Worcester Native Stirs Deaf Debate

December 15th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Katherine Geyer, Massachusetts

FERNANDES
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Katherine Geyer
Boston University News Service
December 15, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 —Growing up in the Newton Square neighborhood of Worcester, Jane Kelleher Fernandes played piano, figure skated and went to Midland Street Elementary like all the other kids.

But she always did things a little differently.

Born deaf to a hearing father and a deaf mother in a time and place where she was not exposed to sign language, Mrs. Fernandes, now 50, communicated solely through spoken English until she was in her 20s. And since she had never met another deaf person outside her family when she was a child, she was never part of a group where she felt she belonged.

In May, Mrs. Fernandes emerged in the national spotlight after her controversial appointment as president of Gallaudet University, the world’s only liberal arts university for the deaf and hard of hearing, located in Washington, D.C.

She said she had a plan to turn the school around and make it more welcoming to all deaf people, including those who have not learned American Sign Language, which is the glue that many deaf leaders claim holds the deaf community together and sets it apart from the hearing world.

“Those who come to Gallaudet are faced with a sink or swim mentality—they either fit in or they leave,” she said.

But when the Board of Trustees told the school’s 1,800 students that she would replace retiring president I. King Jordan, a student protest erupted. She had been a divisive leader in her six years as provost and the presidential search process was flawed, the protesters said.

They marched to Capitol Hill, erected a “tent city” on campus, launched a hunger strike and shut down the school for several days. As many as 400 participated in the campus protests, according to a university spokesperson. Protesters showed up at her childhood home in Worcester and knocked on neighbors’ doors, asking questions about her. They then confronted her parents at their home in Cape Cod. She received threats and heard rumors that a mob would show up in front of her rural Maryland house.

With many considering Gallaudet to be the world leader on issues relating to the deaf, many look to the school’s president as “mayor” of the deaf world. All eyes were on Mrs. Fernandes and the debate spread around the globe.

On October 29 the Board of Trustees succumbed to the mounting pressure and by majority vote revoked her appointment as their first deaf female president, saying it was in the best interests of the university. Three board members resigned, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of several members of Congress who served on the board. Mr. McCain said in a statement he disagreed with the decision and considered it “unfair.”

On Dec. 10 the Board selected Robert Davila, the former vice president for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, in Rochester, NY, to be the school’s interim president until a permanent president is chosen.

Visiting her quiet 10-acre Maryland farm 30 miles east of Washington, one might never guess Mrs. Fernandes is the subject of such contentious debate. Her husband, son and daughter, all hearing, grow blueberries in their backyard where deer roam freely. Her daughter Erin, 13, plays the saxophone and Sean, 15, plays basketball in the driveway. And she owns two Collies, the same breed of pets she had growing up in Worcester.

In her first face-to-face interview since the Board’s decision, Mrs. Fernandes sat down recently with a Telegram reporter to discuss what had happened. She appeared to react with little anger to the controversy swirling around her, but expressed disappointment and frustration over how she had been portrayed.

Mrs. Fernandes uses the simultaneous communication of spoken English and sign language, which is unpopular with some in the deaf community. “The protest was about my not being deaf enough,” she said. “That sends a hurtful message to deaf and hard of hearing youth throughout the United States and the world that if they don’t fit a certain mold, they don’t belong at Gallaudet.”

Mrs. Fernandes charged that her strategy for broadening the student base was essential to improving the quality of education at Gallaudet. The academic accreditation of the school is currently under review by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which has publicly expressed concerns about the presidential search process, student recruitment, retention and graduation rates and academic rigor at the school.

Gallaudet receives more than $100 million annually from the federal government and is subject to federal review. A 2005 report from the Office of Management and Budget rated Gallaudet “ineffective” in its performance including “the number of students who stay in school, graduate and either pursue graduate degrees or find jobs upon graduation.” OMB and several other federal agencies are working with Gallaudet to develop a plan to improve performance at the school.

Mrs. Fernandes said Gallaudet’s low graduation rates are of serious concern. Of the full-time undergraduate freshmen who entered the school in 1999, only six percent graduated four years later compared to a national average of about 50 percent for private schools. After six years, only 28 percent of them had graduated, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. The average six-year graduation rate for private, non-profit four-year institutions was about 64 percent during the same time period, according to the center’s statistics.

Kevin Carey, research and policy manager at Education Sector, an education think tank in Washington, said that schools like Gallaudet should have a graduation rate of at least 40 percent over a six year period. He said that although Gallaudet is a unique university, “they could probably do substantially better than 28 percent.”

Mr. Carey said graduation rates are usually tied to the level of preparation students have when they enter the school. Faculty Senate Chair Mark Weinberg told The Washington Post that Gallaudet is so “desperate” for students that “they’ll go out and yank people off the street who don’t have the skills or who are not ready for the college experience.”

“This raises questions about the role and purpose of a private university receiving a large amount of support from the federal government,” Mrs. Fernandes said. “It seems almost anti-American.”

“This is exactly why my vision for Gallaudet was so essential,” she said. “Becoming an inclusive deaf university was critical to improving the university’s outcomes.”

As a child, Mrs. Fernandes was reserved, but “extremely bright,” said her father Richard Kelleher, who served as a Worcester District Court judge. Both he and her mother, Kathleen Cosgrove Kelleher, were born and raised in Worcester. Mrs. Kelleher attended the public schools as a deaf student and at 72 still has not learned sign language.
Jane was also sent to public school because her parents “didn’t know any other way,” said her father.

Although Mrs. Fernandes credits her Worcester teachers with being sensitive to her needs, she said it was challenging to succeed in an educational setting that was not set up for her.

“I was always studying, always trying to make up what I missed from the class discussions,” she said.

Mr. Kelleher said that one day in elementary school, she was sharpening her pencil with her back to the class when her teacher told her several times to sit down. Because she could not hear, the other students laughed. She ran home in tears, but her mother sent her back. “She became strong because of that,” he said.

The only girl and the oldest of five children, Mrs. Fernandes has one brother still living in Worcester. Joseph Kelleher, also deaf, works at a U.S. Post Office in Worcester.

Mrs. Fernandes said she learned to lip-read through a process of trial and error and with the help of a speech pathologist who worked for the Worcester Public School District. An honors student, she learned English, French and Latin at Doherty High School before ever knowing that a sign language existed. And although she couldn’t hear the music, she took piano lessons for several years.

After receiving her Bachelor’s degree from Trinity College in Connecticut, Mrs. Fernandes received her master’s degree and Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of Iowa. That’s where she joined a deaf club and was first introduced to American Sign Language at the age of 23.

She said she absorbed the language and culture of the deaf like a sponge. “That was the first time I saw a large number of deaf people,” she said. “I thought, wow, all of these people are really like me.”

She added: “I became a more whole person– a genuine person– and developed greater self-confidence.”

She even competed and won the Miss Deaf Iowa contest and represented the state in the Miss Deaf America competition, an event in Baltimore that her parents attended and one of many times that her father said he was incredibly proud of her.

After her experiences in Iowa and exposure to the deaf culture, Mr. Kelleher said he saw a change in his daughter. “One day, we were sitting at my house and she told me that her goal in life was to bring us, the hearing people, into the deaf world and bring deaf people into our world.”

After graduating, Mrs. Fernandes worked at Northeastern University and then Gallaudet for a year as chair of the Sign Communication Department, where she met her husband, James. The two moved to Hawaii, where she served as director of the Hawaii Center for the Deaf and the Blind, a Pre-K through 12th grade school.

She returned to Gallaudet in 1995 as a vice president to direct a center that focuses on innovations in deaf education and set up a cochlear implant education center at the elementary school run by the university to teach sign language to children with implants. In 2000, she became Gallaudet’s provost.

Her efforts to introduce cochlear implants were controversial at Gallaudet. “At first, a lot of people resisted that idea,” she said. “But as we’ve seen more deaf adults getting implants and seeing that they are able to harness technology and still not change their identity, the implant center has become more acceptable.”

It was this view of cultural wall breaking that would have taken Gallaudet in a new direction during her presidency, Mrs. Fernandes said. And she said it was also what spurred the “fierce nature” of the protests, which included students burning an effigy of her in the protest’s final hours.

She said the protesters treat Gallaudet as if it is a deaf club, rather than a deaf university.

