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ANINDEPENDENTNEWSPAPER EDITORIALS


Compelling police accountability Fairfax cops, dragging their feet, may need a helpful push. F T


AIRFAX COUNTY POLICE enjoy a long- standing reputation for professionalism and scandal-free dealingswith the public they are sworn to protect. However, the department’s recent track record for ac-


countability in a few cases involving shootings by police officers suggests there is roomfor improve- ment. In one such case, the county police have re-


mained tight-lipped about the fatal shooting 13 months ago of David Masters, a carpenter and formerArmyGreenBeretwithbipolardisease.The police have been conducting an internal investiga- tion into the shooting for a year, and they have yet to release findings. The officer who shot Mr. Masters has remained on the force at full pay, thoughhe is limitedto administrativeduties. The department has not adequately explained why the investigation has taken so long. The


Mr. Thomas’s Audi


More unanswered questions regarding a D.C. Council member


HE SAMEYEARthatD.C.Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) raised $188,110 for his nonprofit Team Thomas, another group associatedwithMr. Thomas


apparently purchased an Audi sport-utility wagon, baseprice$58,600.Ayear later, in2009, the vehicle was re-registered inMr. Thomas’s name.When we askedMr.Thomas about the secondgroup,howthe purchase was financed, whether Team Thomas funds were involved or whether the transactions should have been listed on any of his financial disclosure forms, his attorney told us there would be no comment other than his oft-repeated state- ment that he has never “personally benefited.” These facts, which also have attracted the interest of theD.C. attorney general, do not constitute proof ofwrongdoing byMr. Thomas. But his refusal thus far to shed light on these and other issues is troublesome and should, we hope, attract the interest of the office of campaign finance. TeamThomas is a sports-related nonprofit that


Mr. Thomas founded in 2000 and that Attorney General Peter J. Nickles contends unlawfully solic- ited donations without a license or ever having been qualified as tax-exempt by the Internal Revenue Service. The group has raised more than $200,000 since January 2008, and the precise use of the funds — which Mr. Thomas says supported youth programs — is unknown. We previously disclosed the use of some money ($2,600) to publish an annual report touting Mr. Thomas’s accomplishments in office and an instance in whichMr.Thomas votedonthe council onamatter benefitingaTeamThomas contributor.Mr.Thomas is currently under subpoena to produce additional information sought by the attorney general’s office in its inquiry into TeamThomas.Among the things being examined by Mr. Nickles’s office are the second organization and its apparent purchase of the Audi. The second group is a domestic limited liability


company organized byMr. Thomas in 2004 with a statedpurpose, according to its articles of organiza- tion, of “sales, development and manufacturing.” The group is calledHLTTeamThomas/SwingAway


incident involved just a handful of officers, one of whomfired the shots that killedMr.Masters as he sat alone and unarmed in his vehicle. Police offi- cials,whenaskedwhentheymight reachsome sort of conclusion,have reactedwithwhatamounts toa shrug.SomeofMr.Masters’s lovedonesarefurious. Agroup calling itself theVirginiaCitizensCoali-


tion for PoliceAccountability, founded by a retired District police detective who lives in Fairfax, has urged the county to establish a citizens board empowered to review questionable incidents in- volving the police—particularly in cases of lethal force used by officers. The proposal has support frommembers of the county Board of Supervisors, which asked Fairfax Police Chief DavidM. Rohrer to look into establishing a reviewpanel. The next step is unclear, as is the county’s


approach. Fairfax police have made no effort to contact the national association that serves as a


clearinghouse for information about how citizen review boards work. Nor have they contacted the Office of Police Complaints in the District, a 10- year-old body with considerable expertise and re- sources. Dozensofpolicedepartmentsnationally, includ-


ingplentythatare smaller thanFairfax’s,have such oversight mechanisms. The most effective ones function independently of the police chain of com- mand andhave investigativemuscle—even, inthe case of the District’s office, the power to issue subpoenas. Judging from the less-than-forthright behavior


of the Fairfax police in the Masters case, there is every reason to think that creating an external review body would be helpful, both as ameans to shake loose information in response to reasonable allegations of police error,misconduct and abuse, andto encourage accountability.


TOMTOLES


FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2010


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR dletters@washpost.com


Feel free to have your say Regarding Eugene Robinson’s Dec. 14 column, “A


Wikihornets’nest”: Though I am more supportive of Julian Assange


than most of America is, I am perplexed by Mr. Robinson’s contention that actions taken by private businesses against WikiLeaks constitute a violation of “free speech.” By this logic, a newspaper restricts “free speech” every time it declines to publish a letter to the editor. In the event that this letter is not selected for


publication, please forward it toMr. Robinson. I am surehewilldedicatehisnext columntodefendingmy right to saywhatever Iwant inThePost. GregoryP.Casey,Medfield,Mass.


