Broken windows of privacy

By Ellen Ratner
Rarely a week goes by that we do not hear about a major infringement of privacy in the national news. One of this week's privacy infringement cases highlighted a case in Texas. The privacy breach was cloaked to look like the state was thwarting voter fraud. Now it looks more like the state was intentionally intimidating a volunteer. The plaintiff, Gloria Meeks, has been investigated for helping older voters to vote, (yes, you can get in trouble for helping someone fill out a voter registration card). Ms. Meeks has filed a lawsuit against the state claiming that two state investigators peeped into her bathroom window. The state claimed this did not happen, and that she is a political operative engaged in voter fraud.



In a seemingly unrelated incident this week, the chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard resigned for playing a one-sided game of peek-a-boo with her board members. She and others at Hewlett-Packard authorized a spying operation on board members. The New York Times reports that, ''in addition to direct surveillance, the operation entailed the use of possibly illegal methods to obtain phone records of board members, journalists and others, an attempt to place software on a reporter's computer to track e-mail; and a study of the use of clerical workers and cleaners to infiltrate two news organizations.''

Earlier this year, many of us were astounded to find out that many U.S. citizens' phone conversations were being recorded by the government with the help of publicly traded, responsible to their stockholders, corporations. What is going on here?

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My premise is that we have a ''broken window'' of privacy. The ''broken window'' theory was first put forth by professors James Q. Wilson and George Kelling to explain deteriorating neighborhoods. They postulated that there is a sequence of events that can be expected in deteriorating neighborhoods. ''Incidence of decay (accumulated trash, broken windows, and deteriorated building exteriors) remains in the neighborhood for a reasonably long period of time. People who live and work in the area feel more vulnerable and begin to withdraw. They become less willing to intervene to maintain public areas (e.g. to attempt to break up groups of rowdy teens loitering on street corners) or to address physical signs of deterioration.'' Mayor Giuliani of New York City used this broken window theory to support zero tolerance of crime. Giuliani had a point. He cleaned up the ''broken window'' neighborhoods and crime started to diminish.

The Bush administration, however, is breaking windows, not fixing them. Our government shatters privacy in the name of security. What the government started, the corporations have picked up with a vengeance. The net effect is that Americans don't care. Our attitude is, "Who cares? So many windows are broken, what's one more?"

The problem is, the more windows that are broken, the more will be broken. The examples of privacy rights gone awry are rampant. There are DNA dragnets in certain communities to find criminals. Those who don't participate are often suspect and are under enormous pressure within their communities to participate. There have been collections of consumer data at the Justice Department and at the Pentagon. The Pentagon's ''Total Information Awareness Program'' has supposedly been shut down, but like a Three Stooges episode, when you close one drawer another opens. Seems there is a similar program operating on a state level, The Matrix Program, (The Antiterrorism Information Exchange). So, what the feds are no longer allowed to do has now been farmed out to the states.

The collection of cell phone data is even more disturbing. It is much more than a list of phone calls. Cell phones receive and send data by pinpointing where you are between three cell towers. That data, like phone numbers, is kept by the cell phone companies. They know where you have been, and they keep a record of your cell phone's whereabouts.

Citizens have allowed themselves to become more vulnerable to government and to withdraw their objections because of fear. Fear of terrorism and of crime. As a society we are abdicating our responsibility to monitor the government. Many Americans say, "I don't care if the government monitors my phone records. I don't do anything wrong."

Even if you are comfortable with the government collecting mounds of data on you, are you comfortable with how easy it is for others to access it? Every few months, a major organization is embarrassed by the lost laptop that liberated the private data of tens of thousands of people. Recently it was the Department of Veterans Affairs who potentially compromised the personal data of every vet in the nation. Even the IRS has admitted problems with contractors improperly accessing data. Ever wonder where all that political junk-mail comes from? Somehow both political parties are able to take government census data, private credit card information, voting records and put them together for local and state political parties.

I wouldn't go complaining about this too much to your local politicians. Most of them used that collected data to build their campaign strategy and target specific voters. Asking them for help would be like asking the kid in the neighborhood who broke the window to fix it.

Snow job

By Ellen Ratner
It was Sept. 12, and White House press secretary Tony Snow walked into the temporary press room at The White House Conference Center for the morning gaggle. The gaggle is a pen and pencil, not-for-broadcast morning update. President Bush had given his 9/11 speech to the nation less than 14 hours earlier. I expected the usual round of questions, some on terror, a few on the president's day, a Helen Thomas question on Iraq, and the like. I wasn't disappointed by Helen; she asked her Iraq question.



