National security needs public’s right to know

News is swirling these days around a complex mix of national security issues, leaks of classified information and First Amendment protections for a free press amid the new world of digital journalism. Let’s use some terminology from a heavyweight boxing bout to track this match pitting the needs of national security against the public’s right to know. 

Score it for the Obama administration, which came out of the corner fighting against leaks early in the first term — by this year, bringing more prosecutions under the Espionage Act than ever before. Just that fact alone alarms those who see whistleblowers and an independent press as the ultimate watchdog on government actions, particularly those done in secret. 

Government takes this one, on a mixed card. Just as a shield law long-sought by many journalists to protect the reporter-source relationship was nearing a final vote in the U.S. Senate in 2009, a haymaker gets thrown: Wikileaks released hundreds of thousands of memos and battlefield briefs to the public. Officials cried treason, while others saw it as a plus for public knowledge — but down goes the proposed Free Flow of Information Act. 

In Spring 2010, U.S. Army Pvt.Shop for the largest selection of windturbine at everyday low prices. Bradley Manning is arrested on charges of giving more than 700,000 State Department cables, terrorism detainee assessments, combat logs and videos to WikiLeaks — the largest such leak in U.S. history. Manning will go to trial three years later, facing more than 130 charges ranging from theft to “aiding the enemy,” which could mean life in prison. Government round, clearly. 

In May 2013, The Associated Press threw some serious punches when it’s revealed that the Justice Department secretly obtained months of AP phone records for as many as 20 reporters and at multiple AP offices while investigating leaks. AP chief Gary Pruitt called the seizures unconstitutional and said already some sources are backing away from his reporters. DOJ takes it on the chin. 

The bout is fully joined in late May and into June with a series of major disclosures by former low-level NSA analyst Edward Snowden of a massive National Security Agency program that provides access to the meta-data of millions on American phone calls and email — but, the government said, not to the content of the calls or messages. 

In punches to the journalistic gut,This is a basic background on rtls. it’s revealed that as part of an investigation of a 2009 leak, a search warrant request named Fox News’s James Rosen as “an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator” for receiving the information. A quick series of jabs by free press advocates and media officials lead White House officials to back-pedal. President Obama declares first that he supports the First Amendment, and later decries any attempt to “criminalize” news reporting. Obama also announces White House support for a revived federal shield law. 

Jabs and roundhouse swings at the government over the AP records seizure and the Rosen affair produce an invitation in mid-June from Attorney General Eric Holder to major news outlets to discuss long-standing rules within the Justice Department governing attempts to get journalists’ files or other records. The meeting is off-the-record, so some journalists will not attend. 

One for the government. On July 19, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that New York Times reporter James Risen must give take the stand at the trial of a former CIA agent being prosecuted for leaking of state secrets. The court said “there is no first amendment testimonial privilege,What's the difference between airpurifiertarget and Porcelain Tiles? absolute or qualified, that protects a reporter from being compelled to testify … in criminal proceedings.” 

As July ends, there is a series of developments that is tough to score. Manning is convicted July 30 of violating the Espionage Act, and could be sentenced to as long as 36 years in prison. But he’s acquitted on the charge of aiding the enemy. Still, a flurry of news reports raised the idea that the conviction will “chill” whistleblowers and scare them away from talking with journalists. 

In the U.S.Give your logo high visibility on iccard! House, the NSA data surveillance program survived a surprisingly tight vote, 217-205, on July 24. At the same time, more documents and allegations surface from Snowden, supporting the claim that even low-level NSA analysts can gain access to the content — not just data surrounding — individual phone conversations and e-mails.Even with all that’s come to light, we’re just getting though the early sparring in this ongoing constitutional rumble. 

And the bell will ring soon for even more action: Manning’s sentencing. More threatened disclosures by Snowden of secret programs. Congressional debate over the new shield law. And a larger, longer debate over national safety vs. individual freedom and privacy. 

The fight analogy has its limits, but clearly we’re only in the early rounds of balancing legitimate national security concerns against over-classification and with the need of the public for accurate information on what its government is doing.This is a universal black magic bestgranitecountertops. 

First Amendment concerns include not only threats to a free press’ ability to report the news, but also to the potential for a narrowly drawn shield law which may exclude new-media users like bloggers, or which provides for a kind of “licensing” of journalists as a special legal class that later could be withdrawn.

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Under the proposed 1.5 percent a year increase

A California lawmaker's bill to increase the pay of pilots who navigate massive cargo ships through San Francisco Bay's intricate shipping channels drew attention Tuesday to the handsome incomes earned by these little-known mariners.

A state Senate committee heard debate about a proposal sponsored by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, to raise the rates of San Francisco Bay's bar pilots, who take home about $400,000 each annually.

The bay's 55 pilots operate as independent contractors who split all annual earnings equally.

Pilots claimed stagnant pay rates over the past several years have made it difficult to retain experienced pilots and attract new recruits to the high-skill, high-risk profession.

Shipping companies and exporters contended the pilots are among the best paid in the industry, and that any increase will hurt Northern California ports' affordability and competitiveness.

Ma's bill calls for the pilots' rates to be increased 1.5 percent annually over the next four years.

While pilots and shippers clashed over exactly how much was enough, both sides agreed that pilots' enviable earnings stem from the skill required to steer a 1,000-foot cargo ship through the bay's environmentally sensitive waters.

"Our profession is not an entry level job," said Capt. Bill Greig, who became a bar pilot after captaining oil tankers, including the Exxon Valdez, which ran aground off Alaska two decades ago under a different captain.