“I believe that it’s about deep, deep-seated fighting to maintain a strong deaf cultural identity,” she said.

Because today’s disability laws require public schools to provide interpreters and notetakers for deaf students, it has become easier for them to become “mainstreamed.” These students often use both spoken English and ASL and may or may not consider themselves to be part of deaf culture. Many attend public universities rather than relying on schools like Gallaudet that specialize in facilitating communication among the deaf.

Mrs. Fernandes said that 95 percent of deaf infants are born to hearing parents, who are eager to get cochlear implants for their children in order to “fix” the problem.

“An implant is not something I would choose for myself and would not choose it if I had a deaf baby,” she said. “But it is an option that people have and nothing that I or other people do will stop that from happening.”

Mrs. Fernandes emphasized that despite what some of the students may believe, she is deeply committed to her deaf heritage. “To be clear about my own view, I believe that I am deaf, and I am happy to be deaf, and proud to be deaf. I don’t want to be fixed and I learned that attitude from my mother, who’s deaf also, even though we did not learn sign language. We were not deaf culture members. We are deaf people who believe that deafness happens in families and we live with that.”

But there is disagreement in the deaf community on this issue. Some deaf educators say that the respect and preservation of the identity of the deaf community is bound to the use of ASL.

“The concern is that mainstreaming dilutes the use of ASL and what ASL significantly stands for beyond just being ‘a language,’” said Judy Fask, director of the Holy Cross Deaf Studies Program.

Mrs. Fernandes’ use of both spoken English and sign language shows she “lacks respect for the use of ASL as the primary language of deaf individuals,” said Dennise Scott and Ying Li, both deaf studies professors at Holy Cross and alumni of Gallaudet, in an email interview.

But Gallaudet has seen its enrollment decline in recent years and Mrs. Fernandes said part of the reason may be the extreme emphasis by some students and faculty on ASL and deaf culture and the exclusion of those who don’t fit that mold.

“[Gallaudet] needs to try to draw in more deaf students of color and more deaf students who have cochlear implants and create a more inclusive deaf university of academic excellence,” she said.

The protesters who opposed her cited a number of reasons for why they did not want Mrs. Fernandes to be president of Gallaudet.

Some claimed she was “not deaf enough” because of her mainstreamed upbringing, some because she cut funding for their programs. And some of the protesters said she simply wasn’t friendly enough and was too stand-offish with the students.

“Dr. Fernandes has created a climate of fear through her style of management, which was clearly intimidation,” said Tara Holcomb, a student leader of the protest. She said Mrs. Fernandes may be able to explain what inclusiveness means, but she was unable to put it into practice.

Ms. Holcomb and others said their protest was not about a fear of cultural change but more about Mrs. Fernandes’ leadership style. “She was known as an exclusive leader who bypassed important university policies to get what she needed,” Ms. Holcomb said. A number of protestors said Mrs. Fernandes had alienated faculty, staff, students and parents.

But supporters compare her leadership to that of a parent who makes decisions based on her children’s needs rather than wants.

“She has high expectations of students,” said Shirley Shultz Myers, Honors Program director. “She cares so deeply about students that she is honest with them when their behavior or academic integrity is questionable.”

Leslie Page, the diversity fellow in the president’s office, said Mrs. Fernandes sometimes made unpopular decisions. “In the deaf community, it seems to me that decisions are made based on popularity and that is not how Dr. Fernandes operated,” Ms. Page said.

Jonathan Cetrano, a Gallaudet student from Fitchburg who worked in the provost’s office, said Mrs. Fernandes is misunderstood. “Since she is introverted, some people have a difficult time getting to know her,” he said.

Her husband, James Fernandes, who worked at Gallaudet for 30 years, said during the protests much was said and written about his wife that was not true and he believed it was driven by the students’ fear “that they were somehow going to lose their identity by making Gallaudet a more welcoming place for different kinds of deaf people.”

Mr. Fernandes said he didn’t recognize his wife in the caricature painted by her opponents. “She is a very caring person…she’s very determined. She is a woman of great principle and integrity and poise. She’s not a politician.”

And part of it may have to do with the fact that she is a woman, according to Mrs. Fernandes. “There’s the idea that a woman has to be warm and loving and friendly and if a man did the same thing that I did, they would say he’s very busy with million dollar decisions on his mind.”

Although Mrs. Fernandes has the option of returning to teach at Gallaudet after taking a one-year sabbatical, she hasn’t made any decisions about the future although she said she hopes to remain involved with deaf education. “I will open myself to new possibilities and where I end up remains to be seen.”

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Special Education Funding Increasing, but Districts Still Struggling

December 14th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Lauren Katims, New Hampshire

SPECIAL ED FUNDING
The Keene Sentinel
Lauren Katims
Boston University Washington News Service
12-14-06

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 —Even though Congress has more than doubled federal funding for special education and has altered funding allocation formulas over the last six years, local school districts are still struggling to find adequate money.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, passed three decades ago and reauthorized in 2004, requires states to fully fund the education of all children with mental and physical disabilities. Because the legislation added additional costs to the school systems, the federal government pledged to cover up to 40 percent of those costs.

However, federal funding has never reached beyond 18 percent. Currently, the federal government pays 17 percent of total costs, creating a $10.6 billion shortfall for states and local school districts.

At issue is not only the ongoing task of closing the unfunded mandate but also deciding how to properly spend the money.

For Congress to keep increasing funds, it had to change the formula of how it determines the amount of dollars allocated to each state, according to a report released last year by the American Institutes for Research, a non-profit, non-partisan behavioral and social science research group.

Under the old formula, every new student enrolled in special education generated more money for that state. In the new formula, funds are allocated based on poverty and total enrollment of all students (not just special education) —two factors, according to the report, that are not directly related to special-education enrollment.

With these changes, which took effect in fiscal year 2000, states receive increasingly different amounts of money, based 70 percent on total enrollment and 30 percent on poverty level, said Thomas Parrish, co-author of the report and director of the Center for Special Education Finance at the Institutes. Total funding for special education has increased from a little more than $5 billion in 2000 to around $11 billion today, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

As funds continue to rise, there will be more disparity between states, which could leave those with higher enrollment of severe special-education cases starving for more funds, said Parrish, who added that there is no way to tell which states will have more severe cases.

If Congress reaches full funding, which Parrish said is possible but unlikely, it would then have to reevaluate the way funds are allocated.

But for now, experts agree that the change in formula was a good thing.

“You don't want to create an incentive to identify kids with special needs,” said Andrew Rotherham, co-founder and co-director of Education Sector, an independent non-profit national education policy think tank.

That would encourage over-enrollment with students who may just have slight learning disabilities and don't need to be placed in a special-education program, Rotherham said, and puts a formula in school districts' mind: “identify more kids, and you get more money,” he said.

Plus, communities with high poverty are more likely to have more special-education kids, he said. And the higher the total enrollment in school, the higher the chances are of having more special-education students, he added.

The number of students enrolled in special-educations programs in the United States has doubled since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was passed, to an estimated 6.9 million, or about 11 percent of all students nationwide.

New Hampshire has very low enrollment rates, said Ralph Tilton, program specialist for the Bureau of Special Education in the New Hampshire Department of Education. From 2004 to 2005, the number of special education students went up only 107, from 31,675 to 31,782, making up 15 percent of total students enrolled in public education.

But Tilton said that even though the state has low enrollment, the costs are still high because of inflation: skyrocketing costs of the special education programs, hiring good-quality teachers and the already-high price of education is going up.

The federal funding contribution for New Hampshire for 2007 is about $48 million, a 0.8 percent increase from 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

This year, the state Department of Special Education dispersed $41 million to local districts for special education. But most of the responsibility for funding special education programs falls on the local school districts, said Mary Heath, deputy commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Education.

The local districts raise the majority of funding from property taxes, and then make their own budget with that money. But because there are so many districts, there is no overall figure for special education spending in the Granite State.

“Local school districts are spending enormous amounts of their budget on special education,” said Heath.

And the money being spent is only growing, she said. Hence the perceived need for increased federal funding.

“If we had more resources in our state, more federal dollars, we could do more programs,” said Santina Thibedeau, director of special education for the New Hampshire Department of Education.