What happened next had me speechless. For at least 15 minutes, Tony Snow bantered with the press about the president's address to the nation and whether of not it was political. Earlier some Democrats had called the speech political, on a day when the White House had pledged to be non-partisan. Tony Snow was prepared. Like a masterful talk-show host he led his audience (the press) down the road he wanted them to be on.


Snow's "show prep," as we say in the talk business, was masterful. He led the agenda. As the president's top spinner, he is supposed to reflect the message of the administration. Mike McCurry was a master at spin during the Clinton administration. He enjoyed the fight, was quick-witted and smooth. Tony has been telegenic and fearless, but never have I seen a press secretary set the agenda so that the press falls into his trap like prey. It was Tony's gaggle, and he was able to use the press to make the points he wanted to from the president's speech the night before, reiterating many times that the speech was not political or controversial. He pointed out that if the president had not mentioned Iraq, then people would have asked why. He said that all day long on Sept. 11 Democrats had issued partisan press releases but the President had delivered a non-partisan speech.

The afternoon briefing on camera was an extension of the morning gaggle. Associated Press's Terry Moran led off the questioning with the comments of John Boehner on Democrats and terror. That was a fair and good question, and Tony stated that he had not seen Boehner's statement. Once again, the press asked about the speech from the night before. Tony was still glowing – tan, rested and ready from the morning gaggle.

Tony quickly moved the ball down the field. He moved from questions about the president's speech being partisan to a defense of the president's policies. Asked about other statements in Bush's speech such as one on the Mideast peace process, Tony responded, "How is peace controversial?" Knowing that the briefings are on camera and seen by the public, Tony took the opportunity to slide right into pre-election reframing of the war issues.

The continuing discussion gave Tony the opportunity to press forward with the White House agenda. "Both Houses of Congress agreed to going into this war. We're there. We have to deal with it. For the president to ignore it (in his speech) – let me – I'll give you anecdotal evidence. Yesterday morning, we're in a firehouse in New York, talking with a lot of people who lost friends and buddies. Later in the day we went to Shanksville, and the president worked a long semi-circle of grieving family members. At the Pentagon there is – as you saw, it was a very emotional meeting with family members. Not one said, don't fight, give up, quit and get out."

Tony had the anecdotes lined up; he knew where he wanted the press briefing to go. The press bought into it. Few facts-and-figures questions were asked with well over 2,000 words in the briefing devoted to issues around partisanship and the speech. Just what Tony Snow wanted.

It was a brilliant idea to get a radio talk-show host and TV anchor to be the press secretary. It has been a job usually occupied by press secretaries from Capitol Hill and other agencies, but no one until recently thought about what would happen if you had a journalist who understood the talk media. We now know. Tony sets the agenda, prepares his on-camera show like he would any challenging political talk show and watches as his "guests" (the press) take the bait. When a patient is dying in the hospital, it is not infrequent he or she is given high doses of morphine, to "snow them under." Tony has managed the job without the morphine and runs the most effective talk show in the country.

Al-Qaida: 5 years and counting

By Ellen Ratner
The official Bush administration position on al-Qaida is that it has been badly damaged and that we have its leaders on the run. However, many experts believe al-Qaida is anything but ''on the run'' and that bin Laden has morphed his terrorist organization into smaller and more effective fighting forces. No less than a professor at the United States Military Academy, Bruce Hoffman, told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, ''Al-Qaida is still alive and kicking. It's just changed its modus operandi. We've often painted a picture of al-Qaida in retreat. I'm not sure it isn't Al Qaeda on the march.''



New York University's Barnett Newman, interviewed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, said the Bush policy in Afghanistan has ''actually turned farmers in some areas against us and driven them into the arms of terrorists.'' We know the engine of bin Laden's terror program is money. He found safety and comfort in Afghanistan and now, after he has spent millions of his own money, he has found cash in Afghanistan by tapping into a lucrative Opium drug trade.

Well, guess what? Opium production in Afghanistan has grown 50 percent to a record 6,100 metric tons, which means that Afghanistan now provides 92 percent of the world's supply of heroin! The worth of this new trade to the Taliban and its friends in al-Qaida is a very large share of the four billion dollars the opium trade generates annuually. You can seed a lot of terror with that kind of non-taxable income. But, rather than do the job of cleaning out the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan with a total war concept a la former Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, we decided to ''do it on the cheap'' as one State Department official told me.

