[ OUR OPINION ]
Feds should stop
invading privacy
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Federal Judge Victor Marrero of New York last week struck down a provision of the Patriot Act that gave federal authorities unchecked powers to obtain private information. The provision allowed a subpoena to be used in terrorism investigations to require Internet service providers to provide personal information about subscribers.
Such subpoenas, which could be issued without a judge's approval, would bar an Internet company from disclosing to anyone, even the company's attorney, that it had received it. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law, representing an Internet provider identified, understandably, only as John Doe.
Under the unbridled subpoena power, the Justice Department could require an Internet provider to turn over customers' names, addresses, credit card dates and details of their Internet use. The number of subpoenas issued is not known, but a list of subpoena targets obtained by the ACLU covering a 14-month period was six pages long. Companies' names were blacked out. Marerro said that provision of the Patriot Act allowed an "all-inclusive sweep" and had "no place in our society."
The Justice Department has demonstrated similar zeal in its pursuit of a media leak. Syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported last year that envoy Joseph Wilson IV, who had been assigned by the Bush administration to investigate a report that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger, had drawn the assignment upon the advice of Wilson's wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame. Wilson had written in a New York Times op-ed piece that the Niger deal was "highly doubtful," but the subsequent leaking of Plame's CIA employment to Novak was illegal.
Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation, assigning it to Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago. Fitzgerald coerced federal employees to sign agreements waiving confidentiality agreements with journalists, then subpoenaed the journalists to testify and reveal their confidential sources.
The Times filed a lawsuit last week to stop Fitzgerald from inspecting telephone records of two Times reporters. "The government's attempt to obtain our phone records is an unprecedented and unwarranted fishing expedition aimed at obtaining dozens of our reporters' confidential sources after 9/11, most of whom had nothing to do with the prosecutor's investigation," said Times attorney George Freeman.
Measure would turn
courtesy into protocol
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Motivation for the proposal arose from Harris' travel. Councilman Charles Djou said Harris had been away from Hawaii for 100 days this year, and he expressed concern about who was paying for the trips. Councilwoman Barbara Marshall said she wants to know who is in charge of the city on a given day, especially because of homeland security concerns.
The proposal would require the mayor to notify the city clerk's office before leaving the city. It does not address concerns about payment for the trips, nor should it.
The mayor should not be required to inform the Council of the source of payment before making a trip, but he should be held accountable afterward for any ethical violations. The mayor's trips should not be financed by people or companies that have an interest in city decisions.
Harris administration spokeswoman Carol Costa said the City Council never has claimed that payments for mayoral trips need to be "officially accepted by the Council as gifts to the city." She said Harris has accepted payments by groups for his trips to save money for taxpayers.
Mayoral candidate Duke Bainum said he supports the measure, although it showed the relationship between the Council and mayor has deteriorated. Bainum said he would try to "foster cordial and effective communication" with the Council, and we assume that his opponent, Mufi Hannemann, would try to do the same.
