Wiretaps, intelligence and politics

By Jennifer J. Foster

Someone was listening to Jane Harman ... and she ISN’T HAPPY ABOUT IT.

Here’s the background from Congressional Quarterly, and here’s Harman’s rather pointed letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding the release of transcripts of every recorded conversation that involved her.

Harman, as you may know, chairs the House Intelligence Committee and sits on the Homeland Security Committee. She knows stuff, secret stuff, about this country and the people who want to attack it.

Who was listening to her? The NSA says it wasn’t them, according to NPR.

The specific issue here seems to be, as NPR reports, whether Harman was seeking lenient treatment for two former pro-Israel activists who were later indicted on federal charges of unlawfully possessing and disclosing classified information.

But the larger issue here is that, despite the findings and warnings of the 9-11 Commission, powerful people in Washington continue to play politics with intelligence.

... As if we needed reminding, given the ongoing controversy over the Bush Administration’s torture memo and President Obama’s to-and-fro about whether he will seek prosecution of those involved in waterboarding enemy combatants in U.S. custody.

‘Choose Life’ license plates headed to high court

By Jennifer J. Foster

Free speech seems to be the big topic these days, so I guess it’s only fitting that the Supreme Court has finally agreed to take up the case of the “Choose Life” license plates that are offered in 19 states.

FULL DISCLOSURE ALERT: Please note that my cars have borne (no, that pun wasn’t intended, but it’s a nice coincidence) “Choose Life” license plates for the past nine years. END FULL DISCLOSURE ALERT

The New York Times gives a good rundown of the legal issues involved here and the tangled mess the lower courts have made of them. The case winding its way to the Court concerns Illinois’s refusal to enact a “Choose Life” plate on the basis that the message on a license plate amounts to government speech and can therefore be regulated by state authorities. In siding with the state, the Seventh Circuit ruled that:

While conceding that specialty plates are private speech, the court said Illinois is nonetheless allowed to reject “Choose Life” plates because it had “excluded the entire subject of abortion from is specialty plate program” and so did not discriminate among perspectives on the subject.

In other words, don’t talk about it!

Friends, if that isn’t a blanket infringement of the freedom of speech, I don’t know what is. The Seventh Circuit basically ruled that it’s OK to muzzle private speech—as long as you muzzle everyone.

Does that sound like winning public policy to you?

Forget winning public policy. Does that sound constitutional to you?

Of course, since I’ve had one of these plates for a long time, I don’t guess you can consider my opinion an unbiased one. But it seems like a pretty straightforward free-speech issue to me. States have welcomed the opportunity to allow private organizations—most of which would otherwise be seeking money, or more money than they seek now, from the state—to raise money through these specialty plates. The controversy surrounding the “Choose Life” plate seems to be anchored in the fact that all but two of the states that offer the “Choose Life” plate offer an alternative plate as it relates to the abortion issue.

But from a legal standpoint, I don’t see how that’s relevant. The two states that do have “Choose Life” alternative plates have them because those plates went through the same process as the “Choose Life” plates: The legislatures of those various states had to enact them, just as they had to enact the “Choose Life” plates and just as they could enact other alternative plates. There would be some irony, don’t you think, in the Court mandating or compelling states to offer both if they offered either—in other words, taking away their choice?

As the Times explains, most of the appeals courts to consider “Choose Life” license plates have ruled that specialty plates convey the positions of the motorists involved, not the government itself. One lower court, for example, has called specialty plates “mobile billboards” for “organizations and like-minded vehicle owners.”

Legal watchers believe a February decision, Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, “may have complicated matters,“ according to the Times. In its ruling, the Court differentiated between passing speakers, such as those standing in a public park, and permanent monuments which might be erected in that park. The government can’t discriminate among the former, the Court said, but the latter, even if donated by private groups, amount to government speech.

I don’t see how Summum is going to play much in the Illinois case. A license plate, which has to be renewed every year, evokes nothing of the permanency described by the Court in Summum. You can change your cause on your license plate every 12 months—or sooner, if you choose. It’s a lot easier than hauling away a 5,280-pound granite monument.

In any event, it’s going to be interesting to see how the Court comes down on this one. I can’t wait to see if the free-speech advocates on the bench can walk the walk.

The misery of print, in a handy color graphic

By Jennifer J. Foster

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

If that’s true, then the graphic The Wall Street Journal has compiled to illustrate the continuing decline of the print journalism business is worth, literally, billions of words.

It tracks the industry’s slide back to 2006 both on a map and in a list.

You can see the presentation, entitled “Pressure on the Presses,“ here.

Keep in mind that this graphic comprises information from only the Top 100 newspapers in the United States based on circulation. In other words, as graphic as this graphic is, it doesn’t tell the whole story—stories about the jobs lost and papers downsized or closed in medium and small markets around the country.

Yikes.

Were Ala. students exposed to swine flu?

By Jennifer J. Foster

From AL.com:

Trussville City Schools officials concerned by a swine flu outbreak centered in Mexico today are talking with officials of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to discuss handling of more than 60 students and 23 chaperones who visited Cozumel this weekend.

No one is displaying flu-like symptoms and everyone appears to be well, according to the chaperones of the group, who are in New Orleans today.

The story goes on to note that the students—members of the Hewitt-Trussville High School marching band—boarded a Carnival Cruise Lines ship bound for Cozumel in New Orleans this weekend. They performed on the ship, and Cozumel was its only Mexican port of call.

You might remember that President Obama recently made a trip to Mexico. As it turns out, one of the dignitaries who greeted Obama upon his arrival died from flu-like symptoms THE NEXT DAY.

The president’s health seems to be fine, and, again, no one from the Trussville group is displaying signs of illness. But you can bet that federal health authorities will be watching. In a news conference just 20 minutes ago, a CDC official gave updated statistics on swine flu infections in the United States. In doing so, he noted that the median age of the 40 people with confirmed cases is ... 16 years old.

I will be interested to know whether the students and their chaperones are given Tamiflu before their return to Alabama—and whether the president got some upon his return from Mexico City.

The swine flu scare is giving us a good idea of how ready—or unready—our government is to face a national health crisis on an epidemic or pandemic scale. Meanwhile, Politico (via TwinCities.com) examines how, at the 100-day mark of his administration, the president’s failure to fill 19 key positions in the federal health sector—including the surgeon general, the heads of the CDC and FDA and the Health and Human Services Administration itself—could be hampering his ability to provide leadership on this issue.

Finally, Google has created an interactive map that allows you to track cases of swine flu. Check it out here.

Affirmative action or reverse discrimination?

By Jennifer J. Foster

If you missed it in Saturday’s print edition of the Opelika-Auburn News, or if you live outside the print delivery area, my most recent column is now available online. Check it out:

High court grapples again with race-based preference policies

If you aren’t familiar with this case, here is CNN’s background on it, including the article from which I quoted in my piece. (Note that there is video available here, too.)

What do you think? Are the “New Haven 20” justified in their claims of reverse discrimination? Or is there merit in the city’s position that no promotions are preferable to racially homogenous promotions?