http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/ en Copyright 2006 Mon, 24 Jul 2006 08:31:05 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.2 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss I intended to write this weeks ago. At the time, I couldn't figure out how to say it. Even now, the words still elude me -- but as with just about every pressing assignment throughout high school and college, it's way past due. I must bid you farewell, whether I can find the words or not. I've started a new job with Washington Post Radio. It's a totally new area for me, requiring all my time and attention. And so I am putting The Debate to bed. A nice, long nap sounds pretty good to me, too, actually. The Debate was always just a fraction of my job; most of my time was spent coordinating the hundreds of op-ed submissions sent to The Post each week, leaving only late night hours for the intensive research necessary in order to have an informed discussion the next day. I've been exhausted since http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/07/the_end.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/07/the_end.html Conclusions Mon, 24 Jul 2006 08:31:05 -0500 It came so close to passing this time. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a sponsor of the flag desecration amendment, actually said this: "What we would be doing is sending a message to the [Supreme Court], you cannot usurp the power of the Congress of the United States." Astonishing in its arrogance, isn't it? In striking down statutes prohibiting flag burning, the judicial branch did not alter the Constitution; it lived up to its duty to ensure that no one -- most especially the federal government -- violates the rights guaranteed in the Constitution. The First Amendment states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. By wasting time picking and choosing certain acts of http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/one_vote_away.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/one_vote_away.html National Politics Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:29:49 -0500 Watching local TV news this evening -- something I rarely do -- I was reminded again of how fickle technology can be. We've recently learned that the personal information of 26,000 Department of Agriculture employees and contractors has been compromised. The Federal Trade Commission had some of its data nicked, too, but at least some humor could be found on that story: "Many of the people whose data were compromised were being investigated for possible fraud and identity theft." Consider also the serious data security breaches in the Department of Veteran's Affairs, college campuses and private businesses. Just because personal data is more accessible now than it was 20 years ago doesn't mean everyone's running out to commit the crime, but it does make identity theft easier, and thus more prevalent. Similarly, DRE technology makes vote fraud easier -- no stealing ballot boxes required -- just a couple minutes with http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/data_insecurity.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/data_insecurity.html National Politics Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:50:57 -0500 When it comes to straightforward, reliable voting systems, I think my precinct back in Baltimore got it right: Next to each candidate's name on the ballot is an arrow with its middle missing. To vote, just draw a little line connecting the two halves of the arrow that points to your candidate. That's all there is to it. It's a paper trail with no butterflies, no hanging chads, no Windows-esque crashes, glitches or security holes. (And yes, many DRE machines run on a Windows operating system.) Each vote can be read and counted in seconds by an optical scanner; should a recount prove necessary, each ballot is available and unambiguous. Touch screens, like butterfly ballots, can be confounding to many seniors. Even though some people will be confused no matter what, the arrow design seems to be about as simple as a ballot can get. Instead of spending large sums http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/voting_more.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/voting_more.html National Politics Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:59:19 -0500 I admire California's enthusiasm for voting. Some people find the whole ballot initiative process annoying, and perhaps they've got a point. But the process is also democratic: it helps keep the government accountable to the people, not to the access maestros who trade favors for influence over legislation and spending. California's referendum-heavy system promotes good government. Does it always succeed? I daresay no. But it empowers people with a bigger role in making the decisions that affect their lives, and gives them a strong voice to keep their elected officials on task. When it comes to safeguards on voting systems, California "took the lead." While Maryland's predominantly-Democratic state legislature brushed off the serious concerns raised about touchscreen voting, California toughened standards for voting machines, including requiring a paper trail. As the California Secretary of State's office points out, still more checks are built into California's electoral system, including a mandatory http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/a_vote_for_acco.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/a_vote_for_acco.html National Politics Tue, 20 Jun 2006 22:09:52 -0500 Votetrustusa.org reports that in the special election in California to replace Duke Cunningham, "volunteer pollworkers were allowed to take Diebold voting machines home as much as two weeks before the election." (I am currently waiting for a response to this report from California's elections board. I'll update the moment I have it. [Update: Secretary of State's office points to many statewide safeguards. See next entry for more details.]) Given the known security vulnerabilities and the concrete problems that fraud and/or malfunctions have caused [see pp. 9-15], how could this be allowed to happen? Most distressing? The workers wouldn't even have had to take the machines home to tamper with them -- it's easy. Newsweek's Steven Levy explains the most recent, and most serious, security flaw: It requires only a few minutes of pre-election access to a Diebold machine to open the machine and insert a PC card that, if it http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/sleepover_in_sa.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/sleepover_in_sa.html National Politics Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:15:11 -0500 It's primary day in Virginia. Several years ago, as a Virginia-voting novice, I attempted to vote at the first polling place I happened across, assuming I would be assigned to the one closest to my home. They turned me away; as it happens, I actually have to walk past that polling place in order to get to my own. This is minor annoyance. A major annoyance, however, is that my precinct uses touch screen voting machines with no paper trail. So every time I vote, I get an uneasy feeling that maybe -- just maybe -- my vote won't be counted properly. The fact is, Direct Recording Electronic voting machines are by no means tamper-proof, and some of the horror stories make a voter wonder how it's possible that our legislators have not required a verifiable paper trail by now. One explanation might be the campaign donations from the top http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/touch_screen_vo.