Outgoing Congressman Charles Bass (R-N.H.) was a long-time advocate for special-education spending and last year he made a failed attempt to make increases in federal special-education money mandatory.

“If we don't continue to increase funding, the percent that the federal government gives will go down,” he said.

Complicating the issue further, students with disabilities cost more to put through school than do regular students.

According to the National Education Association, the average public school student costs $7,552 per year. A child with disabilities costs $16,921—an extra $9,369. That number has increased about 30 percent over the last 30 years.

Chad Colby, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education, said that people cannot look at special education funding as a lone issue. They need to look at education and the federal budget as a whole. “There is a finite amount of money, and competing interests,” Colby said.

Some of those competing interests are rising college tuition costs and a large achievement gap between minority students and their peers, he said.

Opponents of increasing special education funds argue that special education expenses are absorbing an excessive portion of the public's investment in education, and that the money should be spent on other areas of education, like gifted programs.

Critics also said it is not fair for regular and special education students to be in the same classes because then no one gets the attention he or she needs.

Whether special education dollars are taking money away from gifted and regular programs is a hot topic in Tilton’s school board meetings, he said. He would not say which side he thought was correct.

Parrish, from the Center for Special Education Finance, said a change in congressional leadership might just be what special education needs.

During the late 1990s, Republicans were in the forefront of increasing special education funds. Almost every time President Clinton proposed an education initiative, like smaller class sizes and improving after-school programs, Republicans responded by demanding full Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funding as the top priority, wrote Rotherham from the Education Sector, in a 2002 report called The Politics of IDEA Funding.

Rotherham also managed education policy activities at the White House and advised Clinton on a wide range of education issues.

He continued, however, writing that “some Republicans were probably motivated less by the policy problems of IDEA finance than a desire to champion some education spending plan as an alternative to the Clinton agenda.”

But he does not put the blame directly on either party.

“There’s places for bipartisan credit, and there’s places for bipartisan blame,” Rotherham said.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the incoming chairman of the House the Education and the Workforce Committee, wrote in an e-mail that the Republican-controlled Congress has “woefully underfunded” the Individuals with Disabilities Act.

“We will begin to undo the damage done by this past Congress by securing more funding for IDEA and will create a dialogue with special education students, parents and educators,” he wrote.

Steve Forde, spokesman for the Republicans on the committee, said that all congressmen—Democrats and Republicans—have a strong presence of special education teachers, parents and students in their districts.

“It's one of those issues that straddles both sides,” Forde said. “It's not even political; all members deal with it equally.”

While Rotherham agreed that the “basic fault lines of special education are not really partisan,” he warned, “it will become political, everything does.”

And just like they did during the Clinton administration, “it's not unreasonable to think the Republicans will again start to look to special education as a palpable place to put money and say they are for education spending, and as a way to counter what's going to…be on the Democratic wish list of spending priorities,” Rotherham said.

But he added that there are problems with special education that can't be fixed by money.

For example, there is a lack of high-quality assessment of students that is adding to the skyrocketing enrollment numbers around the country, he said. Students who cannot read are being placed in special education programs, when all they need is better reading lessons, he said.

But Congress has had a hard time looking beyond dollar signs.

“In the federal government, it's more of a money matter,” said Catherine Reeves, director of special education in the Keene school district. “It's not about special education… it's not about a philosophical issue, it's about money.”
Rep.-elect Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) said he is a strong advocate of increased special education funds and will continue to fight for more money, but he is not sure how he will tackle the issue yet.

Getting a better understanding of the law is the first thing the Democrats need to do, Rotherham said.
“It's a very complicated law,” he said, and suggests starting with “getting a handle of what's happening around the country, and starting to think about what changes are needed the second time around [for the next reauthorization].”

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Earmarked Funding: Time for Reform?

December 14th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Massachusetts, Paul Crocetti

Earmark
Cape Cod Times
Paul Crocetti
Boston University Washington News Service
December 14, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14-- Bike paths on the Lower Cape got $7 million to make them longer. The Cape’s public bus line received $2.9 million. And the new park at the Bass River Marina in Dennis got $1.4 million.

Congressman William Delahunt, D-Mass., helped secure these funds over the past two years through a legislative process called earmarking, a subject of much recent debate in Congress. Earmarks are funding secured by a member of Congress for a specific project outside of the ordinary appropriations process.

Proponents say earmarks funnel needed money to legislators’ districts. Critics call this funding “pork,” arguing that the process of securing the money is wrong.

The debate figures to come to a head in the New Year when the new Congress tackles legislation overhauling the lobbying and earmarking processes.

The Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees announced Monday that they would be placing a moratorium on all earmarks until the process is overhauled.

In a press conference last week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that a draft of an ethics overhaul bill, including changes in the earmark process, will be ready by the time the new Congress arrives in Washington on January 4.

The number of earmarks has increased from about 4,000 in 1994 to nearly 16,000 in 2005, McCain said.

“This is disgraceful,” he said.

Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan group that tracks specific earmarked funding, states that pork increased from $7.8 billion in fiscal year 1994 to $29 billion in fiscal year 2006.

Earmarked funding has to meet certain criteria to be classified as pork. For example, Citizens Against Government Waste defines funding as pork if it is added during conference committee, the time when the House and Senate work out differences between their versions of a bill.

“Too often people confuse the two,” said David Williams, the vice president for policy at the group. “Pork is a project that didn’t go through the proper scrutiny. The way we define pork is a process. The most egregious way is to add funding through conference committee.”

Ninety-six percent of earmarks between July 1, 2005 and June 30, 2006 were added this way, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Because the conference committee is one of the last steps before a bill goes to the president, most members of Congress don’t see these earmarks before voting on the bills. And often, legislators add earmarks into spending bills that can run hundreds of pages long.

Williams said legislators should not be able to add earmarks during conference committee.

McCain wants a 48-hour period between the conference committee and the final vote, so legislators can have time to read the bills. He also wants more disclosure of earmarks, including how much recipients spent on registered lobbyists. With these rules in place, Congress may have been able to avoid the scandal of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., in which he traded earmarks for bribes.

Delahunt is pushing to require all earmarks be disclosed, along with their sponsors’ identity.

“If members are unable to defend the basis for earmarks, they would not be warranted,” he said. “I’m very confident that [our] earmarks were able to improve the quality of life [for people on the Cape]. The bridges to nowhere don’t exist.”

Delahunt referred to the $223 million in funding that U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, secured to build a bridge between the city of Ketchikan and the island of Gravina (population: 50). Many earmark critics point to this case, dubbed the “Bridge to Nowhere,” as one of the reasons reform is needed.

Delahunt points to funding for Cape wetlands preservation, open space and bike paths as examples of his earmarks that would stand up to the disclosure test.

“These are issues within the district that have had a positive impact on the way of life,” he said.

The funding for the bike path will extend an existing route from Dennis out west towards Barnstable, and Robert Canevazzi, the Dennis town administrator, said this extension would not be possible without the earmarked funding.

“A tremendous amount of work needs to be done to rehabilitate the existing roads into a bike path,” he said.

The new $1.4 million park at Bass River Marina will hopefully feature a boardwalk and kayak rentals, said Margaret Kane, the project’s chairwoman.

She does not believe the funding is pork.

“I think of pork as benefiting a few people,” she said. “This is something that not only benefits West Dennis but the Cape and people who come to the Cape.”

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, the funding for the Bass River project is pork because it was secured in conference committee.

But Cape Cod is not a hotspot for pork, Williams said. He noted that states such as Alaska and West Virginia receive the “lion’s share” of pork. For example, in 2005 alone, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, brought $325 million in pork to his home state, according to the group’s Web site, cagw.org.

“The people of Cape Cod have to pay for other people’s pork,” Williams said. “They have to pay for other people’s nonsense.”

According to David King, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, there is no such thing as a good earmark.

“It’s Congress at its worst,” he said. “It often smells of corruption, in the public view. The justification for earmarks is almost entirely political.”

But without the $2.9 million that Delahunt secured for the Cape bus line, there would not be a new facility for the buses, according to Joseph Potzka, the administrator at Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority.

“We needed a new facility,” said Potzka, adding that he hopes it will open next month. “[The old one] was way undersized.”

Delahunt’s office approached the Transit Authority about the issue, Potzka said.

