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):

Lieberman Urges Extension of Office for Iraq Watchdog

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

SIGIR
The Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
11-14-06

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 —The Senate Tuesday voted to extend the life of the watchdog for the billions of taxpayer dollars spent in Iraq.

Without that vote, the office of Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction would expire next Oct. 1.

The Senate action came only hours after Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and a bipartisan group of Senators called for approval of a bill to extend the term of the agency.

With the extension, the office would continue to operate through late 2008.

“The special inspector general must be allowed to continue his aggressive work on behalf of our country and our taxpayers as long as their money, our money, is being spent in Iraq,” Lieberman said at a press conference.

Initiated as an amendment to the 2003 Defense Authorization Bill, the office was created to oversee the billions of dollars being spent on Iraq reconstruction. The new bill proposes that the office continue to exist until 10 months after 80 percent of the Iraq reconstruction money has been expended.

Lieberman and other Senate co-sponsors said they never saw the version of the bill Congress approved before the elections that included the early-termination provision.

“I don’t believe that the leaders of the committee on the Senate side or their staffs knew it was in there, and I think we can determine it was put in by House staff – but anyway, it’s pretty clear that this shouldn’t have been in there,” Lieberman said.

Lieberman called Stuart Bowen, who heads the special office, an “extraordinarily able and appropriately aggressive individual.”

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), who co-sponsored the bill, agreed.

“I have to give the Bush Administration credit – they appointed an excellent person, and they stood behind Stuart Bowen, who has issued report after report and been diligent in coming back to me and Sen. [Susan] Collins (R-ME), and is showing the work of this program,” he said.

Lieberman said that Bowen and his team have found evidence of enormous amounts of waste and fraud in U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq. The office has reported that the U.S. government can not account for nearly $9 billion distributed to the Iraqi government and that the U.S. government lost track of thousands of nine-millimeter pistols, as well as hundreds of assault riffles and other weapons distributed to Iraqi authorities.

It also reported that defense contractor “Halliburton wasted $75 million on a failed pipeline project, after ignoring consultants’ advice that the project should be further studied before their work on it began,” Lieberman said.

“I will add that the oversight efforts by other agencies have quite frankly been inadequate,” he said.

###

A Marine Comes Home, Just in Time For Veteran’s Day

November 9th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Jamie Hammon, Washington, DC

VETERANS DAY
The Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
11-09-06

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 –Lance Corporal Jimmy Louis heard a shot ring out, saw a muzzle flash and sparks hit his jacket, and felt shrapnel hit his face.

When he looked down, he realized he’d been shot.

The young Marine had been caught off guard while cordoning off a portion of a street in Fallujah, Iraq. Distracted by an old man who was causing raucous with some members of Louis’ unit, his chest had become the target for the sniper positioned two buildings away.

Louis returned to his Norwalk home on October 25, healthy and walking tall at 6’4”. In his bags were the mementos of his eight-month term of service in Iraq: the bullet pierced jacket and body armor that had saved his life, and the shrapnel that had cut his face.

“To walk around and not answer to anybody, not to wonder if you’re going to live or die the next day – anything remotely civilized is what you miss,” Louis said.

He became a Marine on June 1, 2003, just a few months after the United States invaded Iraq, when he joined Charlie Company 1st Battalion 25th Marines Regiment. He told only his immediate family of his enrollment, and it wasn’t until the young recruit went off to boot camp that his friends realized the warm and polite “Jim Lou,” as they called him, would probably be deployed to Iraq.

“I was not happy about it,” said Chris Sacco, a friend of Louis’ since high school. “He’s like a brother to me, and I know everything that’s going on in Iraq. I was like, ‘dude – no.’”

Louis has returned just in time to be one of the millions of veterans honored internationally this weekend at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. It is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War I, known in the United States as Veteran’s Day.

With a theme of “Honor Our Veterans – Support Our Troops,” Norwalk’s Veteran’s Day activities will kick off at 9:30 a.m., with a concert at the Norwalk Concert Hall at City Hall. Ceremonies will begin at 10:30 with keynote speaker Mort Walker.

As is tradition around the world, a moment of silence will be observed at 11 a.m.; a time to reflect, with appreciation, pride, love and sadness, the sacrifices made by service men and women everywhere.