Prospective San Francisco Bay pilots typically have at least 15 years at the helm of large oceangoing vessels before they can even begin the training process, which can take one to three years, with no guarantee of a job at the end of the process, pilots say.

The test to obtain a pilot's license consists of a blank piece of paper on which applicants must sketch the entire navigational structure of San Francisco Bay area waterways, said Capt. Bruce Horton, president of San Francisco Bar Pilots.

Along with major ports such as Oakland and San Francisco, pilots must know how to navigate smaller ports that ring the bay as well as inland ports in Stockton and Sacramento and as far south as Monterey. A bar pilot will guide an outgoing ship until it passes through the Golden Gate into the Pacific Ocean or wait on a small boat to board incoming vessels just beyond the Golden Gate.

The bar pilot profession drew unwanted attention in November 2007 when the 900-foot Cosco Busan sideswiped a tower of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, spilling 53,000 gallons of oil into the water.

The ship's bar pilot, John Cota, was sentenced to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor environmental crimes stemming from the spill, which killed more than 2,000 birds, fouled 26 miles of shoreline and delayed the start of that year's Dungeness crab fishing season.

The National Transportation Safety Board found that Cota's prescription medications impaired his performance, though he was not held solely responsible for the crash.

The state of California has regulated San Francisco Bay bar pilots since 1850 at the height of the Gold Rush. The Board of Pilot Commissioners for the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun, a state agency, currently oversees the pilots and recommends how much they should be paid.

Under the proposed 1.5 percent a year increase, San Francisco Bay bar pilots would earn about $530,000 a year by 2015, said Mike Jacob, vice president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, which unsuccessfully petitioned the bar pilot commission to recommend reducing bar pilots' rates.

"If the bill doesn't pass, they're still going to be making a boatload of money," said Jacob, who added that shippers do believe pilots should be paid well. "You don't need to further increase their pay to have (San Francisco Bay) be an attractive place to work."

Pilots dispute that the rate increase will yield the jump in income predicted by shippers and say their costs have risen by millions of dollars since their last raise in 2006, especially the cost of fuel for the boats that take them to and from ships. Ma's bill would include a new fuel surcharge in addition to the rate increase.

But neither side can say with certainty how much incomes will rise or fall, since pilots are paid based on ship traffic rather than a flat rate. Shippers pay pilots based on the length of the ship, as well as the weight. The more ships carrying more cargo, the more pilots earn.

The variable nature of pilots' incomes makes comparing their pay to pilots in other parts of the country tricky. But multiple industry surveys suggest that piloting rates in San Francisco Bay are among the country's highest, especially compared to the large ports in Southern California, where pilots are contracted to individual ports and whose rates are not set by the Legislature.

Jacob points to the scheduled opening of the Panama Canal to wider ships in 2014 as a reason West Coast ports must be vigilant in keeping their costs down. When geography no longer limits where China's largest ships can unload their exports, little will stop shippers from choosing the least expensive option, he said.

But the price of a mistake in San Francisco Bay can also be high, as the Cosco Busan disaster demonstrated.

"Currently there is no other occupation where so much responsibility for life, property and environmental protection rests on the shoulder of one person's decision-making abilities," Ma said.

Debit card or credit card- which works better

These days carrying liquid cash and use it for varied purpose is inconvenient and unsafe. Using a credit card or a debit card is always a better option. If you are confused about choosing one type over the other, then you should find out information and then proceed. There are several online sources that feature complete information about the debit and credit cards so that you can easily take a learned decision and use according to your convenience.


These days carrying liquid cash and use it for varied purpose is inconvenient and unsafe. Using a credit card or a debit card is always a better option. If you are confused about choosing one type over the other, then you should find out information and then proceed. There are several online sources that feature complete information about the debit and credit cards so that you can easily take a learned decision and use according to your convenience. However, there is a never ending debate, which goes like- debit or credit card- which one is better? Here are some common merits and demerits of both these varieties. This will give you an idea how these cards work.

Using credit cards is simple. Suppose you have visited a store (land based or online) and searching for the items that you want to purchase. Once you have found your items, all you need to do is plug in the number of your credit card and the process of purchase is over. You are not actually paying for your purchase at that time; the merchant will get the money from the company that has issued the card to you. Generally, the merchants receive money within 30 days period and that is the time within which you will also receive the bill from the credit card company. You have to pay off the full payment or remit a part of it. This is actually dependant on specific terms of different companies.

You can use a debit card in the similar fashion, at least in several respects. Consider similar example. You have visited a shop, picked up an item and now provide your debit card number to process the payment. Here also, the merchant will receive the payment through the company that provided you the card. However, the catch is that your account must contain sufficient money at that point of time. Using a debit card means you are agreeing to directly deduct money from your account immediately. If in any case, your account balance becomes nil, you cannot purchase anything by using the card, which is different in case of credit cards.

The above mentioned point shows that credit cards have a certain edge as you don’t need to have money available while purchasing anything. You can pay for the item within 30 days and based on your policy term you may not have to pay the entire sum at one time as well. However, this advantage can sometime turn into a big disadvantage. The users sometimes get carried away and keep using the card for items that might not be very essential. What happens is that they accrue huge debts and paying them off becomes troublesome. Sometimes people never recover from such big debts. This works as a benefit for the debit card users as they are aware about the balance remaining in their account and have more control over the urge to buy something, which is of less necessity.