“Delahunt’s Hyannis office was very active in working with the Cape Cod Transit Task Force,” he said.

Often, though, a group will hire a lobbyist to help secure funding. The lobbyist then works with the congressman from the district.

But in the wake of the Cunningham scandal, members of Congress have to be more cautious about their earmarks.

“There should be more openness and transparency,” said one former House staffer who works at a lobbying firm. He noted that the firm does not specialize in appropriations lobbies and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss his work with the media. “Earmarks that have come under scrutiny are egregious, dark of night type of things. I think that [disclosure] will solve 99 percent of the problems.”

King does not think an earmark overhaul will happen.

“The people who benefit are the ones who change the rules,” he said.

But Democrats have pledged to take action.

One key legislator it will come down to is Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the incoming chairman of the Appropriations Committee. In the past, Obey has been known for securing millions of dollars in earmarks for his district, something he notes on his Web site.

But in a statement released this week, he said reform is necessary.

“We will work to restore an accountable, above-board, transparent process for funding decisions and put an end to the abuses that have harmed the credibility of Congress.”

Kirstin Brost, spokeswoman for the Democratic side of the House Appropriations Committee, predicted an overhaul of the earmarking rules will be passed in January.

She noted that funding can be misused, citing the “Bridge to Nowhere” as an example. But it can also be used for projects such as more body armor for troops.

“Funding like that is very valuable,” she said. “It is important for members to meet the needs of their constituents and not abuse the system.”

So should the number of earmarks decrease?

“We need to take each earmark by itself,” Delahunt answered. “I think each one deserves an examination. That will restore confidence [in the process].”

###

How Much Do You Know About How Your Kids Play?

December 14th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Jamie Hammon, Washington, DC

GAMING
The Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
12-14-06

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 — With more than half of all video game sales made each year during the holiday shopping season, parents are likely to find video games right at the top of their childrens’ wish lists. But a recent study calls into question how effective and involved parents are in ensuring that their children have appropriate gaming habits – not simply the types of games played, but how often.

Though it’s no secret to most parents that gaming technology has allowed innocent and simplistic Pac-Man plots to be replaced by edgier and more realistic content, a report last month found that when it comes to their children’s video game habits, there is much parents do not know.

The 11th Annual Video Game Report Card that the National Institute on Media and the Family issued in November found a major communication breakdown between parents and their kids about video game habits. Parents, the institute said, largely overestimate the effectiveness of their role as video game gatekeepers – a role especially significant in the past year as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo all released new gaming consoles, just in time for holiday shopping.

“If there is a simple message we can give to parents it is this – watch what your kids watch, play what your kids play,” said David Walsh, president and founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family, an independent, non-partisan group that researches the effects of mass media on children.

“Every generation of this technology brings us closer to virtual reality,” Walsh said. “And when young people spend hours and hours on interactive technology, literally rehearsing behaviors, we know that has an impact.”

In recent weeks, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has joined Walsh’s group in press conferences to announce the video game report card, to launch a series of public service announcements to educate parents about the video game rating system, and to promote legislation that would further finance research into video games and public health.

Researchers for the report surveyed more than 1,400 fourth- and fifth-grade students and found that parents and their children had some sharply different answers to the same questions. For example, 73 percent of the parents said they used the ratings in making game purchases, but only 30 percent of kids from those same families said the same; 51 percent of the kids said their parents never talked with them about the video games they played, while only 5 percent of their parents said they never talked with their children about their games; and 39 percent of kids said they never have to ask permission before playing video games, while only 10 percent of parents said their children did not have to ask permission.

“This is a wakeup call to parents that it’s time to stop being overly optimistic about how involved you are with your kids’ video game habits, and reengage at a new level,” said Douglas Gentile, developmental psychologist and director of research for the institute.

In previous years the report focused on the gaming industry and retailers, emphasizing their role in keeping M-rated (for mature) video games out of the hands of minors. This year, however, it found that the industry and retailers are, for the most part, upholding their end of the bargain.

Minors whom the institute sent out as secret shoppers were never successful in their attempts to purchase M-rated games from Target, Best Buy and Wal-Mart. The institute also found all the new gaming consoles are equipped with parental controls similar in concept to the V-chip used in television.

In addition, the video game industry-sponsored Entertainment Software Rating Board has established a universal rating system for games and has launched a series of public service announcements over 800 radio and TV stations to educate parents and consumers about the ratings. (See accompanying box.)

“This is a lot of good news,” Lieberman said at a press conference announcing the report. “So now it’s time to focus on parents. Learn about the [rating board’s] system, learn about the independent rating systems and use parental controls.”

The rating board is an independent, non-profit body established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association, the trade association which represents video game manufacturers. While rating is not mandatory, virtually all games that U.S. and Canadian retailers sell are rated by the board, and most retailers and console manufacturers will stock and permit only games that carry the rating.

The rating system, identified by a symbol on the front of the game’s box and a content description on the back, consists of “EC” for early childhood, “E” for everyone, “E+10” for everyone 10 or older, “T” for teen, “M” for mature, “AO” for adults only and “RP” for rating pending.

Content descriptions specify what the game contains. An M-rated game’s content description may include alcohol references, blood and gore, profanity, nudity, sexual themes (including depictions of rape) or use of drugs. A game with an E-rating may have “edutainment” as a content description, meaning that educational skills are reinforced by the video game.

So, how are kids getting their hands on M-rated games? In many cases, through independent retailers, where 32 percent of the time the child was able to purchase the game, no questions asked.

“So, OK, the kid’s thwarted at store one, hits two more and he’s got the game,” Gentile said. “If a kid really wants an M-rated game, I promise you that kid’s got it.”

Games receive an M-rating for violence, sexual aggression, profanity or the use of drugs, alcohol or tobacco. Though violence in video games is nothing new, that violence is now much gorier and more realistic as a result of increased graphics and processing power, and, quite significantly, that violence has moved from the fringe to the mainstream.

The way an aggression researcher defines violence in a game is very specific: when intentional harm is inflicted on a game character. This excludes most sports games, where the goal is to win, and not to harm anyone.

“With the average age of a gamer today being 33, it’s not surprising that there are games created for an older, more mature audience,” ratings board President Patricia Vance said at a press conference in early December. “Even though over half of the games that we rate each year are appropriate for all ages, including young players, about 12 percent are rated mature, which means they are for ages 17 or older.”

Gentile is currently publishing a study looking at how quickly the playing of aggressive video games affects the behavior of third through fifth graders. The results, he said, were shocking.

“Kids who play more violent video games early in the school year actually change to become more aggressive by later in the school year,” he said. “I didn’t think six months was enough time” to see changes in behavior.

Lieberman has co-sponsored a bill that would finance further study of both good and bad impacts of media on children. He said he also plans to introduce legislation to pay for a program that would bring together video game developers and educators to stimulate the development of video games for educational and other purposes, like helping children deal with health problems.

But all agree that the most straightforward solution starts in the home.

It is important that parents not fall prey to the “third person effect,” the tendency to rate oneself more highly than other people, Gentile said. In this case, parents say they believe that media violence affects children in general, but not their child.

“Parents like to say, ‘Well, it doesn’t affect my kid because he knows it’s just a game,’ ” Gentile said. “Well, of course these kids know it’s just a game. That doesn’t inoculate them from the effect.”

Suggestions made to parents in the report were to follow the ratings, use parental controls, put kids on a media diet, set limits and be willing to say no and watch and play what kids are watching and playing. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than one to two hours of total screen time each day, including television, video games, DVDs and other uses of the computer.

“My generation are immigrants to the modern media world – our children are natives,” Lieberman said. “But we need to work together across generational lines to do everything that we can do so modern technology presents a positive experience for our children individually and for our culture as a whole.”

2006 Buying Guide for Parents

The 11th Annual Video Game Report Card that the National Institute on Media and the Family issued last month lists the ratings assigned by the Entertainment Software Rating Board for a variety of videogames (M is for mature, E is for everyone and E 10+ is for 20 and older):

Do You Know What Video Game Your Kid Is Playing?

December 14th, 2006 in Connecticut, Fall 2006 Newswire, Margaret Stevenson

VIDEOGAME
New London Day
Margaret Stevenson
Boston University Washington News Service
Dec. 14, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 —This holiday season, as video games top kids’ wish lists, parents may want to spend a little more time understanding what their children are asking for, according to recent studies.