“They had their mixed emotions,” Louis said of his family’s reaction to the news that he would be sent to Iraq. They asked him questions like: Why are you going? Is it your choice? Is there a way you can get out of it?

“I was scared, really scared,” said Janine Andre, Louis’ mother. “I didn’t think he was going to go so soon.”

But Louis, a 2001 graduate of Brien McMahon High School, said he knew what he was getting into, that he desired the challenge, and wanted a “kick in the butt.”

Louis’ time in Fallujah was a “rollercoaster.” He experienced the chaos and terror on the streets of Fallujah, saw close friends die, and had his own close encounter with death on July 26.

Louis owes his life to the body armor all Marines are required to wear. The additional body armor was recently issued to the Marines, and though many complain that it is cumbersome – Louis estimated the plate and jacket totaled a combined 50 pounds – it is clearly effective.

“He showed me the bulletproof jacket he was wearing, and the hole that was there, it was – oh man – it was so deep it went down to the last layer of the steel plate and the Teflon underneath that,” said Sacco. “So thank God for that. Definitely thank God for that.”

The bullet was armor-piercing, Louis recalled.

“It went all the way down to the last sheet of metal,” he said. “I still came out with a cut about a centimeter away from my heart.”

Louis suffered only extensive bruising on his chest and about a week and a half in recovery. But the shot that would have otherwise killed him caused Louis more psychological than physical damage.

“My life flashed before my eyes,” Louis said. “I thought, ‘You’re alive – do you really want to keep doing this?’”

He did keep doing it, for another three months, but he had to avoid thinking about the things back home that he missed, or else he would lose concentration.

While there, he enjoyed hanging out with the other members of his unit, many of whom will now be lifelong friends. They listened to music, watched bootlegged American movies and television shows with Iraqi subtitles, and played basketball.

Louis also continued with a pastime he has enjoyed since kindergarten – art. He kept up a sketchbook while overseas, often sketching the members of his platoon, and plans on pursuing his artistic inclinations to graphic design by enrolling at Southern Connecticut University in the spring.

“He is warm, friendly, willing to take risks in his artwork,” said John Tate, who was Louis’ art teacher from kindergarten through high school.

Louis arrived back in Hartford with his unit on October 25.

“It was the most anticipated day of everyone’s life in the whole unit,” Louis said. “While we were going down the stairs we saw mobs of people – everyone cheering, yelling, screaming. The guys started to tear up, and some couldn’t even go out they were so nervous.”

“We stood in formation and then our [commanding officer] said, ‘Your tour in Iraq is over. You’re done.’”

###

Weighing in on Homework: Is the Load Too Heavy?

November 7th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Jamie Hammon, Washington, DC

Homework
Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
11-7-06

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7--Fifteen questions for Algebra. Three chapters for English. A worksheet for French. Oh yeah, and a History test.

That list reads like a nightly homework load for a typical high school student. But is it too much?

That is the question that has recently been on the minds of researchers, authors, the media – and the Norwalk school district, which is evaluating its homework policy. In light of recent research that has shown much of homework to be ineffective in helping students learn, all are asking the same question: how should homework policies be changed?

Education experts like Ron Wolk, founding editor of “Education Week” and “Teacher Magazine,” and Jay Mathews, author and education reporter for The Washington Post, debated last week at The National Academies, a group of research and advisory organizations in Washington.

“Do I think homework is too onerous for most kids? For most kids, the answer is a very strong ‘yes,’” Wolk said. “If I were the Imperial Wizard, I’d be tempted to ban homework, but it doesn’t have to be this way. I might relent if I could be convinced the schools would be thoughtful about it.”

Dr. Salvatore Corda, superintendent of Norwalk public schools, said that the district is considering the issue and evaluating its current homework policy.

“We are looking into [questions like] what should homework look like? What should the length of homework be? What’s appropriate for elementary, middle, and high school children? If every high school teacher gives half an hour of homework, kids could have three hours of homework each night – is that reasonable?” Corda said.

Karen Lang, who is assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for the Norwalk schools, chairs a committee looking at the district’s homework policy. Lang said she met with a group of administrators over the summer and they looked at school systems throughout the state. The committee’s preliminary recommendations are now in the hands of principals, who will review them with their faculties, but Lang said the process is quite long and controversial.

“We believe there is a place for homework, but there are very strong differences of opinion about what that should look like,” Lang said.

Mathews said last week that the notion that students are getting buried by homework is largely based on myth. Though there are regions – particularly those with very good high schools – where some students do four and five hours of homework each night, he said those heavy loads are the result of demands students place on themselves.

“Why do they have stressful lives?” Mathews asked. “Because they think stressful lives are fun! Many of [those students] are looking at parents who have stressful lives – overscheduled, doing everything at once – and they want the same kinds of life, so they sign up for five AP classes.”

According to the latest survey by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the average 15- to 17-year-old spends about 50 minutes a day doing homework – not an oppressive amount of time when compared to the two and a half hours a day the group spent watching television and at the computer.

“There is always going to be a difference between the student who takes three or four honors classes and the one who isn’t taking a deeply enriched track,” said Lang. “That said, there should be some guidelines to how long each student should be spending.”

But Wolk said it is not the time spent doing homework that is the problem, but that the problem is the homework itself.

“What schools do in the six hours they have kids caged in classrooms, they don’t do very well for the majority of the kids,” said Wolk. “And it makes me wonder why we should be any more optimistic that what they do with the kids after school is going to make any more sense.”

Wolk said that kids get bored and frustrated with school because there is such a discrepancy between the school world and the real world, and all homework does is “extend the school world longer into the life of these kids when they really ought to be out in the real world.”

“I am of the opinion that homework needs to be a task that is given to students that challenges them more in terms of thinking about a problem and how one solves a problem, as opposed to, you know, go answer 15 questions as the end of the chapter,” Corda said.

He said that the Norwalk committee’s final policy recommendation will go to the school board and will guide the new way district schools assign homework.

###

Before Election Day, Follow the Money

October 19th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Jamie Hammon, Washington, DC

FEC-Norwalk
The Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
10-19-06

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 —Most people are aware that behind every prominent politician is a well-endowed campaign coffer. But do they know exactly who has provided the money to the candidates they will be choosing among this Election Day?

Campaign finance records have been public record since the 1970s, but a pair of user-friendly Web sites has made that information accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.

Candidates have to report all contributions over $200 – everything from the personal check from the guy next door to the contribution from a major interest group – to the Federal Election Commission. And Web sites like those for the Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org) and Political Money Line (www.politicalmoneyline.com) have organized and analyzed those numbers. That means one can monitor not just the money politicians are getting, but also the money one’s neighbors and friends are giving.

“It is very important for voters to know how politicians are funding their campaigns,” said Gary Rose, professor of government and politics at Sacred Heart University and an expert in Connecticut politics.

“It certainly gives a good idea as to what policies they will pursue in the future and what their ideological orientation is,” Rose said. “If you follow the money, so to speak, you can get an idea of where the candidates are coming from and what their agendas will be.”

Campaign financing numbers are especially important this year in Connecticut’s 4th District, where the rematch this year between Rep. Chris Shays (R) and Democratic challenger Diane Farrell is not only one of the closest House races in the country, but also the fifth most expensive: Shays raised $3,193,031, triple the average incumbent’s $1,083,054; Farrell raised $2,485,506, 11 times as much as the average challenger’s $223,787.

Add that more 4th District voters are registered as Independents than as Democrats or Republicans, and the amount of cash each candidate has on hand becomes crucial as Election Day draws near. According to the candidates' filings with the Federal Election Commission, Shays on Sept. 30, the end of the most recent reporting period, had about $1.6 million and Farrell about $812,000, and that money will probably go to the television advertising that “alters that large block of unaffiliated voters,” Rose said.

The Web sites that track campaign financing have increased the transparency of money in politics, which may have increased the legitimacy of political contributions, said Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics.

“[Politicians] know that this information is publicly disclosed and that people can look at it, and so in certain situations they may think twice about taking someone’s money,” Ritsch said. “The check that they could collect is not worth the political headache that they might feel for taking a contribution like that.”

But if investigating a candidate’s financial integrity is not enough motivation to explore these sites, perhaps the ability to spy on one’s neighbors is. Users of opensecrets.org can find out what political campaigns their neighbors have contributed to, or find out what individual donors from their zip codes are making the largest contributions to each candidate. Click on the “who gives” tab, then “donor lookup,” then enter the state, the zip code and the election cycles.

“Everyone has a little bit of a voyeur in them, and they want to know whether the person next door to them shares their political affiliations,” Ritsch said. “Again, it’s only the bigger donors, those who give more than $200, but in most zip codes you are going to see somebody you know.”

Ritsch said that it’s hard to know exactly who is coming to the site, but he knows that it is also visited by the voting public. “We hear from reporters and activists, but the voters – we know they’re out there, they’re just more quiet than the others,” he said.

Rose said that if Connecticut’s voting public knew about the sites, they probably would use them as well.

“Nobody ever knows about this stuff,” he said. “You hear issues about [how much candidates have raised], but nobody really knows the genesis of it.”

“The people who vote, particularly in a congressional election, would be the type of people to want to know this type of information,” Rose said.

###

New York Receives “F” for Roadway Evacuation Ability

October 12th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Jamie Hammon, New York

EVACUATION-HOUR
The Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
10-12-06

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12-- If a disaster caused everyone to evacuate New York City tomorrow, the evacuation itself might be a disaster, according to a new study released Thursday, which gave the city an “F” grade for its evacuation capabilities.

New York was not alone in its poor grade. The study, conducted by the American Highway Users Alliance, assessed the evacuation capacity of the 37 U.S. urban areas with populations of more than one million, and found that more than half of the areas failed. The alliance is a non-profit advocacy organization that represents the transportation community.

In the wake of epic catastrophes like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, the issue of mass evacuation is both brand new and of undeniable importance.

“This study makes clear that not only the physical infrastructure must be adequate to accommodate large volumes of traffic with short notice, but also the operational infrastructure must be adequate,” said Peter J. Pantuso, president of the American Bus Association, which helped fund the study.

One piece of good news from the study, said Gregory M. Cohen, president of the American Highway Users Alliance, is that nearly every area is better off when it comes to automobile access than New Orleans was in 2005.

There was one exception, however. “Only New York scores lower,” Cohen said.

Even though 90 percent of those who commute from Connecticut to New York rely on railways rather than roadways, they are still not immune to the congestion.

“We don’t have enough seats for passengers as it is – we have passengers that are paying $300 a month as it is to stand for an hour each way,” said Jim Cameron, chairman of Connecticut Metro North Rail Commuter Council. “So if there was an evacuation, if there was something that had to be immediate – the trains are jammed as it is.”

There are 2,400 Norwalk residents who commute daily by train to New York.

Suggestions made in the study include the creation of bus-exclusive lanes, expanded roadways, increased automobile accessibility among low-income households, more complete planning from transportation officials, and the establishment of national urban evacuation standards by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“The dedicated bus lane I think is a good idea,” Cameron said. “Bus lanes I think make sense in areas that don’t have the density to support a rail infrastructure. But you can’t put a bus on a crowded highway and expect to attract riders, because now they are stuck in traffic, but they are stuck with people they’d rather not be sitting next to.”

Metro-North Railroad has contingency plans in place in case of an emergency, said spokesman Dan Brucker. “We let the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the New York City Office of Emergency Management know what kinds of equipment we have available and how many trains we can manage in and out of Grand Central Station,” he said.

The new study presents a challenge, Pantuso said, “to cities, states, planners, and both private and public entities. We must work together in order for our road system and our operational planning to meet the challenge of mass evacuation so that, together, we can deliver people to safety.”

####

Internet Facilitates a Deluge of Mail to Congress

October 5th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Jamie Hammon, Washington, DC

MAIL
The Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
10-5-06

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5--By this time each election year, lawmakers have returned to their districts to engage in the face-to-face interaction with voters that is so crucial to their reelection campaigns.

But when congressmen are not around to shake hands and talk in person, many voters interact with their representatives via mail – through more than 200 million pieces of mail each year, in fact, according to a recent study conducted by the Congressional Management Foundation.

“People communicate by mail, email, or telephone calls and all their messages get recorded,” said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. “Sometimes the letters take us weeks, if not months, to respond to because they ask such difficult questions.”

