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an independent newspaper EDITORIALS
The Gitmo detention dodge
trial. Those “who cannot be prosecuted — but pose a
I
danger to the American people” will be held under “clear, defensible, and lawful standards,” the re- port asserts. “Fair procedures,” “periodic review” and “checks and balances” will be hallmarks of the system so that it “can be sustained by future Administrations, with support from both political parties and all three branches of government.” This language strongly suggests a break with the ad hoc and at times lawless approach of the George W. Bush administration. But it is a shame- less smoke screen. President Obama has come not to bury the Bush approach but to embrace it. The White House argues — just as the previous administration did — that Congress signaled its
The
unreadiness team
has done little in seven years. T
HE REPORT is chilling. Optimistically ti- tled “U.S. Computer Emergency Readi- ness Team Makes Progress in Securing Cy- berspace, but Challenges Remain,” it
paints a disturbing picture of a national security disaster waiting to happen. The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or CERT, established in 2003 to coordinate national cyber-defense ef- forts, is an arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tasked with “analyzing and reduc- ing cyber threats and vulnerabilities, disseminat- ing cyber threat warning information, and coordi- nating cyber incident response activities.” But this vast responsibility has come with little and confusing authority. The report released last week by the DHS in-
spector general reveals an institution that is floundering. CERT is understaffed, with no capac- ity to do anything other than process data for anomalies and react to breaches after the fact with fixes it has no authority to enforce. Among the report’s findings: Of the 98 positions author- ized for the emergency readiness team, only 45 are filled, forcing it to rely on outside contractors to perform even basic functions such as updating operating procedures. After seven years, CERT still lacks a strategic
plan, goals or any performance measures to as- sess its progress. Making its role as the nation’s ostensible first line of cyber defense still more dif- ficult is the fact that it has no authority to ensure that any of its safety recommendations are imple- mented, even by the other federal agencies it is charged with protecting. Many partner agencies reported not receiving any instructions for CERT’s primary monitoring software, making it difficult for them to access information about threats. Implementing the recommendations of the
report — as CERT has already begun to do with six of the seven outlined suggestions — marks a good start, but challenges remain. A broken hiring process whose onerous suitability requirements keep new employees from starting work for as long as 12 months — even if they already have top- secret clearance — is stretching an already thin force to its breaking point, forcing employees to shoulder tasks for which they were not hired. And there is a significant lag time in detecting and re- sponding to threats that a recently acquired soft- ware tool will not be able to close for a projected six months. But even if CERT becomes ideally efficient, it cannot solve the cyber-security crisis on its own. The overwhelming majority of the networks that comprise the nation’s cyber infrastructure are pri- vately owned, making public-private partnership for the research and development of better re- sponse strategies the key to keeping ahead of on- line threats. This must become the focus of na- tional cyber-security policy.
Homeland Security’s cyber-defense unit
The Obama administration avoids a necessary fight.
N THE NATIONAL Security Strategy released last month, the White House offers a glimpse of how it will handle the 48 detain- ees at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who it has determined must be held without
buy-in for indefinite detentions when it passed the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The Bush administration claimed that inherent presiden- tial powers also allow these detentions — an argu- ment that the current White House rightly has discarded.
But reliance on the authorization requires the administration to prove a suspect’s link to al- Qaeda or the Taliban and a nexus with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. What will the administration do with a suspect affiliated with a different terrorist organization who cannot be tried but is too dan- gerous to release? In candid and extensive remarks this month at the Brookings Institution, David Kris, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, noted that the Supreme Court has warned that the legal rationale for current war detentions “might unravel” as more time passes with no clear end to hostilities.
Yet the White House seems unfazed, apparently content to deal with that situation only if and when it arises. In the meantime, the administra- tion will continue to rely largely on the legal approach developed — and roundly criticized — during the Bush years. This is profoundly irre- sponsible. The administration apparently lacks the appe- tite to engage Congress in doing the difficult work of crafting a sound legal structure to govern indef- inite detentions that would include continuing judicial review, guarantee suspects legal repre- sentation and allow them to present witnesses and review government evidence against them. Some administration officials worry about the risk that conservative lawmakers — many of whom have acted irresponsibly and irrationally in blocking the closure of Guantanamo — will use the opportunity to make the current system worse. This is a legitimate concern, but it is not an excuse for inaction.