Most video games are rated by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, a video game industry-sponsored group, but the National Institute on Media and the Family, a non-profit group that monitors children’s entertainment, concluded in its annual “Video Games Report Card” that parents needed to be more involved in what is age appropriate for their children.

As consoles like the popular PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have improved their technology, the graphics have become more intense as well. With the average gamer being 33 years old, many games are geared towards adults, according to Patricia Vance, the rating board president.

At issue is how parents can be sure their children are playing appropriate games and whether legal intervention is required to aide them.

“Frankly, if a parent can’t figure out what’s in a game from those descriptors, then they must not be looking at the box,” said Adam Thierer of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank. “It’s right there to see.”

Besides the Entertainment Software Rating Board, there are other ways for parents to learn about the games their children are playing. Jay Senter of Commonsense Media, a non-profit group that closely analyzes the content of mass media, noted that there is an abundance of material available.

“For so many parents today, it is an overwhelming job—to keep track of what kids are exposed to,” he said. “We provide parents with an information source.”

New London mom Nicole Dallas said she is careful in not letting her 14-year-old son get his hands on violent video games.

“I’m on top of it,” said Dallas, a mother of three who heads the PTA at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School, and works at the school, said she checks what kind of games her kids play.

Sue Radway, the director of the Youth Service Bureau in Waterford and a parent as well, said she thinks more parental awareness is needed in that area.

“The best way to know what kids are doing is to do it with them,” Radway said. “It’s the holiday season and a kid says, ‘I want Grand Theft Auto’ on their Christmas list and the parents may go out and buy it.”

Grand Theft Auto, is not only one of the most popular video games, but also one of the most violent, rated by the board as “M-17,” a mature rating that is designed for those aged 17 and older.

Not every parent is as aware of these issues.

While 70 percent of parents surveyed said they pay attention to ratings, less than one-third of kids polled said their parents followed ratings, according to a recent report by the National Institute on Media and the Family.

“For that reason, this year we are shining the spotlight on parents,” said the institute’s Dr. David Walsh. “That it’s now our job to kind of step up and say, you know, there are some things that we need to do. We need to pay attention to the ratings. We need to use the tools that are now in the consoles.”

Thierer noted that many next-generation consoles sold today have tools that allow parents to control what their kids are watching and/or playing.

Last week, the rating board announced a new television ad campaign that explains the rating systems to parents. Vance said mature ratings should be taken seriously and that big retailers have stepped up their support of the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s system.

“Video games, without a doubt, are one of the most popular forms of entertainment for our children, and half of all the total game sales for the year are happening right now, for the holiday season,” said Vance.

Dallas’ son, Frankie Dallas, a 14-year-old student at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School, said his parents traded in his violent games after hearing about a school shooting where the shooter said he had been playing video games earlier that day.

“I don’t mind that my mom is tough on what we can play,” Frankie said. “She doesn’t want us to have messed up lives.”

Carlos Burns, a 24-year-old sales floor representative at the Target in Waterford said the problem isn’t with retailers selling games to underage kids, but with parents buying them.

The National Institute on Media and the Family gave an “A” to major retailers like Best Buy, Target, and Wal-Mart for asking for identification 100 percent of the time that the institute had its “secret shoppers” try to buy games that had “M-17” ratings.

“The system at Target is that they have to look older than 41 in order to purchase an M-17 rated game,” Burns said. “Since it is the holiday season, parents are buying a lot of these games for them.”

Sens. Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut Independent., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., have co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., that would award grants to study the impact of media on children. Lieberman said he plans to reintroduce the bill in the coming Congress.

Currently, there is no federal regulation of videogame content. Retailers and most of the gaming industry use the Entertainment Software Rating Board system as a voluntary standard.

Lieberman praised the rating system and said, “This is about parents exercising some responsibility for what their children play and see and therefore to protect their children from the worst impact of them.”

Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, which represents the gaming industry, said Lieberman and Clinton have “been unwavering in their belief that our industry has a responsibility to give parents the tools they need to make sound decisions about the games that come into their homes.”

Clinton called the ad campaign a “great step forward” adding, “The ratings only work if parents understand them and if retailers enforce them.”

But Jack Thompson, a lawyer who has advocated regulation of the video game industry, said the new campaign was just a way for the industry to avoid future regulation.

Legislation has been proposed at the state and federal levels to try to regulate the sale of certain video games to minors by setting the board’s rating system as a national standard. So far, most of the legislation has been unsuccessful on the grounds that private sector standards cannot be used by the government nationally.

The issue has become so controversial that a Web site called www.GamePolitics.com, is devoted to keeping an eye on the clash between the video game industry and legislators.

“I perceived there was quite a lot going on in this area but very little consistent tracking of what was happening,” explained Dennis McCauley, who launched the site in 2005.

Kevin Bankston a staff attorney and First Amendment expert at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization that opposes regulation on free speech grounds, said that a government-imposed rating system would be unconstitutional and called the attempts by politicians to pass that legislation “political maneuvers.”

“Video games are speech and these attempts are unconstitutional,” Bankston said.

Thompson said the solution is for Congress “to pass a law banning the sale of mature video games to kids and then proving to the court they are harmful. Very simple.”

Complicating the debate is the controversy about whether violence in video games has any effect on the behavior of minors.

Lieberman noted that more than 2,000 studies that have been done indicate violence in the media has adverse affects on children.

Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine recently announced that adolescents who play violent video games may have differences in activity levels in areas of the brain associated with emotional arousal and self-control.

Nicole Dallas of New London said she worries that playing violent video games does affect behavior.

“If you plant bad things, bad things will come out,” Dallas said. “Children play games and don’t understand that life is not like that game.”

She said parents can get involved by communicating and being interested in what their children are doing.

“Make time, make that game, don’t show up at the school when you get a call from the dean,” she said. “Show up on open school night. Let teachers know as well as the child that you care.”

Parents need to check the ratings of the games their kids are playing, Dallas said.

Her son does not blame his mom for regulating his use of violent video games, saying he hopes to have a good life and knows that his mom only wants the best for him.

The 14-year-old says he has big dreams of playing for the NFL and afterward he wants to become a scientist.

“My mom just wants us to lead decent lives,” Frankie said.

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Maine Wreaths Put at Headstones in Arlington National Cemetery

December 14th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Jill Connor, Lauren Smith, Maine

Photos by Jill Connor

Wreaths
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
Dec. 14, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14--“Doesn’t it make you proud just to be from Maine,” Diane Peva asked a total stranger as she wiped away tears from under her glasses. Realizing they were both wearing sweatshirts embroidered with the state name, the two embraced.

It was just after 8 a.m. Thursday and a thick fog enveloped the hills in the southern part of Arlington National Cemetery, where more than a hundred people gathered at the tail end of a truck carrying 5,000 wreaths.

“Oh, smell them!” Peva said, as the truck back door was pulled up and hundreds of boxes of wreaths were emptied.

Two assembly lines were formed to unload the truck, and within two hours almost every wreath was resting at a headstone in the memorial section of the cemetery.

“Certainly we know why we’re here,” said Wayne Harrington, of the Maine State Society, a Washington-area group of displaced Mainers which helps organize the event each year, before the wreaths were passed out.

“As you place the wreath, this is a time to remember,” Harrington said. “Take time to look at the name. Most of these people don’t have visitors any longer.”

Peva and her husband, Jim, of Surry, each took a wreath and ventured into the rows of white headstones. Down on one knee, Peva leaned the wreath up against the headstone. She straightened the red velvet bow and ran the palm of her hand over the engraved name, pausing slightly. She wiped the top of the headstone and stood up.

“Take a moment, turn around, and just look at what you’re doing,” said a volunteer upon learning it was Peva’s first time helping lay the wreaths.

The two did, and what they saw were rolling hills of white gravestones, all adorned with green wreaths out of the generosity of one man.

For the past 15 Decembers, Morrill Worcester, owner of Worcester Wreath Co. in Harrington, has donated wreaths to be laid at headstones in the cemetery. This year, in addition to the ones donated to Arlington, a half-dozen wreaths were laid in each of 230 veterans cemeteries and monuments spread out over all 50 states.

