A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, Colo., Jan. 23, on delaying next month’s planned transition from analog to digital television broadcasting:
Perennial procrastinators may get relief this week from Congress. The Senate has reportedly reached agreement on a bill that would delay until June 12 the transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting.
Oh joy! Another four months of those chirpy TV ads explaining how to make your television set ready for the switch.
The change was to occur Feb. 17, as anyone who has spent even a smattering of time in front of a TV over the past year should know. And it won’t affect viewers who receive their TV signal either through cable or via satellite.
However, despite the relentless advertising warning people about the upcoming transition, an estimated 6.5 million households have done little or nothing to prepare for the switch, and their television sets could go dark next month.
Additionally, the Commerce Department has reached its funding limit for coupons to assist people in buying the digital converter boxes, which cost between $30 and $40. That was a key reason President Barack Obama asked Congress to postpone the transition, which had already been postponed once.
We hope people facing the TV transition challenge will pay attention this time. Perhaps they will if Congress says, “We really mean it, now.”
But it’s been four years since Congress passed the legislation requiring the change. And it’s been well over a year since advertisements warning of the impending switch began hitting the airways. Yet millions of people still failed to act.
It’s all but certain that if the delay is approved by Congress, when June 12 rolls around there will still be people complaining, “We’re not ready yet. Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”
Editorial:
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The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo., Jan. 24, on the Patriot Act and how the law established unfriendly skies:
Although it was the key word in President Barack Obama’s run for the White House (so popular it was co-opted by the McCain campaign), “change” comes from any new administration in Washington. But giving credit where it’s due, Obama has acted quickly to set his term apart from the previous administration. The president wasted no time, signing orders to close secret overseas CIA prisons, ban the harsh interrogation techniques many believe are torture, and closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“The message that we are sending the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism and we are going to do so vigilantly and we are going to do so effectively and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals,” the president said.
Perhaps as president he’ll also be willing to take a new look at the Patriot Act he supported as a senator when that controversial law came up for renewal in 2006. It, too, was a major part of the Bush administration’s war on terror, and it has been abused to prosecute people who have no link to terrorism.
A recent story from the Los Angeles Times reported on apparent abuse of the law.
The Patriot Act is sometimes used simply because it was the easiest law to use to come down hard on air travelers who act up in flight but don’t really pose a threat to air safety.
According to the report, the Patriot Act has been used at least 200 times against people who were no more terrorists than a drunk at the corner bar.
Government officials defend their use of the law and claim it comes into play only for the most serious cases. The Times quoted Dean Boyd, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, who said the law improves airline security. According to Boyd the Justice Department has pursued prosecution only “when the facts and circumstances of a particular case warrant such action.”
So now the Justice Department and airlines believe a mother disciplining her children ranks right up there with Mohammad Atta and the rest of the Sept. 11 hijackers? That’s the conclusion one can draw from the case of Tamera Jo Freeman, who gave her two unruly kids a few swats on their legs on a flight in 2007. A cabin attendant took issue with Freeman’s actions and the two got into a brief argument, during which Freeman threw a can of tomato juice on the floor. She was arrested when the plane landed in Denver and convicted of a felony under provisions of the Patriot Act.
According to the Times report, those parts of the Patriot Act were intended to give authorities legal authority to stop terrorists before they even begin to take over a plane.
And now, because she’s a terrorist in the eyes of the government, Freeman has lost custody of her children, possibly permanently.
In these days of hyper-sensitivity in airline travel, it’s a good idea when traveling by air to not mess with airline employees. They have little patience with passengers whom they believe are acting up, and they have the weight of the federal government to back them up. That’s not to say one must sit meekly on a plane, but sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.
Out of the millions of air travelers in the U.S. since the Patriot Act was first passed in 2001, 200 misapplications of the law is pretty minuscule. That is, unless you’re one of the everyday Americans who is now labeled as a terrorist for the rest of your life as a result of a few moments of bad judgment. Lyndon Johnson once said, “You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
Officially labeling a mother a terrorist for arguing with a flight attendant is a misuse of the law. If the president won’t act to get rid of the Patriot Act, he should at least direct his Justice Department to use common sense in its application.
Editorial:
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STATE/REGIONAL:
Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Jan. 26, on some state Republicans’ reaction to the notion that some Guantanamo prisoners will end up at Supermax:
A number of Colorado Republicans have gone off on Gov. Bill Ritter because he suggested that Guantanamo terrorist suspects—and let’s face it, some of them are a good deal more than “suspects”—might be a decent fit for Supermax prison in Florence.
