international human rights, to address and combat such incidents …

“Recognizes the positive contribution that the exercise of the right to freedom of expression, particularly by the media, including through information and communication  technologies such as the Internet, and full respect for the freedom to seek, receive and impart  information can make to the fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and to preventing human rights abuses, but expresses regret at the promotion by certain media of false images and negative stereotypes of vulnerable individuals or groups of individuals, and at the use of information and communication technologies such as the Internet for purposes contrary to respect for human rights, in particular the perpetration of violence against and exploitation and abuse of women and children, and disseminating racist and xenophobic discourse or content …”

Clinton was quoted this week as saying Monday, “Some claim that the best way to protect the freedom of religion is to implement so-called anti-defamation policies. … I strongly disagree. The protection of speech about religion is particularly important since persons of different faiths will inevitably hold divergent views on religious questions.”

But Hamilton notes that Clinton also has been less firm.

“According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” Hamilton writes, “the original proposed resolution against religious defamation was unacceptable to the United States because ‘[t]he protection of speech about religion is particularly important since persons of different faith will inevitably hold divergent views on religious questions.’ However, according to The Associated Press, Clinton also ’said that the United States was opposed to negative depictions of specific faiths’ — which sounds very much like an anti-free speech position.”

The professor says the administration, instead of acceding to any compromise, should have attacked the resolution head on, reminding the world what Americans think of militant Islamists who wish to destroy American and American values.

“To take a position in favor of suppressing speech about religions — especially at this time in history — is to choose to put aside one of our most important weapons against death, oppression, and tyranny,” she writes. “Offering a ‘middle ground’ cedes far more ground than the Islamic countries supporting the resolution– especially those who are host to militant Islamicists yet fail to effectively combat them — deserve on this point.”

Hamilton calls the administration a disappointment when it comes to freedom of religion and free speech.

You can’t compromise with irrational fanatics, and the best way to combat them is freely and fully attack their premises as every available opportunity, until the world shuns them and their false beliefs.

College campuses unwelcoming to free speech advocate

Dutch politician Geert Wilders speaks at Temple University on Tuesday, Oct.. 20, 2009, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/H. Rumph Jr.)

How many times have you heard someone say: “I’m totally supportive of free speech and the First Amendment, but …”?

A couple of days ago, Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders spoke at two universities, Columbia and Temple, and got precisely that reaction. The question and answer session at Temple was cut short when the crowd turned ugly and Wilders’ security team had to usher him out of the room.

Wilders is the maker of a film called “Fitna,” which juxtaposes quotes from the Quran with images of terrorism, beheadings and speeches of Islamic clerics calling for violence against non-Muslims.

Wilders lives under 24-hour police protection because of threats resulting from the making of his movie and speeches critical of Islam. He faces prosecution in his own country. He was barred from entering Britain until recently.

He was invited to Columbia by a campus Republican organization that felt obligated to apologize for Wilder’s speech afterward.

“We didn’t invite him to talk about his views on Islam,” the Republican students wrote in a statement, noting that the club “does not in any way endorse” his views.  “We find the fact that he spent so much of his speech talking about those views regrettable, but he did explain that those views play a part in his concern for free speech.”

In a Columbia campus newspaper, Adel Elsohly, a graduate student and adviser for the Muslim Students Association, penned an op-ed endorsed by a dozen student groups, including the campus Democrats club.

He first made the obligatory homage to free speech, but then wrote, “Wilders’ speech, while beginning as a discussion of free discourse, soon devolved into little more than an open, vicious attack on Islam and Muslims, claiming that the ultimate goal of Islam is to conquer the world and forcibly impose itself on the conquered.”

He concluded: “Don’t we all deserve freedom from fear?”

Freedom from fear? When, just perhaps, there is something to fear?

In the Temple student paper a Josh Fernandez wrote, “It’s not that Temple students didn’t want Wilders to exercise his right to ‘tell people what they do not want to hear,’ but they didn’t want to hear hateful rhetoric, which — instead of proposing a diplomatic solution — proposed the eradication of a religious group.”

I don’t Wilders ever called for eradication.

