In my Sunday column, which we’ve already posted online, I discuss President Bush’s controversial crusade to convince Congress to give him essentially unfettered power to snoop on Americans suspected of consorting with terrorists.
Like many civil libertarians, I’m upset that the Bush administration wants to eliminate the already minimal justification that the intelligence agencies must make to a secret court to eavesdrop on Americans. (Under current law, the feds can start wiretapping anyone, but must quickly get permission from a secret court — a court that has almost never said no — to continue.)
To me, this is just an extension of Bush’s systematic trampling of civil rights in the name of fighting terrorism. We’ve got the Patriot Act (which the bright-as-a-bullet Bush confused with his new proposal, the “Protect America Act,” during his news conference Thursday). We have the establishment of indefinite detention without charges and military-only trials for aliens held at Guantanamo. And of course, there’s the waterboarding, extraordinary rendition and Abu Ghraib nastiness.
Sadly, Congress, despite all its posturing and pontificating, has gone along with all of it. That just hands victory to the terrorists: fear of them is making us abandon core American values.
Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig (right), a strong advocate for Internet freedoms, just told readers of his blog that he won’t run for Congress after all.
In his video message announcing the decision not to run (click below to watch it), Lessig said he was committed to ending the influence of lobbyist and PAC money in politics.
But after consulting the polls, he concluded that “there was no possible way” to win against the popular Speier, who has a long track record as a consumer-rights crusader. “We would lose this race….in a big way,” he said.
The notion of a little-known professor challenging the accomplished Speier was always rather quixotic. But Lessig is a hero to many in the Silicon Valley tech community, and hopefully he will find another way to make his ideas a part of the debate.
(Photo of Lawrence Lessig courtesy of Stanford News Service.)
I didn’t look at the sites the way each candidate’s supporters would, but instead tried to take the perspective of an undecided but politically engaged person trying to learn more about my choices.
I found all four of the sites somewhat lacking, although they all had some unique strengths. Huckabee’s was the quirkiest (I especially enjoyed the homemade videos from his fans). Clinton’s was the most polished and professional-looking. Obama’s was the hippest, but I was put off by the blatant appeal to donate money and “own” a piece of him. McCain’s site projected toughness and strength, but not a whole lot of humanity beyond the warrior.
We all knew the feds were going down this road – the Bush Administration argues that carbon dioxide isn’t a pollutant, so it maintains that environmental regulators don’t have any authority to place limits on carbon emissions. (It doesn’t matter that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled otherwise — as we well know, George W. Bush believes the president is a law unto himself).
But California and 16 other states — which represent roughly half the market for cars sold in the U.S. — are seeking to curb auto emissions as part of their efforts to fight global warming. Under the Clean Air Act, California needs to get a waiver from the U.S. EPA before it can implement its own rules. Other states can then choose to follow the California rules or the federal rules.
Last week, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang stood before a congressional committee and apologized to the families of two Chinese dissidents who were jailed after the Sunnyvale Internet company disclosed private e-mail information to the Chinese government.
Today, Yahoo is paying out the cash. Yahoo just settled lawsuits brought by the dissidents, Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, over the company’s actions. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, although Yahoo is paying their attorneys’ fees.
I’m glad that Yahoo is putting some money behind its apology. But in the most important respect, it doesn’t matter: Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning are still rotting in jail.
Tuesday’s congressional hearing about Yahoo turning over information about two dissidents to the Chinese government got me all riled up — and not at Yahoo.
This week, the U.S. Senate is debating a bill to significantly raise car and truck fuel economy standards for the first time in about 25 years.
In an editorial today, the Mercury News urged the Senate — and the House, which is working on similar legislation — to pass the bill, H.R. 6, which would raise the average fuel economy of cars, light trucks and SUVs to 35 mpg by 2020.
Not only would a high standard reduce our reliance on foreign oil and save drivers billions and billions of dollars, but it would also make a big dent in our national greenhouse gas emissions: 18 percent by 2025, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. (left), a coauthor of the bill.
“This is going to be harder than immigration,” former Sen. John B. Breaux, who is now lobbying on behalf of Chrysler, told the New York Times. “This is going to be the mother of all bills.”
In an editorial Sunday, the Mercury News urged the Senate and President Bush to get back to work on the immigration overhaul bill, S. 1348, which stalled last week after a vote to end debate failed. (The LA Times reports this morning that the Bush is pushing hard to get the bill passed and some senators are cautiously optimistic the bill will come back to the floor. The New York Times says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is open to more debate on the bill.)
This bill is the last best chance for badly needed immigration reform before the politics get even uglier in the presidential and congressional elections. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s solid enough to send to the House, which I’m sure will work it over pretty thorougly.
I encourage you to read the editorial for our full argument, which I won’t repeat here. (The editorial generated some spirited comments from readers. You can read what they’re saying here.)
However, there is no question we need some kind of change. Like it or not, this country needs the labor of immigrants, legal and illegal, high-tech and low-tech. Already, crops are rotting in the field because farmers can’t get enough workers. Tech companies have thousands of unfilled jobs and will start moving those jobs directly to India and China if they can’t bring foreign workers here.
If Hilllary Rodham Clinton becomes president, Silicon Valley is going to strike it rich. The Democratic senator from New York proposed this afternoon to give the technology industry a space-race level of funding — $50 billion for alternative energy investment alone — if she’s elected president.
“A culture that values and invests in ideas is part and parcel of the promise of America. And we have always supported that culture with public investment,” Clinton told a crowd of a couple of hundred Silicon Valley executives at a speech at Applied Materials’ headquarters in Santa Clara. “The fire that was sparked here in this valley has made such a difference, but it can’t be allowed to sputter out.”
Clinton unveiled her nine-point “innovation agenda” (full text here) in an hour-long speech and question-and-answer session.
She called for massive public spending on strategic energy research, basic science and medical research. She proposed to triple the number of National Science Foundation fellowships, set up prizes for innovative research and provide scholarships for women and minorities to study math, science and engineering.
Addressing one of the tech industry’s perennial issues, Clinton proposed to make the 20 percent incremental research and development tax credit permanent. She called for tax incentives to spread universal broadband. And she vowed to restore integrity to science in Washington, where “this administration has tried to turn Washington into an evidence-free zone.”
And she endorsed efforts by companies like Intel to promote electronic medical records.
In an editorial today, we urge the 2008 presidential candidates to start directly addressing quality-of-life issues in Silicon Valley when they stop in town. So far, they’ve mostly treated us a source of ready cash.
What are those issues? In addition to obvious issues like the Iraq war, we want them to talk about what they can do to help with the sequoia-high price of housing, the health care crisis, immigration reform and global warming and energy policy.