We paid warlords to execute our military operations – a new twist on outsourcing. Naturally, when the money stopped flowing from Uncle Sam, these same warlords, who have the loyalty of a mosquito, moved on to their next business opportunity – anyone but the United States of America. There is nothing like a lucrative drug trade to make strange bedfellows of warlords, the Taliban and those loyal to al-Qaida.

This money flow has increased the number of al-Qaida members. In a report released this week, the ''Third Way National Security Project'' found al-Qaida's membership has grown from 20,000 in 2001 to 50,000 today. Their terror attacks have increased from three in 2001 to 30 since September 11, 2001.

The Washington Post on Sunday reported that the trail leading to bin Laden has gotten cold. Despite the ABC docudrama that lays the blame at the feet of the Clinton administration, it is the Bush administration that under-funded the Afghanistan war and moved onto Iraq before Afghanistan was secure. It was also the Bush administration that disbanded the CIA unit responsible for finding bin Laden. They seek to minimize Bin Laden by issuing talking points this past week that included statements that bin Laden is only one man and they are focused on al-Qaida as a whole. One Bush administration official identified by talk-show host Todd Feinburg asked this weekend, ''How would anything be different if we captured Osama Bin Laden?''

Fortunately, there are others in government, not just the family members of the victims of Sept. 11, who disagree with the administration's minimizing of the need to find bin Laden. This week, Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota got an amendment to the defense bill passed. It adds $200 million to the bill for the sole purpose of finding bin Laden. It requires regular reports to Congress on the progress made in the hunt for bin Laden. Although the amendment passed 96-0, Republican Ted Stevens said it ''was a slap in the face of the intelligence community.'' He implied that the only reason it passed was election-year politics.

A slap in the face to the intelligence community? The slap in the face goes to the administration officials who reduced the numbers of Special Operations forces in Afghanistan in 2002, and to the war planners that let the Afghan warlords do our dirty work, and to those who looked to Iraq rather than taking care of the business at hand, which was and is finding Osama once and for all. Five years is just too long to wait.

Pulling Hitler out of their hats

By Ellen Ratner
President Bush is making his case for ''staying the course'' in Iraq with a series of speeches. He believes he will be vindicated by history for his decision to invade Iraq. He is sending his whole team out with the message – a message that can be summed up as, ''We cannot give up.'' The President said, ''If we give up the fight in Baghdad we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.''



The president's reasoning has more to do with getting his base on the streets on November 7 (the day of the mid-term elections), than it does getting terrorists off the streets of our nation. His motivational techniques are more fitting of a televangelist, than a president. The only problem is that Americans cannot simply tune out the president and hope he goes away for good. Nor can we send in a $25 dollar check or vote for a Republican in November, and expect for our souls and/or lives to be saved.

In fact, the president's fear-based rhetoric is more background noise than the basis of a sound strategy against terrorism. The president's ''terrorism strategy'' can be summed up in one word, Iraq. We have little to no money or manpower for anything else.

We faced terrorists in the streets of our cities when they attacked us on September 11, 2001. Yet, even the president has admitted Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with that attack. The man who masterminded that operation, Osama bin Laden, is still a free man. His organization's media presence has grown from crude videotapes to streamed Internet video and podcasts. Bin Laden is still sending his message of hate through the airwaves. The administration's strategy against bin Laden is to isolate him and the rest of the al-Qaida leadership, but this is about as effective as removing Saddam Hussein. As the CIA reports, al-Qaida has adapted quickly to recruit new cells, which are more difficult to find and stop.

The White House, along with the Republican National Committee, is also fond of media recruitment tools. They send sound clips and talking points to hosts and like-minded publications across the country. On the issue of Iraq, these messages range from the ''Democrats are just cut and run,'' to words like ''appeasement'' with broad comparisons to the appeasement of Hitler in Germany by the British.

Secretary Rumsfeld trotted out Hitler for a gratuitous comparison to Iraq in a speech this week. It's an odd time to put Hitler on the parade stand, or perhaps grandstand is a better metaphor. The first Bush administration effectively used the Hitler comparison when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. But eight years of war with Iran, the first Gulf war, and over a decade of sanctions left Saddam with cash in his pocket thanks to under-the-table oil trading, but little else in terms of threatening weaponry. You don't seem to hear the phrase ''weapons of mass destruction,'' anymore – the ''original'' cause for war in Iraq.