When the project first began there were barely 10 volunteers, said Lewis Pearson of the Maine State Society. Each year more people began to help. Last year approximately 100 volunteers turned out but this year by the time the wreaths were being put out more than 500 people from across the nation came to lend a hand.

Each year the wreaths are laid in a different section of the cemetery. This year the wreaths were set 150 yards from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, upon headstones in the memorial section, which honor those whose bodies were never recovered.

The annual Arlington Cemetery Wreath Project blossomed into Wreaths Across America when a photo of Worcester's wreaths resting against gravestones on a snowy day was mass emailed around the world.

Since then, Worcester has received more than 7,000 emails, and media outlets from as far away as Australia, Germany and Japan were present for this year’s event.

“It’s gone worldwide,” Pearson said. “It’s unbelievable.”

This year was also the first year that the truck delivering the wreaths was joined by the Patriot Guard Riders, a group of motorcyclists who honor fallen soldiers.

Bunny O’Leary and John O’Leary, of Norway, and Joe Pepin, of Mt. Chase, were the only three riders who followed the truck the entire 750 miles from Harrington to Arlington.

They were cheered the entire way down, said Bunny O’Leary, and people waved flags and clapped for the truck, on whose side sprawled a photo of wreaths and the words “Remember- Honor- & Teach.”

“The riders were with me all the way,” said Bill Stembergh, of Jonesboro, who drove the truck. “We picked up more and more every state we passed through.”

Stembergh usually makes the drive in one day, he said, but this year they took Route 1 instead of Interstate 95 in order for hundreds of motorcyclists to join, lengthening the trip to four days.

The O’Leary’s and Pepin were originally planning on following the truck to Rhode Island, but each time they made a pit stop, they decided to go a little farther.

“I told Morrill, ‘I just can’t go home yet,’ and Morrill said, ‘You may never go home now,’” said John. O’Leary. “We just couldn’t leave him.”

“There were a lot of wet eyes,” said his wife. “It’s been hard for tough bikers.”

This was also the first year the Civil Air Patrol participated, coordinating the wreath laying in all 50 states.

“Seeing veterans and meeting them was really an honor,” said Patrick Lappin, of Calais, an airman first class in the cadet program of the Civil Air Patrol. “I will pass this story on to my children.”

This was Lappin’s second time participating in the wreath laying ceremony. The event is personal for him, he said, because he lost two relatives in World War II, one at Pearl Harbor and the other at Normandy.

By the time wreaths were being laid at Sen. Edmund Muskie’s gravestone, the USS Battleship Maine monument, the Kennedy family memorials and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the sun had scorched off the fog to an unusually warm December day.

Morrill Worcester, the man whose love of Arlington National Cemetery began when he won a trip to Washington as a 12-year-old paperboy for the Bangor Daily News, looked out at the endless rows of gravestones, hundreds of volunteers and thousands of wreaths.
“They came here because they wanted to be here,” he said. “It just shows the importance of what we’re doing.”

He added: “You and I wouldn’t have what we have today without these buried here. Every one of these people is why we are here.”

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Is Britain a Role Model for U.S. in Fight Against Terrorism?

December 14th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Kendra Gilbert, New Hampshire

Counterterrorism
New Hampshire Union Leader
Kendra Gilbert
Boston University Washington News Service
12-14-06

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 – New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg is looking to the British for some answers on how to catch terrorists.

A month after British officials foiled a terrorist plot to attack U.S. airliners bound for the states from London’s Heathrow Airport, Gregg chaired a hearing to examine what the United States could learn from Britain’s counterterrorism methods. What he heard at the hearing prompted him to include $1 million in the 2007 Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill for a study to be conducted next year on the feasibility of adopting some of the United Kingdom’s methods.

In a phone interview, Gregg said the United States could learn a lot from the British and that their methods were “worth looking at.”

Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., supports his colleague’s interest in improving counterterrorism methods, saying that the hearing Gregg chaired “brings attention to the importance of constantly evaluating our laws and regulations to make sure they continue to provide government officials the tools they need to prevent future terrorist attacks.”

Despite a shared cultural heritage, Britain, unlike the United States, has no written constitution that sets forth basic principles of law governing the country. Britain also lacks a counterpart to the U.S. Bill of Rights, which grants protections and freedoms to individuals. Instead, protections are established through legislation, which, in Britain, has evolved over the years and now includes several laws defining terrorism and regulating counterterrorism procedures.

At the top of the list in any discussion of revamping U.S. counterterrorism methods to be more like those of the British is the comparison between the FBI in the United States and the Security Service (commonly known as MI5) in Britain.

MI5 is a domestic security agency that gathers intelligence with a view toward countering terrorism and other threats to British security. It has no arrest powers and works closely with local police in Britain to prevent terrorist attacks.

“There was a lot of discussion after 9/11 about whether the United States needed a domestic intelligence agency like MI5,” said Ian Cuthbertson, director of the Counterterrorism Project at the World Policy Institute, a university-affiliated think tank in New York City.

The Department of Homeland Security was created following 9/11 as an umbrella agency to oversee security issues involving ports, immigration, transportation and emergency response but does not have authority over the nation’s intelligence gathering agencies.

At the FBI, Cuthbertson said, “Counterintelligence and counterterrorism have always played second fiddle in the FBI to crime fighting.”

The FBI has tried to reorganize in the wake of 9/11 but, “you still have a bureau that is culturally attuned to not prevention but investigation post event,” said Roger Cressey, a former National Security Council staff member in the Clinton and current Bush Administrations.

The question of the FBI’s role split witnesses at the hearing of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security that Gregg chaired in September. John Yoo, a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley and a former Justice Department official in the Bush administration, argued for reorganizing the FBI to isolate its crime-fighting responsibilities from its counterterrorism functions.

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge and University of Chicago Law School senior lecturer Richard Posner, however, countered that a separate agency similar to MI5 is needed.

“I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t have a counterpart” to MI5, Posner said in an interview. “I think we need a new organization.”

However, Posner said, he realizes that should a similar agency be established in the United States, adjustments would have to be made to satisfy the constitutional constraints of the U.S. legal system.

In Britain, MI5 agents and police officers are given greater freedom than American counterintelligence officers in the methods they employ to gather intelligence and question suspects.

“Things like profiling aren’t illegal in Britain,” said Cuthbertson, who is Scottish and has lived in London. “They profile the airports and on the subway and in train stations and that kind of thing.”

He added that “the British police and intelligence services routinely tap telephones without any problem in Britain.”

Phone tapping is more controversial in the United States, as witnessed by the criticism of President Bush’s authorizing wiretaps on citizens after 9/11.

But at Sen. Gregg’s September hearing, witnesses and subcommittee members focused specifically on the U.S. policy of holding terrorism suspects who are U.S. citizens without charges for no more than 48 hours. The witnesses agreed that U.S. officials should consider following the British model, which has a 28-day limit.

In his written statement to the committee, Posner concluded that one of the primary lessons the United States could take from the British is “the need for detention of terrorism suspects beyond the conventional 48-hour limit.”

When asked whether the longer time limit was crucial to Britain’s success, Cressey replied, “I think it gives them time, and whenever you’re doing counterterrorism work, it’s a race against time.”

But Cressey said he didn’t see the United States ever adopting a detention time similar to Britain’s 28 days.

That’s a flexibility that you’re never going to see in the U.S. system,” Cressey said. “I think it would immediately provoke a court challenge, and I would be very surprised if the Supreme Court upheld it.”

While Britain’s methods are seen as more intrusive by people in the United States, Cuthbertson said “people [in Britain] are much more tolerant of government interference in their lives” because it is seen as necessary.

“People don’t have the knee-jerk suspicion of government and counterintelligence and counterterrorism that you have here,” Cuthbertson said.

Cuthbertson attributed this to Britain’s “longer history of dealing with terrorism,” and he recalled his experiences living in London during an Irish Republican Army bombing attack.

In the United States, terrorism was not considered a threat until the mid-1980s, Posner said, and “there wasn’t widespread recognition of this threat until 9/11.”

Cressey stressed that the British success hinges on “their intelligence collection that they have on the ground: penetration of suspect locales, the ability to go into mosques and identify individuals who are gathering outside of mosques and a network of, not just informants, but relationships that generate information for them.”