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/touch_screen_vo.html National Politics Tue, 13 Jun 2006 09:15:04 -0500 I should point out that I heard the report about Bush addressing gay marriage on BBC World News, generally immune from the hype. It's about the only place (other than NPR) where you can get decent reporting on Timor. They also do brilliant Iraq reporting, most recently on the skyrocketing sectarian violence. Did you know the number of bodies going through the Baghdad morgue has increased each month since January? Debaters, do you think Zarqawi's death will tame the insurgency? http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/zarqawi_is_out.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/zarqawi_is_out.html Middle East Fri, 09 Jun 2006 11:50:21 -0500 Debater Sully makes an excellent point. Sully agrees that the focus on gay marriage is just a successful bit of propaganda designed to distract us from what really matters. But he* rightly points out that media outlets are only serving to disseminate the propaganda "saying that they HAVE to cover it in detail since Congress is discussing it." Granted, that's a silly justification. Congress talks about incredibly important things all the time, and plenty of it gets overlooked. In some cases, that's probably because the lawmakers manage to keep it in the shadows, but most because it seems impossible to explain it in a way that would be comprehensive yet not stupifyingly long and dull. (I tend to think blogs -- and the Internet in general -- offer a key outlet for this sort of reporting and analysis.) http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/is_the_media_pr.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/is_the_media_pr.html Misc. Fri, 09 Jun 2006 11:40:03 -0500 Anyone else having flashbacks to last year's War on Christmas? This race to rescue marriage bears an eerie resemblance to the compulsion politicians felt back in December to "protect" that poor, endangered holiday. (Why is it that politicians characterize a war as inexcusably destructive and call for its immediate end pretty much exclusively when no actual war of any sort is involved?) In his 2004 State of the Union address, President Bush called marriage one of the "pillars of civilization." The very next month, he said marriage is "the most fundamental institution of civilization." He repeated those exact words again this week, causing a flurry of news stories (although none I saw mentioned that he's just recycling an old line.) Although many disagree with the president, the idea is not completely irrational. What is irrational, however, is the idea that marriage is under a brutal attack it cannot possibly survive http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/dr_straightlove.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/dr_straightlove.html Misc. Tue, 06 Jun 2006 09:36:20 -0500 This is Anna, one of many friends I made in East Timor earlier this year. She attended school. She spoke three languages. She and her friends walked around their neighborhood in Dili without worrying about violence or lawlessness. Today, Anna is probably going hungry in a refugee camp, wanting nothing more than to be safe at home with her family. Finding food amid the chaos has become so difficult that some refugees have resorted to eating grass. Who is responsible for restoring order? Who should step in to ensure Anna and her friends get to return home, return to school, return to being the carefree kids they should be? Remember, Timor-Leste (the tiny country's official name) is not only the newest independent nation in the world, it's also one of the poorest. To expect it to fend for itself would be entirely unrealistic. In yesterday's Outlook section, a piece http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/what_about_anna.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/what_about_anna.html International Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:55:44 -0500 Debater Anita Israel raised a number of thought-provoking questions after reading the Post story with this striking headline: Of U.S. Children Under 5, Nearly Half Are Minorities. Anita's questions would be better answered by a cross-section of informed people, so I invited her to be a guest blogger to pose some of her queries to you directly. She writes: I work for an academic institution devoted to the study of leadership, especially among women and historically underrepresented groups, so naturally I got fired up trying to imagine how leadership will evolve in this country over the course of the next two generations. Debaters, how do you think this ethnic shift will impact the United States in years to come? http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/leadership_in_a.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/leadership_in_a.html National Politics Fri, 02 Jun 2006 14:50:14 -0500 As I ponder the reports that the military covered up an intentional attack on civilians by U.S. forces (and somewhat similar allegations out of Afghanistan) I keep coming back to the same question. How many more? How many more times will find ourselves scrambling to justify the unjustifiable? How many more times will we let fear blur the line between right and wrong, humane and inhumane? How many of our own basic principles, like justice and fair play, will we toss aside? How many more times will our leaders express outrage (or simply profess to be "troubled") while quietly burying any possibility of meaningful action to punish wrongdoing or correct the flaws that allowed the offense in the first place? (Read on for more ponderables and a quick review of previous Debates relating to the questions posed above.) http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/post.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/06/post.html National Politics Thu, 01 Jun 2006 12:17:34 -0500 This Memorial Day weekend, as we honor those who died fighting for the United States, it's worth considering also what our venerable system of government has become over the years. And so, after a pretty rough week, we find ourselves back on the subject of money and politics. The Debate has hit on the topic of earmarks briefly in the past; still, it's big, important and expensive, so seems about time to discuss it again. I won't bother getting preachy -- we all know there are some serious flaws in Congressional spending. But do we know just how bad it is? Harper's Magazine provides a stark illustration of the problem. Print it out -- it'll make great beach reading. The most important aspect of the Harper's piece deals with the fact that earmarks are inserted into bills anonymously, rendering accountability virtually impossible. Unsurprisingly, earmarks tend to show up in scandals http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/05/earmarks.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/05/earmarks.html National Politics Fri, 26 May 2006 12:39:17 -0500 I love you guys. Really, I do. Your kind words and reminiscences helped me get through a very tough time, and for that, you have my everlasting gratitude. You've also once again demonstrated that across the political spectrum -- liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist, those of us whose beliefs defy labeling -- we can always find common ground somewhere. To those Debaters who commented on my last entry: Thank you. Each one of your comments gave me comfort. I'm now looking for constructive ways to honor MoMo's memory -- and even though some might think that's silly, I know a lot of you understand completely. Droopy, Angel, China, Meowzers, Rebel, Baby and the rest of the furry companions you mentioned in your comments will always be with you, just as MoMo will be with me. Now, back to The Debate. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/05/mo_mo_2.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/05/mo_mo_2.html Misc. Thu, 25 May 2006 12:26:32 -0500