I could not find a transcript of Wilders’ recent speeches but I did find one from earlier in the year in California. He paints an interesting picture of what results when one exercises “free speech” in Europe these days.

“Whether or not I end up in jail is not the most important issue,” he says in his speeches. “I gave up my freedom more than 4 years ago. I am under full-time police protection ever since, because of death threats from Muslims and terrorist groups linked to Al Qaeda. In the last few years, I lived in different safe houses, army barracks and yes, even in prison cells in order to be safe. But it’s not about me, it is not about Geert Wilders. The real question is: Will free speech be put behind bars?

“We have to defend freedom of speech. I propose the withdrawal of all hate speech legislation in Europe. I propose a European First Amendment. In Europe we should defend freedom of speech like you Americans do.”

Toward the end he launches into this Churchillian admonition:

“My message to those who oppose our fight for freedom is as follows.“We will never compromise on freedom.
“We will never compromise on liberty.
“We will never appease to Islam.
“We will never give in, never give up, never submit to totalitarianism again.”

But those words are not welcome on U.S. campuses, where multiculturalism reigns, where any strong language is labeled “hate speech,” even if it is true.

FOIA: We all want to know what tunes are torture

Now here’s a Freedom of Information request I think we can all get behind.

Some musicians have filed an FOIA request for a list of all the music used to “torture” prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Don’t we all want to know what the psych analysts from the military think are the tunes so irritating, so grating, so annoying that merely playing them for hours on end would cause the world’s worst terrorists to spill their secrets and forgo martyrdom rather than endure continue aural bombardment?

Members of Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine and Roots this past week formally filed the request.

“The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me,” Tom Morello, formerally of Rage Against the Machine, is quoted as saying by The Washington Post. “We need to end torture and close Guantanamo now.”

“We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice – to now learn that some of our friends’ music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge, is horrific,” R.E.M. said in a statement quoted by The New York Times. “It’s anti-American, period.”

I suspect a number of parents might agree with them.

The use of loud music, though the military insists it was never played as loud as it is at live concerts, is not new to the arsenal. When Manuel Noriega was surrounded during the invasion of Panama, loud rock music was used to keep him awake and allegedly to prevent parabolic microphones from picking up conversations.

According to the Times, one of the detainees has said “excruciatingly loud western rap and Arabic music” were played during detention — including recordings by Metallica, Britney Spears and even from Sesame Street. No Barney the dinosaur?

Reminds one of the line from that Bruce Willis movie “The Last Boy Scout.” The bad guy says, “You think you are so (expletive) cool. But just once, I would like to hear you scream in pain …”

Willis replies in deadpan, “Play some rap music.”

I can’t help but wonder if there is an ulterior motive here, and whether some of these guys will be disappointed if their tracks are not on the list.

Just think of the potential sales of the compilation album: “Music to Torture By.”

That list is definitely a public record we all should have access to … for various reasons.

Don’t jump to conclusions about content of prisoner photos

Sometimes people jump to conclusions not in evidence.

Take my column today as an example. A couple of commenters and letter writers assumed that my call for release of the photos of Afghan and Iraqi prisoners was so that our interrogators might be revealed to be engaged in abuse and/or torture. I never said that.

Since I’ve not seen the photos, I cannot judge. That’s the point.

Many people jumped to the conclusion when the Abu Ghraib photos were released that the naked and bound prisoners were under interrogation. Frankly, they looked more like bored guards engaged in frat
house hazing.

One letter writer accused me of taking “a position that pictures that damage our national security should be released to the public. As if the government has no right to withhold any information from the public on the grounds of national security. The pictures would serve no useful purpose, except to give salacious
pleasure to people who like to look at that sort of thing, and to our enemies, to further their efforts to incite violence and hatred toward America, and its troops in harm’s way.”

Would they? Perhaps they would prove that the treatment is not so bad after all. Certainly less abusive than beheading, as is favored by some of those being questioned.

“Your position is specious,” the writer continues, “because there is a national security interest that must be protected.  I don’t trust the government as much as the next guy, but I don’t see a reason to
show such pictures. In court, pictures are routinely excluded from evidence on the grounds that they are prejudicial and would inflame feelings not productive to the matter at hand.”