TOM TOLES
SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 2010
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
dletters@washpost.com
Privacy and abuse in a traffic stop
It iss beyond belief that Anthony Graber could face up to 16 years in prison simply because he video- taped an encounter with a Maryland state trooper [“From YouTube to your local court,” front page, June 16]. The fact is that the archaic Maryland wiretapping
law is being used by police and prosecutors in this and other cases to intimidate residents of our state and prevent them from taping instances when the police abuse their power. Harford County prosecutor Joseph I. Cassilly, the story said, “thinks officers should be able to consider their on-duty conversa- tions to be private,” but since when are the actions of any on-duty police officer private? Clearly, state lawmakers need to abolish the ridic- ulous wiretapping law, but in the meantime citizens must stand up and demand that the police not use antiquated laws to intimidate people who face abuse at the hands of a police force that is supposed to pro- tect us.
ERICCROSSLEY, Laurel
It’s difficult to imagine who is the most unwise person described in the June 16 front-page article about the arrest of a Maryland man for publicly post- ing a videotape of his traffic stop: Anthony Graber, who apparently thought it was appropriate to pop a wheelie on his motorcycle while doing 80 miles per hour in a 65 mph speed zone. State Trooper Joseph D. Uhler, who thought the appropriate response was to cut off the motorcyclist and then pull out his handgun, while dressed in a gray pullover and jeans, to deal with a man who was obviously unarmed. Harford County prosecutor Joseph I. Cassilly, who professed to be surprised that anyone would object to the prosecution of Mr. Graber for illegal wire- tapping. The Maryland State Police, which authorized six police officers to search the home of Mr. Graber’s parents, where Mr. Graber lives, and seize com- puters.
DAVEWEBSTER,Herndon When did we become a nation with a secret police
force? By the very nature of the special responsibili- ties of police, transparency should be a given. What could possibly constitute “private conversation” be- tween an officer and someone being questioned? Asking for a date? Having grown up in Prince George’s County, I know what many others also do — the problem in this case wasn’t privacy law, it’s that the cop was caught in an unfavorable light. Common sense dic- tates that police officers would embrace, rather than avoid, documentation of their duties. So ask your- self: In an open society, where is the problem in that? DAVID PLIHAL, Silver Spring
What a PhD in pipes is worth I was very happy to see the June 15 Metro article
“Tossing the grades, jumping into the trades,” about the growing number of people, including the college- educated, who are taking up the skilled trades. Col- lege is fine and a worthy goal, but when your toilet or faucet is broken, you don’t need a PhD. You need a plumber. I certainly hope our political and educational lead- ers read that article and realize that encouraging ev- ery student to go to college is not realistic. Somebody has to fix our cars and computers and clean up oil spills in Louisiana. Somebody has to operate the bus- es and trains as public transportation becomes in- creasingly important in our congested world. EUGENEMORGAN, Wheaton
Columbia, the 51st state? Why the push for D.C. voting rights in Congress should come first
scuttle the effort. They suggest, instead, a full- blown effort for statehood for the District. The frustration is understandable — but it would be premature, and possibly foolhardy, to abandon the seven-year campaign for congressional repre- sentation. Local officials and activists, as The Post’s Mike DeBonis reported, are increasingly speaking up in support of seeking statehood for the District, with the issue becoming fodder in this year’s elections for mayor and council. D.C. Council Chairman and mayoral candidate Vincent C. Gray (D), while not giving up on voting rights, said at a recent candidates forum that the city should work to be- come a state. Michael D. Brown (D), a D.C. shadow senator, argued it’s not any more difficult to get statehood than it is to get a single House vote for the District. What’s overlooked in that thinking is that while chances may be slim for voting rights, they are close to nonexistent for statehood. Consider that the last time the House voted on D.C. statehood in 1993, 105 Democrats — including Maryland’s Ste- ny H. Hoyer and Virginia’s James P. Moran Jr. — voted against the measure. There is little nation-
S
O FRUSTRATED are D.C. officials with the failure of Democratic congressional lead- ers to win voting rights for city residents that some are wondering if they should just
wide support to confer statehood on a place many people see simply as a small city. Finally, there are serious budget obstacles; federal support for functions such as the courts, for instance, would have to end. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s non- voting delegate, rightly remains focused on the achievable. There is still time in this Congress, where the votes are lined up for voting rights, to come up with a strategy to stop unacceptable amendments to gut the city’s gun laws. Utah, which was to receive an extra seat to balance the District’s because it came closest to qualifying for another member of Congress member in the 2000 Census, could be replaced with the state that is in the same position following the 2010 Census. The District’s chances would be enhanced if everyone were working together. Local officials need to do more than bemoan how the gun lobby outfoxed Democratic leaders and voting rights lobbyists. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) started his inaugural speech with a pledge to fight for voting rights, but has he asked to meet with President Obama to press the city’s case for protecting D.C.’s gun laws? Mr. Gray has talked about civil disobedience, but how many senators has he visited to make his case?