“Supermax was built to handle exactly this type of inmate,” Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said, fueling the furor.
It so happens that the governor’s opinion is both unremarkable and accurate. Of course Supermax was built to handle such prisoners. That’s why stone-cold killers, would-be killers and terrorists such as Zacarias Moussaoui (Sept. 11 conspirator), Ramzi Yousef (1993 World Trade Center bombing), Richard Reid (trans-Atlantic shoe bomber), Jose Padilla (convicted of terrorism conspiracy), Terry Nichols (Oklahoma City bombing), Eric Rudolph (Olympic Park bomber) and Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber) are confined there.
Why, Mohammed al-Qahtani, a would-be 9/11 terrorist being held at Guantanamo, would hardly stand out in such a group of cutthroats.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for somebody like me … who has supported the president’s decision to close Guantanamo Bay to say: ‘Not in my backyard’,” Ritter said. Who could disagree?
Well, Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, for one. “It makes us a target,” Gardner said late last week. “If Gov. Ritter has his way, there will be a pipeline of terrorism from Kabul to Colorado.”
But has the imprisonment of other terrorists 90 miles from Denver made this state a target? Not so far as we can tell.
The Gitmo prisoners who aren’t released to other countries (and some clearly will be) have to go somewhere, after all. And by no means all, or even most, are likely to end up in one place.
Sen. Ken Kester, R-Las Animas, has another concern: that the terrorists will mix with the prison population, “recruiting inmates to kill American servicemen and civilians.” But at Supermax, most prisoners are kept in isolation virtually all of the time; terrorists do not sit around trading tips with one another or beckoning other prisoners to consider the pleasures of targeting innocent strangers for death.
Colorado’s two remaining Republican members of Congress—it’s getting lonely in the Red seats—also denounced Ritter’s attitude. The new 6th District congressman, Mike Coffman, believes Guantanamo should remain open and that the governor’s remarks effectively encourage the president to close it.
Even if Coffman is right that Gitmo should remain open, closing it happened to have been one of the most frequently repeated promises of President Obama’s campaign. It’s going to happen—and when it does, some of the thugs there will end up on our shores, in military facilities or federal prisons such as Supermax—or more likely, both.
Editorial:
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Steamboat Pilot & Today, Steamboat Springs, Colo., Jan. 25, on drug dogs as effective tools at our schools:
Allowing a drug-sniffing dog to check student lockers and vehicles at Steamboat Springs High School is a reasonable and potentially effective method for reducing the presence of narcotics on school grounds.
It’s unfortunate such a step is even necessary, but the level of drug use among our high school and middle school students appears to warrant it. Just past the halfway mark of the 2008-09 school year, the district already has seen twice as many students recommended for expulsion because of drug- or alcohol-related violations than it did during the 2007-08 school year. At the high school, 12 students have faced expulsion for drugs or alcohol. About half that many are facing expulsion at Steamboat Springs Middle School.
Anonymous student surveys conducted in recent years also point to a substantial drug problem. Survey results have revealed that as many as half of all high school students have smoked marijuana, and about 20 percent have experimented with harder drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine.
“We do have a problem,” Superintendent Shalee Cunningham said. “We’re not going to tolerate it.”
It would be naive to think a K-9 unit sniffing school lockers and vehicles parked in the school parking lot will end drug use among our teens. But what it will do is help ensure a safe, drug-free environment within the walls of our high school—and that’s something we believe all students should be provided, particularly those who choose a drug-free lifestyle.
Some will argue that drug-sniffing dogs in our schools violate the Fourth Amendment and students’ right to privacy and that students shouldn’t be subjected to unreasonable or unwarranted searches. However, the courts have ruled that using a trained drug-sniffing dog to indiscriminately search the outside of student lockers and vehicles doesn’t constitute an illegal search, nor does it violate their right to privacy. Court rulings have taken an opposite stance when dogs are brought into contact with students for search purposes.
School officials have made clear that students themselves will not be searched or brought in contact with the drug dogs. Instead, the dog will be walked through school hallways while students are kept in classrooms.
Cunningham hopes the searches turn up no drugs but that they send a clear message to students.
“I just want to send the message that alcohol and drugs are not to be on campus,” Cunningham said. “They’re not conducive to a safe learning environment.”
Communities expect their schools to be drug-free zones, and Steamboat Springs should be no different. Bringing a drug-sniffing dog on the high school campus won’t keep teens from using illicit drugs, but it might help keep those drugs off school grounds. That’s a goal worth supporting.
Editorial:
