John McCain’s campaign has been attacking Barack Obama about his ties to former 1960s radical William Ayers. But columnist George Will noted that these charges come as “many millions of American households are gingerly opening envelopes containing reports of the third-quarter losses in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts – telling each household its portion of the nearly $2 trillion that Americans’ accounts have recently shed.”
“In this context,” Will wrote, “the McCain-Palin campaign’s attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama’s Chicago associations seems surreal.”
And desperate.
It’s exactly what so many people feared. The National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program didn’t just listen in on phone calls of terrorists, as President Bush assured. It also monitored phone conversations by American military personnel and U.S. aid workers who have nothing to do with terrorism, two military whistle-blowers claim. Not only that, intercept officers passed around recordings of intimate phone conversations. What fun.
The eavesdropping law has changed, and the government is now required to get a court order before listening in on Americans conversations. But is that happening?
“When they say trust us, ‘we’re not listening in on Americans’ – this shows that they are,” said Jennifer Granick of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that has been trying to stop warrantless eavesdropping programs. “This should be of concern to everybody.”
Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Tom Winters, Commissioner Tim Norton, Mayor Carl Brewer and Vice Mayor Sue Schlapp held a closed meeting last month to discuss the city-county differences over a tax increment financing district for the arena neighborhood. Then last week, a meeting on the proposed Northwest Bypass closed for a discussion by city, county and state transportation officials of property acquisition and other topics; the assembled included Winters, Commissioner Kelly Parks and City Council member Sharon Fearey.
Such gatherings may not violate the letter of the state’s open-meetings law, but they trample on its spirit. The desire of public servants to speak frankly, out of earshot of the pesky media, is not justification for closing discussions of issues of high interest to the public. Similarly, those trying again to hire a Wichita city manager from what is now a list of 10 candidates need to keep the doors open as often as possible, so the public can see and have trust in what they’re doing.
“I think we still have a 50 percent chance of bringing jobs to Kansas,” Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, said about the Air Force tanker program. Tiahrt told The Eagle editorial board that Boeing still may not win the contract, or it may end up with a split buy, but he is proud to have twice this year stopped the Air Force “from buying a French tanker.” Tiahrt said he is forcing the Air Force to justify why it wants a bigger tanker. “I don’t think they can do that,” he said.
John McCain’s campaign has been attacking Barack Obama about his ties to former 1960s radical William Ayers. But columnist George Will noted that these charges come as “many millions of American households are gingerly opening envelopes containing reports of the third-quarter losses in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts – telling each household its portion of the nearly $2 trillion that Americans’ accounts have recently shed.”