They also tell those who are in charge, the citizens, how their government is carrying out their charges.

There are too abuses that can swept under the rug by the claim of national security, not necessarily aimed at our enemies, but rather at keeping our voters in the dark.

Jesse Jackson and R-J agree on top issues of the day

While in town to address the National Conference of Black Mayors, the Rev. Jesse Jackson took the time to stop by for a discussion of the issues of the day with the Review-Journal editorial board.

His top concerns were the same as ours — jobs and foreclosures. Las Vegas leads the nation in the rate of foreclosures and the official unemployment rate is bumping at 14 percent, though, if you add in those who have given up looking for work and dropped out of the labor force, the figure is approaching 25 percent.

In his customary subdued tones with his customary turns of phrases — “we’ve watered the leaves, but not the roots” — Jackson held forth on the need for second round of stimulus, one that is bottom up, rather than top down. He also noted is hard to negotiate a home loan modification if you don’t have a job.

At one point I asked him if it might not be better, rather than sending our tax money to Washington and having it sent back for specific purposes, to simply let the people and small business owners keep their money by cutting taxes so jobs could be created. He was not averse to that being part of a second stimulus effort.

Maybe the Rev. Jackson and the editorial board of the Review-Journal are no so far apart after all.

The interview lasted an hour and a half, but we have posted video of a couple of minutes on our Web site.

Newspapers trying out new revenue models

Kindle DX

The business of the newspaper business keeps evolving.

Today Newsday reported it will charge for online access, and The New York Times sent out e-mails inviting former subscribers to sign up for a one-year subscription on Kindle and receive the new, bigger DX Kindle for $499, a savings of $200.

Newsday on Long Island, N.Y., announced that nonsubscribers or people who do not have the island’s cable system — both owned by the same company — will have to pay $5 a week to continue to be able to access all of newsday.com’s content. Some content such as obituaries will remain free.

Newsday quoted a critic who said the paper would be shutting out younger readers.

But it also quoted longtime newspaper business guru John Morton as saying, “Despite the false premise that has been floating around for the last 19 years, that information on the Internet wants to be free, [it] is just not true. People have always been willing to pay for information they have felt was useful to them.”

Like the Review-Journal, the Times is already available on Kindle devices and in a paid subscription online replica edition that looks just like the paper paper. It is simply offering a premium for the newest toy from Amazon.

The Times also has been hinting that it will soon start charging for its online content, which is now free.

Where do we go from here?

If cop deaths preventable, why be patient?

Sheriff Doug Gillespie with insets of James Manor and Milburn Beitel

They say patience is a virtue.

Tell that to the readers who kept asking what happened in the one-car accident that left one police officer dead and another critically injured. We kept asking the police, but the investigation took time.

I suspect the Sheriff Doug Gillespie did not want to have two press conferences like he did this past summer. One to tell what he thought happened when an officer died in a collision and another a few days later to explain what really happened — high speed, no lights and siren, no seat belt.

That was the same cause and effect Gillespie explained Tuesday about the Oct. 7 crash that killed officer Milburn “Millie” Beitel and injured officer David Nesheiwat.

The R-J reported today what Gillespie had to say, illustrating with photos and graphics. John L. Smith columnized about that press conference, giving our readers perspective and voicing what many of our readers are surely thinking.

At the press conference, the sheriff said the accidents were predictable and preventable, but then said changing the behavior of some officers who don’t wear seat belts and who speed is not going to be easy.

“Changing policy as well as culture is a process,” he said. “It takes time to do it right.”

But John L., after giving the sheriff he due, chided him, saying, “Gillespie should let it be known that any officer who needlessly kills himself in an auto accident won’t be given a motorcade procession and a communitywide send-off. He won’t be remembered as a hero.

“He’ll be used as an example of what happens to reckless drivers.

“Send a tough message, sheriff, and help put an end to this dangerous police practice.”

When the Legislature passes laws — click it or ticket, as the advertising message says — they take effect on a specific date.

Patience is not always a virtue.

Watch the Gillespie press conference and offer your comments in letters to this newspaper.