Though most of those surveyed for the study said the convenience of electronic communication had enhanced the democratic process, the explosive growth of the Internet in recent years has presented members of Congress with a new dilemma: how to respond to it all.

Despite the explosion of electronic communications since the 1995 introduction of the Internet to Capitol Hill, the sizes of the staff who deal with the mail have not changed, said Kathy Goldschmidt, deputy director of the Congressional Management Foundation and the co-author of the study. The Congressional Management Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting a more effective Congress.

“It varies day by day, but on average we receive 250 emails a day,” said Sarah Moore, Shays’ press secretary. “When we are in session, we may get more.”

Moore said Shays’ office has seven staffers who respond to mail, all of whom have additional responsibilities beyond correspondence (Senate offices, on the other hand have dedicated mail responders).

On top of all those emails, Shays’ office receives 40 to 50 phone calls per day, 50 to 70 faxes every day and 50 to 70 pieces of mail a day – a combined 700 communications every week, Moore said. All those contacts are then sorted and given to the appropriate legislative staffer who handles the issue.

“We encourage communications from all constituents, whether individually or through interest groups,” said Moore. She noted that Shays’ office does not block emails routed from lobbying groups’ Web sites, a practice of some other members’ office.

Norwalk resident Anita Schmidt, 64, said she has contacted Shays on multiple occasions during his seven terms, through both electronic and paper mail, and has received a timely response each time.

“I’ve sent letters in regard to things I was interested in – one was to not have any cut to higher education when they were doing the budget,” said Schmidt. She said a response came from Shays’ office within about a month, and that the response she received always made reference to the issue she wrote about.

“We appreciate people who contact us – and we do a lot of listening,” Shays said. “We do a lot of learning from our constituents.”

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‘John Doe’ Librarians Recognized During Banned Book Week

September 28th, 2006 in Connecticut, Fall 2006 Newswire, Jamie Hammon

JOHN DOE
The Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
9/28/06

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 —Four Connecticut librarians were honored Thursday for defending the privacy of their patrons from government access.

The “John Doe” librarians, comprised of the executive board of Library Connection, Inc., a Hartford based consortium of libraries, acquired their title in 2005 when they refused to surrender patron information requested by the FBI in a National Security Letter.

The librarians refused to comply with the letter, declaring their – and the law’s – commitment to patron privacy. They are Executive Director George Christian, President Peter Chase, Secretary Barbara Bailey, and Board Member Janet Nocek.

“The letter was a shock to us,” Chase said. “We are librarians. We believe deeply in intellectual freedom “We believe that the choice of what [patrons] read and research in the library should be private – that privacy is recognized by law in 48 states.”

The case was taken to court and the FBI eventually dropped it – a victory for intellectual freedom advocates which was highlighted at the Banned Book Week celebration at the National Press Club. Banned Book Week honors the unhindered freedom to read provided under the nation’s democracy.

National Security Letters, issued by the FBI under the original USA Patriot Act of 2001, authorize the demand of records without prior court approval. Anyone who receives a letter is forbidden to speak of the record demand to anyone.

Of the 150,000 National Security Letter recipients, the John Doe Librarians are the only four allowed to speak, said Christian. The American Civil Liberties Union defended the librarians in court when they refused to surrender the patron information to the FBI.

In the name of national security, the federal government demanded of Christian “all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person” that used a specific computer at a particular library branch. Though the librarians acknowledged the importance of the terrorist threat, they said their commitment to patron privacy as supported by the law was their first priority.

“If Library Connection had received a proper court order, we would have complied without any problem,” Chase said. “But the letter we received had no court order with it.This National Security Letter can be served on anyone – you do not have to be suspected of committing any criminal act to receive one.”

###

Dodd Condemns Voter ID Bill

September 27th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Jamie Hammon, Washington, DC

MINORITIES
The Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
9-27-06

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 —Legislation that would require voters to present photo identification before casting a ballot is “flat out wrong,” Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) said Wednesday.

“It’s unacceptable, it’s un-American, it’s flat out wrong, and we are prepared to do anything necessary that would make sure this law does not pass in the U.S. Senate,” Dodd told reporters.