“There is recruitment of individuals there [Britain] that if we don’t figure out a better way to get a handle on it, we’re going to miss opportunities to disrupt potential terrorist cells,” Cressey said.

Good communication between U.S. intelligence gathering agencies and the estimated 800,000 local police is another lesson to be learned from the British, some witnesses said.

Local police officers “ought to be the eyes and ears of the intelligence community,” Posner said. They should, he said, be “the major gatherers of domestic intelligence.”

In his written statement, Tom Parker, a witness at the September hearing and a former member of MI5, said “the greatest single strength of the British approach to counterterrorism is the high degree of coordination that now extends throughout the national security hierarchy.”

Similarly, Gregg praised MI5’s “focused approach to anti-terrorism,” calling the agency “one shop committed to coordinating counterterrorism efforts.”

The answer to America’s counterterrorism problems may ultimately lie within the country’s boarders. Both Cuthbertson and Cressey praised the intelligence-gathering methods of the New York Police Department.

Of local police forces in the United States, Cressey said, “the NYPD is the best of the best when it comes to intelligence collection on the ground and counterterrorism capability.”

Compared to the British, “the NYPD is a better example because their approach already factors in the civil liberty concerns that are unique to the U.S. and certainly different from Britain,” Cressey said. “It’s already demonstrated that it can work within the requirements of the U.S. legal system.”

We need to be constantly looking at our intelligence gathering methods and looking for areas of improvement, Gregg said.

“I just want to find out if there’s a better way to do things.”

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Has the Over-fishing Debate Gone Hollywood?

December 13th, 2006 in Anika Clark, Fall 2006 Newswire, Massachusetts

OVER-FISHING
The Standard-Times
Anika Clark
Boston University News Service
12/13.06

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13—New England fishermen and Hollywood bigwigs have often found themselves at odds in the continuous fight over fishing regulations.

Entertainment A-listers have long participated in environmental issues. From bio-diesel
fuel to global warming, where there’s a cause, there’s a celebrity, and the oceans are no exception.

But for many local fishermen, there is a dark side to the spotlight.

“They bring in status,” said Raymond Canastra of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction. “They bring in money, which is putting people out of business.”

The fight reached a climax just before Congress adjourned for the year with the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which provides for a system of fishery management that requires rebuilding of over-fished stocks—through regulations such as limits on catch size and days at sea.

Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass), Richard Pombo (R-Calif) and Don Young (R-AK), were unsuccessful in their attempt to add exceptions to the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s requirement that over-fished stocks be rebuilt within 10 years. The legislation, as passed by the 109th Congress in its last day in session, retained rigid restrictions on all species but summer flounder, which Rep. Frank said he found somewhat random.

“There’s no logic that says you should do this for summer flounder and not for other species,” said Rep. Frank.

Two environmental organizations that opposed the Pombo-Frank bill—Oceana and the Natural Resources Defense Council— display prominent celebrity names as supporters and board members including actors Robert Redford, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ted Danson, Pierce Brosnan, Kelsey Grammer and singer James Taylor.

Both organizations argued on their Web sites that the Pombo-Frank bill would have weakened efforts to rebuild over-fished stocks. And in 2004, both organizations filed complaints against the federal government, citing concerns about bycatch as well as inadequate protection of certain types of fish. The Natural Resources Defense Council asserted that current regulations didn’t do enough to protect against the over-fishing of some North Atlantic species, whereas Oceana was concerned about habitat protection for cod.

The Pombo-Frank bill was intended to provide additional flexibility in setting fishing limits if the law imposed excessive hardships on fishing communities, which many local fishermen say is the case.

“It’s a disaster. Financially? A disaster,” said Carlos Rafael of Dartmouth, who owns 24 fishing vessels. “Insurance is a disaster. The regulations [are] a killer.” He added, “A business in this country should be profitable, and it’s not right now…. It’s just staying afloat, with difficulty.”

New Bedford Mayor Scott W. Lang, who supported the Pombo-Frank bill’s flexible fishery rebuilding plan, said the existing system of regulations “makes it extremely difficult to be able to fish and earn a living.”

And Rep. Frank predicted that if the newly enacted law is not changed, “I think you will see a reduction in the number of people fishing. That, in turn, has a negative effect on the city.”

Before becoming executive director of the New Bedford Seafood Coalition, Jim Kendall, a fishing industry advocate, worked at a local family assistance center, which helped provide job skills to fishing families needing supplemental income. He estimated that, under current regulations, fishers of area groundfish are allowed to work an average of only about 30 days a year, “if that many.”

Manny Magalhaes, a New Bedford skipper, said that he can fish 56 days a year but that this varies among fishermen.

“The economic situation is much worse than what the situation is for the species themselves,” Mr. Kendall said. “If they want to talk about something that’s truly threatened, they need to look no further than your average commercial fisherman.”

Of Mr. Danson, he said, “I refuse to watch any of his programs. I won’t allow him to be played in my house.”

Despite these strong feelings, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how closely these celebrities follow the issues and regulations which directly affect New Bedford fishermen beyond donating money to environmental organizations.

Roberta Elias, oceans advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said neither Mr. Redford nor Mr. DiCaprio is associated with the organization’s ocean program. However, Mr. DiCaprio’s interest in ocean protection is noted in an interview with him that appeared in a 2005 issue of Oceana Magazine and his eco-Web site, www.leonardodicaprio.org, mentions over-fishing after stating that “the oceans are in trouble.”

The Web site also provides a link to a narrated slide show that, while hailing fishermen for being representatives of American character, states that “current projections say the North Atlantic fisheries will disappear completely before today’s five-year-olds learn to drive.”

As for Mr. Danson, in addition to raising funds for Oceana and appearing in promotional videos, he addressed the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy in 2002. Danson urged the commission to help “improve and enforce basic fishery management laws so that we protect essential fish habitats, eliminate over-fishing and stop wasteful bycatch.”

George Darcy, an assistant regional administrator for sustainable fisheries at the National Marine Fisheries Service, a branch of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, said he believes the efforts by celebrities to draw attention to the issue of over-fishing has resulted in more widespread awareness by the public. Instead of receiving letters only from coastal areas like Massachusetts and Maine, Darcy said he now gets notes about groundfish conservation from people in Iowa.

Fishing ship owner Carlos Rafael said it’s easy for celebrities and environmentalists to grab media attention but it’s much tougher for average fishermen to be heard.

As well as exposure, there is also the potential for star-wattage contributions and fund raising. Keith Addis, who is Mr. Danson’s manager through Industry Entertainment and serves as vice chairman of Oceana’s board, said, “I have put [in] a great deal of money—of my own money—over the years, and I’ve raised a very considerable amount of money with Ted Danson for the organization. Millions and millions of dollars.”

And in a 2005 issue of Oceana Magazine, featured on the organization’s Web site, Mr. Danson was quoted as saying that after “getting paid lots of money for Cheers” and becoming concerned with how to be responsible with it, “I decided to put all of my time, energy and money into one thing—AOC.” (The American Oceans Campaign, which Danson founded in 1987 and merged with Oceana in 2002.)

Oceana’s 990 tax forms indicate that the organization’s net assets or fund balances for the end of the 2004 calendar year were $8,102,185.

By contrast, the New Bedford Seafood Coalition ceased in 2001 to be a formal advocacy group for area fishermen because of lack of financing, according to Mr. Kendall. Before closing shop, he said, the group had subsisted primarily on federal and city funding.

Still, Mr. Kendall said he continues to support local fishermen even without the backing of a formal coalition and the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership offers advocacy as well.

“We’ve got several groups that work diligently trying to support the industry, but no one or nothing with that type of persona behind it,” he said, referring to celebrity activists. According to Mr. Rafael, the closest New England fishermen have to a public voice is Rep. Frank.

Nevertheless, any sign of Mr. Danson directly targeting New England fishermen—if he ever has at all—is hard to find. As his manager explained, “I don’t think you’ll find celebrities weighing into the regional issues specifically because frankly, [neither] they nor I have enough information to do that intelligently.”

But if you ask some local fishermen, that is part of the problem.

“[Celebrities] don’t have actually a clue what goes on, on this side of it,” Mr. Canastra said. “I don’t know if they’d have the same attitude if they knew the whole story.” Mr. Kendall echoed this, saying, “I don’t think they’re cognizant of the harm that they’re actually causing.”