So the president's Iraq public relations campaign has morphed from stopping Saddam from having and giving away weapons of mass destruction to creating democracy in the Middle East, to what is now staying the course or make way for another Hitler. Huh? Who are we fighting in Iraq? Who is the enemy? Insurgents? Terrorists? Saddam loyalists? Or, all of the above? That's the problem. According to troops in Iraq and senior military leadership, we don't really know who or what we are fighting in Iraq. The country is on the brink, if not in, a civil war. Iraq's army is decimated. Remember, J. Paul Bremer fired them all? Our troops cannot determine friend from foe. Who is going to stabilize the country? There is no real leadership that unites the country.

Iraq is a wholly broken nation. Casualties are up over 50 percent according to the Pentagon's own report issued this week. Most of the worst news never makes it to the U.S. There is information that has been filtering down about the terrible situation in Iraq including the destruction of Abrams tanks with estimates by some that in order to ''stay the course'' and not ''cut and run,'' we will need 500,000 troops to do the job. And then, we may not even be able to ''do the job.''

So, while the Bush administration is dusting off the Hitler doll for the congressional elections this November, and the Republican National Committee is pouring money into Get Out The Vote campaigns rather than individual elections, the reality of our Iraq policy is getting lost in the politics. It is a shame. Iraqis are dying in greater numbers than ever before. Our troops caught in the middle of a civil war.

Hopefully, the American people will see though the talk and take the action that is needed this November.

Katrina 1 year later – more than a photo-op

By Ellen Ratner
It is Monday, Aug. 28, and today President and Mrs. Bush as well as several members of Congress are coming to New Orleans and Mississippi to give speeches, do some neighborhood walk-throughs and have some photo ops. There are organizations that are releasing reports, and some Democratic members of Congress are having a town meeting in Mississippi and New Orleans.



This "speechifying" and photo ops on the anniversary of Katrina are expected, but how many of these politicians really understand what has happened on America's Gulf Coast? For anyone who has sat through Katrina hearings on Capitol Hill and spent real time in the Gulf, it is obvious that that many members of Congress are clueless. How many of them have actually spent more than a few minutes with the people who can't fly back to Washington at the end of a day of photo ops?

This week I flew down to New Orleans and Mississippi with members of my family, as I have done several times over the course of the year, as we work to build an education center and public swimming pool in Harrison County, Miss. I wanted my family to see the devastation from Hurricane Katrina, and to meet the people who have spent the last year rebuilding their lives and communities. I wanted them to drive the 90 miles from New Orleans to the Alabama line and see what no 25-inch television screen can show you – devastation that lasts for miles and goes beyond human comprehension.

My niece and her husband, along with my brother, were speechless. As we drove from the New Orleans airport to Mississippi and they saw the miles and miles of Hurricane Katrina's wrath, they were shocked by the sheer magnitude of the loss and damage. They were moved beyond words at the fact that so many of the communities along Interstate 10 had no signs of life. Infrastructure is non-existent and even the expensive homes of New Orleans' bedroom communities have no signs of occupancy one year later. Helping just two families clean their homes and sand and spackle dry wall gave my family the understanding of the enormity of the work to be done (often without professional help or enough money to complete the job).

The trip with my family had the desired effect. They understood what I had been doing this last year and why it's important to help this small Mississippi Gulf community rebuild. They now want to help too. We discussed the possible remedies, what Congress and the White House can and should do.

But how can a Congress and an administration that is largely clueless really understand the solutions that are needed? It is one thing to take a day or two tour of the Gulf hopping from place to place, spending a few minutes at each stop, and another thing to roll up sleeves and help get the work done. One grass-roots organization, Women of the Storm, has attempted to make a difference. They have raised money, lobbied Capitol Hill and the White House and tried to get lawmakers to come down to the region. They want people to come to New Orleans and Mississippi to see for themselves. Their success? So far, less than 23 percent of House of Representatives (100 members) have visited here since the storm and only 55 percent (55 senators) of members of the Senate have been in the Gulf. Most have come for only a day or two. Few have actually done any physical work while here.

Katrina is the worst natural disaster in American history. Post-Katrina hearings, speeches and reports abound in Congress, but little money has been distributed so people can rebuild. FEMA won't pay for permanent housing structures, so instead up to $65,000 is spent on temporary trailers when in many cases much less money would completely repair a home or even purchase a new one.

Lawmakers are voting, attaching amendments and writing legislation for Katrina survivors without a real understanding of what works. Had they recruited constituents from their districts to come with them for a week and help work in Katrina-ravaged areas, they wouldn't be making clueless laws; they might have a greater urgency about passing legislation that would actually make a difference.

One Katrina survivor said to me, "They don't come here because maybe they want to remain clueless." Maybe they do, but working American families are suffering as a result.