The Federal Election Integrity Act, which passed the House 228 to 196 last week and is now pending in the Senate, would require voters by 2010 to present a new form of government issued photo identification – called a “Real ID Card” – only obtained through proof of citizenship.

Sen. Hilary Clinton (D-N.Y.), who also appeared at the press conference, said it was a modern day poll tax in that the expected cost for the voter ID card could deter minorities, senior citizens, and disabled persons from voting.

“This is the right upon which all other rights depend,” Dodd said. “The right to vote and to have your vote counted.”

The cost has not yet been determined, and the bill’s proponents say that states could provide free voter IDs for low-income citizens.

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), who voted for passage of the bill in the House, said states like Connecticut already have many of these same requirements in place.

“The bottom line for me is our election law says you have to be a citizen to vote, and proving that you are a citizen seems like a reasonable safeguard to ensure the law is followed,” Shays said in an emailed response to a query.

Dodd said that that the law is already strong enough when it comes to issues of fraud and the penalties that are included, and that passage of the bill would only disenfranchise minorities, low income, and elderly voters.

“This is a solution in search of a problem,” said Dodd. “There is not a single study anywhere that would indicate that people are showing up in person to vote with false identification.”

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Connecticut Cancer Activists Ascend Capitol Hill

September 20th, 2006 in Fall 2006 Newswire, Jamie Hammon, Washington, DC

ADVOCATES
Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
9-20-06

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 – It was a sea of purple t-shirts on Washington’s National Mall and in the halls of Congress Wednesday as Connecticut cancer-survivors and volunteers joined nearly 4,000 from across the nation for the American Cancer Society’s annual lobbying push.

“We’re spending the day celebrating life,” Joe Barbetta of Norwalk said. “We have a number of survivors and a lot of care-givers of people who are fighting the disease in one way or another, and we’re all uniting here, spending the day on Capitol Hill, and taking our message to our leaders.”

Their message was three-fold. First, they asked Congress to expand the funding for breast and cervical cancer screening programs. “We need to make sure it’s getting to the people it needs to get to,” said Barbetta. “Right now it’s only getting to about one in five, and that’s not enough.”

Secondly, they asked Congress for an annual increase of $5 billion for the National Institutes of Health, which includes the National Cancer Institute. “We’re asking for that [increase] on a year to year basis, because just to keep doing what they’re doing year after year doesn’t keep up with inflation,” said Barbetta. “We need to make sure they’re increasing it by five percent every year.”

The final request was that they sign, or reaffirm their commitment to, the society’s “Congressional Cancer Promise,” a vow to push specific pieces legislation aimed at ending suffering and death from cancer by the year 2015.

“It was a very moving meeting,” Sen. Joe Lieberman, who signed the pledge, said of his meeting with Connecticut volunteers. “We’ve all been touched by cancer. I lost my father to colorectal cancer,” he said. “Forty-three percent of us will have some kind of serious cancer in our lifetimes.”

As Barbetta and others from Connecticut met with state representatives, other participants continued their celebration outside on the mall. Each state had its own tent, as well as its own trading cards displaying cancer statistics.

“Everyone’s going around collecting cards from each state, and getting to talk to and see people from other places,” explained Alice Leonard, from Torrington.

American Cancer Society statistics for Connecticut were displayed on the walls of the state’s tent: 4,878 registered cancer-survivors, 32,660 participants, 45 events, and 981 volunteers.

“The reason we collect the data is so we can reach back out to survivors,” said Shannon Stahecki, community executive development officer for Franklin.

“One of our 2015 goals is to raise the quality of life for survivors, and we can only do that by letting them be aware of programs and services that we’re doing, like survivor seminars, look-good-feel-better programs, and pain management initiatives,” Stahecki said. “We want to be able to inform them of all those things in case they want to participate. This is how we can raise their quality of life.”

At dusk, thousands of paper lanterns were lit around the reflecting pool at the Capitol to honor those who triumphed over cancer, and remember those lost.

But the prevailing message of the day was to look ahead rather than behind.

“It’s really about the experience I don’t want to have,” said Barbetta, who has lost both family and friends to cancer. “I am not the son, brother, uncle, or nephew of someone who died of cancer – I want to make sure that that good fortune stays. It’s more about pondering the past, but looking into the future.”

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