Our Constitution is in the way Have our much-vaunted “checks and balances”


become more like “roadblocks and logjams”? The malaise inAmericangovernment isusuallyputdown to behavioral lapses of politicians: They just don’t behave responsibly orwon’twork across the aisle. In his Dec. 12 Outlook piece, “One nation, under


too many laws,” Philip K. Howard offered another explanation: an accumulated heap of useless legisla- tion that prevents politicians from making sensible decisions.He pointed to a “flawin our constitutional system,” adding that “the founders made it hard to pass legislation, dividing power among different branchesofgovernment,but theyapparentlyfailedto consider the forces that would entrench the final product.”Mr.Howardemphasizedthelastbit,but the real problem lies in the first — the system and structure imposedby theConstitution. The Constitutionwas no doubt an advance on the


British system of the time. But the “checks and balances,” designed to prevent the development of anything like monarchical power, have become “roadblocksandlogjams” thatmakeitdifficult for the government torespondflexiblyandquickly tochang- ingpressures.Amoderngovernmentneeds the capa- bility both to formulate a national strategy and to execute itpromptly. TheU.S. governmentdoesnothave this capability.


A president can develop a strategy, but he has no formalpower toput it intoeffect.The “lawmakers” in Congress canworkwith himand one another, or not, as they please, without regard to national need or interest.The reasons for this lackof capabilityarenot primarily behavioral, but systemic and structural, andthey are rootedintheConstitution. KennethWoods,LocustGrove


Stopping guns at the border Regarding “Mexican cartels wielding American


weapons” [frontpage,Dec. 13]: Themostobvious solution—sealingtheU.S.-Mex-


ico border — was little discussed. Just how much more obvious will the necessity of very tight border control forbothU.S.andMexicannational securitybe before this administrationandCongress finally act? RonaldS.Bank,Vienna


Cool it with the 2012 predictions Colbert I. King’sDec. 11 op-ed, “Memo to the left:


LLC, its address is Mr. Thomas’s home and it also has been listed by Dunn & Bradstreet as doing business as HLT Development.WhenMr. Thomas ran for council in 2006, he listed his occupation on an election questionnaire as chief executive ofHLT Team Thomas/SwingAway LLC; on Nov. 12, 2007, the corporate registrationwas revokedfornot filing a two-year reportdue in2007.Yet inMay2008,HLT Development was listed as owner of a 2008 Audi Q7; a year later in May, the registration of the vehicle, which Mr. Thomas was seen driving this week, was switched to him. Council members are required to list any outside income they receive, and cars, under certain circumstances, could be included. It’s unclear if thatwould be the casewith Mr. Thomas. The honoraria and outside income disclosure statements Mr. Thomas filed for 2007, 2008 and 2009 list no outside income of any kind. HLTDevelopment also appears onrecords of the


office of campaign finance detailing Mr. Thomas’s political expenditures. In his 2006-07 campaign, the groupreceiveda total of$11,000infive separate payments fromtheHarry Tommy Thomas Jr.Ward 5Committee for catering/refreshments, loanrepay- ment, campaign materials and consultant pay- ment. On March 15, 2010, it received $2,500 from Thomas 2010 for computer expenses. Frederick D. Cooke Jr., one of Mr. Thomas’s


attorneys, told us that it’swrong to assume that the council member has done anything wrong. We certainly do not make that assumption. It’s quite possible that donations to Team Thomas funded good causes, thatMr. Thomas used his ownmoney to purchase the car and that all transactions have been properly documented. That Mr. Thomas — who once promised complete transparency about Team Thomas — wants to keep the public in the dark on these issues iswhat is of concern.


A free and open Internet The FCC’s proposal to ensure Web competition still has a few bugs. G


IVE JULIUS GENACHOWSKI credit for doggedly pursuing his quest to keep the Internet free and open.Unfortunately,we believe that his latest plan for doing so,


which he introduced lastmonth, is still flawed. Mr. Genachowski, chairman of the Federal


Communications Commission (FCC), argues that the agency needs to police Internet service providers (ISPs) to prevent indiscriminate block- ing of applications and services, especially those that compete with the ISPs’ own offerings. The agency called out Comcast forwhat it sawas such an abuse but was rebuffed by a federal appeals court that concluded the agency lacked legal authority to press its case. (Disclosure: The Washington Post Co. has interests in broadcast and cable television and in businesses that depend on the Internet, all of which could be


3Join the debate at washingtonpost.com/localopinions LOCAL OPINIONS


We all need more compassion for the unborn The letter from the executive director of


NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland in defense of LeRoy Carhart [“Care that women need,” Local Opinions, Dec. 12], who specializes in perform- ing abortion late in pregnancy, cites extreme cases to justify such abortions: a cancer diagnosis during pregnancy and life-threaten- ing anomalies in an unborn child. Certainly women facing such difficult


situations deserve compassion and appropriate medical care, but to say that pro-lifers “oppose giving women in tragic situations any options” is frankly absurd. Nor is it valid to use such circumstances to justify elective abortion late in pregnancy. About 140 facilities nationwide perform abortions at 24 weeks, and about 18,000


abortions are performed each year after the 21st week of pregnancy, most of them for reasons unrelated to health. These are not pro-life statistics; they come from the Gutt- macher Institute,which is unabashedly in favor of abortion rights. Opposing the destruction each year of 18,000 human beings capable of feeling excruciating pain as they are dismem- bered is hardly a radical position. I hope concerned individuals on both sides


of the abortion debate would agree that the unborn should be granted some legal protec- tion once they have developed the capacity to feel pain. True compassion demands no less. AngelaMartin, Annapolis


The writer is executive director of Maryland Right to Life.


affected by FCC action or inaction.) Mr. Genachowski tried to sidestep that ruling


by changinghis legal theory andinvoking apart of the law originally meant to regulate common carriers such as telephone companies. He has since wisely parted ways with this idea and instead argues that the agency has the authority to enforce net neutrality rules by stitching togeth- er bits and pieces of various provisions of telecom law. He proposes to require providers of fixed broadband services to inform customers of net- workmanagement practices and to prohibit them from “unreasonable discrimination.” Because the proposal will not be unveiled until the FCC’s meeting on Tuesday, it is not clear howthe agency plans to define the term. The plan is said to allow ISPs some wiggle room to charge different rates for different levels of service. Wireless carriers


would be subject to a lighter regulatory approach. Heightened transparency would be a welcome


step. But there is scant evidence to support the FCC’s possible intrusion into ISPs’ ability to manage their networks. The few cases of possible ISP abuse were resolved quickly once the alleged infractionswere brought to light by consumers or public interest groups. Doubts surrounding the agency’s legal authority—one FCC commissioner flatly asserted that there is none—raise questions about the viability of the proposal. A federal court would undoubtedly have the last word. In some respects, the real problem lies with


Congress. Lawmakers should work with the FCC to hammer out sensible but limited rules that would maximize transparency and allow the agency to clamp down on clearly uncompetitive practices without stifling innovation.


ABCDE


EUGENE MEYER, 1875-1959 • PHILIP L. GRAHAM, 1915-1963 KATHARINE GRAHAM, 1917-2001


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Editorial Page Editor JACKSON DIEHL


HandsoffObama,” noted the general election defeats of presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush after they were challenged for renomination and extrapolated to the possible effects of a challenge to PresidentObama’s renomination.Mr.Kingis correct, but that’snot thewhole story. For more than 100 years, every incumbent presi-


dent has been defeated for reelectionwhen someone else won at least 25 percent of the vote in the nominating process.General-election voters seemto conclude that if a quarter of the president’s party thinkshe isdoing badly, thenheprobably is. Conversely, every incumbentwithout a challenger


of thesamepartycapturing25percentof thevotewon reelection. The sole exceptions were the Great De- pression’s Herbert Hoover and some, like Lyndon Johnson,whodidnot runagain. On all such matters, however, we must remind


ourselves that God created political prognosticators tomakeweather forecasters look good. AndyManatos,Bethesda


Thewriter served as an assistant commerce secretary in theCarter administration.


Mr. Cuccinelli’s folly on health reform Regarding the Dec. 15 Metro article “Cuccinelli


basking incourt victory”: Virginia Attorney General Ken T. Cuccinelli II


seeks to prohibit the individual health insurance mandate. If hewins his case, hewill be guaranteeing insurance companies the continued right to deny healthinsurance applications because of preexisting conditions. It’s simple: You can’t deny insurers the right to


refuse on the basis of a preexisting condition unless youmake insurance coveragemandatory.Otherwise, healthy folkswouldwaituntil theywere ill or injured to apply for insurance. The vast majority of Ameri- cans have indicated time and again that they disap- prove of denial of coverage because of preexisting conditions.


MichaelBerla,Columbia


Quitting smoking is a start I applaud Tom Brokaw’s thinking in his Dec. 12


op-ed, “Kicking a bipartisan habit.” A joint appear- ancebythenation’s toptwoleaders,our speaker-elect and president, to declare “We are quitting smoking” wouldbecourageousandsendastrongmessage.This wouldbe a goodexample of bipartisanshipandawin for boththeparties. An idea attributed to Mahatma Gandhi says it


best: “As human beings, our greatness lies not so muchinbeing able to remake theworld. . . that is the myth of the ‘atomic age’ . . . as being able to remake ourselves.”


VasantG.Telang,Silver Spring


dLetters can be sent to letters@washpost.com. Submissions must be exclusive to The Post and should include the writer’s address and day and evening telephone numbers. Because of the volume of material we receive, we are unable to acknowledge submissions; writers whose letters are under consideration for publication will be contacted.


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