Fighting for voting rights is hard. That isn’t rea- son to give up.
Sorrow and success in Ward 8
The June 13 front-page article “In Ward 8, recovery is a world away” offered a bleak portrait of employ- ment in that part of the District. It doesn’t have to be this way. Significant investment in job training and work supports would foster an economic recovery that includes low-income neighborhoods — which, after all, have the most potential for growth. But it’s not cheap. Meeting the need for job training alone would cost the city $90 million. Unfortunately, city leaders haven’t even tried to venture down this path. In April, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) proposed a
$4.6 million cut in job training programs, along with major cuts to programs such as child-care subsidies that are essential to people trying to hold jobs. In the midst of a crippling recession, Mr. Fenty divested from the most vulnerable communities — all to hon- or a reckless campaign pledge not to raise taxes. The D.C. Council has not shown the courage for a more responsible approach. Under the leadership of Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D), the council restored funding for some programs. But the trend of di- vestment largely continued as Mr. Gray shot down truly progressive solutions — like tax increases on the highest-earning D.C. residents, who suffer least dur- ing the recession. Even as Mr. Gray struggles to con- trast himself with Mr. Fenty, both men have allowed their political ambitions to shortchange the District. JONI PODSCHUN,Washington
The writer is campaign manager for Save Our Safety Net.
TAKING EXCEPTION Prison standards: Irrelevant without enforcement
The June 13 editorial “The scourge of rape in prisons,” criticizing the Justice Department for foot-dragging on standards intended to re- duce prison rape, was good as far as it went, but like the report to which it referred, it missed the mark. Standards that aim to re- duce prison rape — like standards governing mine safety or offshore oil drilling platforms — are consequential only to the extent that they are enforced. The Eighth Amendment and a host of laws and regulations outlaw the victimization, sexual and otherwise, of pris- oners. The problem is that they are not en- forced in court. I know. I litigate these cases. In recent decades, the federal judiciary has
largely nullified the effectiveness of the legal means by which prisoners might protect themselves from abuse and neglect. Given the “deliberate indifference” standard and the
“qualified immunity” defense, both judicial creations, as well as the stumbling blocks to valid and important prisoners’ claims created by the Orwellian-named Prison Litigation Re- form Act, even horrible abuse in prison is rou- tinely unable to be challenged in court except against the actual perpetrator, who has typ- ically been fired or remains incarcerated, and in either event is judgment-proof. Little changes at the institutional level. And the problem continues. In 1910, then-Home Secretary Winston
Churchill of Britain observed that the civiliza- tion of a society can be judged by the way it treats its prisoners. Until we face that incon- venient truth, all the standards in the world will not save us from what the Post editorial rightly called “The scourge of rape in prisons.” VICTOR M. GLASBERG, Alexandria
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As a 42-year resident of Ward 8, I know all about the untenable situation facing this city’s neediest res- idents. The central fact of this saga is that every may- or who succeeded Walter Washington failed misera- bly to revitalize this community. Moreover, the citi- zens of Ward 8 failed themselves by supporting the grossly ineffective Marion Barry (D) as their repre- sentative on the D.C. Council. In fact, it was Mr. Barry who coined the phrase “the last, the least and the left out of Ward 8.” He should know, because he created these people to be his sy- cophants only to leave them on their own, scratching for survival. It is safe to say that no business will in- vest money in a ward that is considered by many to be unsafe, lawless, poor, unaccountable and apathet- ic about the quality of life. It is a crying shame that people have to endure such suffering. But there are many residents and families in Ward
8who are striving and thriving despite the economic downturn and the failings of mayors gone by. Why is that? Perhaps The Post should cover more Ward 8 success stories as well. They, too, exist. DAVID J. WHITE,Washington
The writer is president of the Chicago/Shannon Civic Association.
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