But in a matter as complicated as fishing regulation, which involves thousands of players and often comes down to choosing among evils, even the notion of “harm” can be relative.

“We’re concerned about the impacts of crashed fisheries on coastal communities,” said Oceana’s federal policy director, Ted Morton, echoing the common environmentalist argument that severely depleting a fishery would cause even greater economic damage.

As for the extent of local economic suffering, Mr. Magalhaes offered a much more optimistic view of fishing in New Bedford than did others in the industry. Even under current regulations, he said, it’s still possible for local fishermen to earn a living.

Meanwhile, environmentalists haven’t been the only ones to find fault with Reps. Pombo and Frank’s more flexible timeline for fish stock revival. “Slowly implementing things means it’s that much harder to rebuild,” said Dr. Andrew Rosenberg, a former deputy director of the National Marine Fisheries Service. “It’s basically death by a thousand cuts.”

Public relations representatives for Mr. Danson declined to comment for this article. But in his defense, Mr. Addis, his manager, described the actor’s “passionate involvement” in ocean conservation and stressed, “None of the celebrities nor any of us on the board want to do anything except make it possible for there to be enough fish—for them to make a living and to feed our country…for decades and decades to come.”

Still, Mr. Kendall said, it would be nice if a celebrity took on the cause of local fishermen. “It’s unfortunate that we can’t get someone from that notable group—[from] the celebrity group,” he said, “to say… ‘[fishermen are] not rapists of the ocean. They’re farmers of the sea.’”

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Sen. Gregg Part of Bipartisan Trip to South America

December 13th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Kendra Gilbert, New Hampshire

Machu Picchu
New Hampshire Union Leader
Kendra Gilbert
Boston University Washington News Service
12-13-06

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 – New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg will get a chance to bond with the incoming Democratic Senate leadership on a bipartisan trip to South America at the end of the year.

The bipartisan convoy – which includes Gregg and five other senators – will make stops in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, meeting with leaders in each country along the way, according to a statement issued by Gregg’s office.

Gregg was unavailable for comment.

Joining Gregg on the military-chartered journey are incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and soon-to-be Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. will also make the trip. And The Washington Post reported that Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. and Robert Bennett, R-Utah will round out the six-man group of senators.

Gregg’s wife Kathleen also will accompany her husband on the trip, according to Gregg’s office. Some of the other senators also will be joined by their spouses, along with aides and military personnel, The Post reported.

According to the statement from Gregg’s office, the six-day trip is “worthwhile substantively as these nations are important to the U.S., especially with the rising anti-Americanism being fed to the region by Hugo Chavez.”

Key issues to be addressed by the senators include trade, narcotics, economics and developing governments, the statement said.

Business aside, the group will make a stop in the Lost City of the Incas, better known as Machu Picchu, in Peru.

Gregg and his fellow travelers will have a chance to explore the ancient city, which sits nearly 8,000 feet above the Urubamba Valley on the side of a mountain ridge.

The isolated location should give Gregg a chance to get to better know his Democratic colleagues, which could prove important in the next Congress. According to the statement from Gregg’s office, bipartisanship “is going to be critical in Congress next year, which most people have signaled they want to see developed.”

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Democrats Gearing Up for Changes in Medicare Drug Plans

December 12th, 2006 in Connecticut, Fall 2006 Newswire, Tia Albright

DRUGS
The New Britain Herald
Tia Albright
Boston University Washington News Service
December 12, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 – Democrats hit the midterm election campaign trail this year promising to repeal a ban on the government’s negotiating with manufacturers for lower prescription drug prices. But as the January shift of power nears, the new majority must prepare to face some hurdles.

The Medicare Part D prescription drug program, which Congress created in 2003, has been criticized for not lowering prices enough but praised for being less expensive and more effective than expected.

Congressman-elect Christopher Murphy (D-5th), who pushed hard for health care reform as a state senator and in his campaign against Rep. Nancy Johnson, said that reducing constraints on the government is his primary concern.

“There is no way to explain the prohibition of bulk purchasing, except that it was asked for by the drug companies,” Murphy said. “To me and a lot of people in Connecticut, it makes sense to immediately give the government the power to negotiate prices in order to reduce the cost of the program.”

Johnson, an author of the Part D legislation, has praised the current Medicare program.

Part D, which added drug coverage to Medicare, includes dozens of stand-alone drug insurance plans. Most plans pay 75 percent of prescription costs up to $2,400 each year and 95 percent when beneficiaries’ costs exceed $3,850. But between those two amounts—the so-called coverage gap or “doughnut hole”—most plans cover none of the costs. There are only a few plans, with higher premiums, that offer coverage of some or all drug costs during the gap.

Connecticut’s prescription drug plans offer 51 coverage options, with monthly premiums ranging from $13.40 to $87.40. Fifteen of the plans seek to alleviate the problems associated with the doughnut hole by offering coverage during the gap. But only two of these will cover both generic and preferred brand-name drugs; the 13 others will cover generic drugs only.

Murphy said that allowing the government to directly negotiate prescription drug prices would help lower the cost.

Despite the debate over the government’s power to negotiate the costs and the extent of coverage during the gap, some experts and pharmaceutical representatives argue that the program has surpassed expectations, saved money and has a high satisfaction rate among beneficiaries.

Marilyn Moon, the director of the health program at the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, said that even if the Democrats lift the negotiating ban, they would need the cooperation of the government’s prominent health care officials.

“I think the government certainly could negotiate for lower prices, but it’s difficult to take that one restriction, repeal it and assume that everything will work fine,” said Moon, who is a former trustee of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

The Democrats would need the cooperation of Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt, whose department is responsible for decisions on health care, Moon said.

“He certainly said that he wouldn’t do it and that he doesn’t want to do it, so that is a major complication,” Moon said.

Murphy said he hopes Leavitt will decide to cooperate, but if not, it would be necessary to make direct negotiations mandatory.

A September survey by J.D. Power and Associates found that nearly 80 percent of the 3,400 beneficiaries surveyed were satisfied with the current program.

Urban Institute president Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said the program has performed surprisingly well.

“Our worst fears have not come to pass,” he said. “There are problems with the drug benefit, but they’re embedded in the structure imposed by legislation.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could get prescription drugs cheaper than they are being sold for, but if Medicare is going to set prices and say they will not pay anything higher, that is not negotiation but imposition, Reischauer said.

The program is saving seniors hundreds of dollars a year while helping them live healthier lives, said Ken Johnson, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents drug companies.

“The negotiations are occurring – as they should be – between prescription drug plans, several of which already purchase medicines on behalf of tens of millions of Americans, and pharmaceutical companies,” he said.

The program was expected to cost the government $633 billion over 10 years, but that estimate has been lowered $516 billion, said Jeff Nelligan, director of media affairs for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The Medicare Part D drugs benefit has enrolled 22.5 million seniors since it took effect in January. Experts had estimated that the average monthly premium for 2006 would be $37 per month and close to $40 for 2007. However, the average 2006 premium was $24 and will remain the same in 2007, Nelligan said.

“Competition among the insurance plans and the drug manufacturers has resulted in the low prices that will continue into 2007,” Nelligan said.

A poll conducted in early November shows that a majority of Americans favor allowing the government to negotiate prescription drug prices.

In the survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit foundation focused on health care issues, 85 percent of the 1,867 adults polled, including majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents, said they favored government negotiations.

John C. Rother, policy director for AARP, a lobby for senior citizens, said he thinks that there is more than one way for the government to help lower drug prices.

“The current program has been remarkably successful, given all of the obstacles faced, but it hasn’t done what many of us hoped it would do, in a sense that it hasn’t put enough pressure on the manufacturers to lower prices,” he said.

Rother suggested that the government can do a number of other things to pressure the drug companies, including legalizing importation of drugs from Canada and other countries, increasing research on which drugs work best and pricing them accordingly, and restricting practices that hike prices – such as direct-to-consumer advertising.

“Lifting the ban is certainly the first step to doing a number of things that people think would improve the prescription drug plan,” Moon said. “So, I think it’s not a bad thing to do, but Congress would have to make other changes to ensure that it happens and it’s effective.”

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