The Free View-- weblog of a presidential candidate

News coverage of last night's forum

Here's the story that was in the local paper today about the public forum I held last night. I'll post comments on the article and more about the forum shortly. Pictures, audio and video should follow.

FBI agent: little threat in new act
Copyright 2003, The Union
By John Dickey

Though the times have changed since Sept. 11, people's civil liberties aren't being threatened, area law enforcement officials stressed at a public forum Tuesday.

"A lot of what you fear is not tied to what our reality is," said Michael Mason, special agent in charge of the FBI's Sacramento division.

But some are concerned that new laws like the Patriot Act indeed have the potential to erode civil liberties.

"We do consider the USA Patriot Act as something passed too quickly, under duress," said Nevada County Librarian Steve Fjeldsted, who is concerned about the confidentiality of library information.

A civil liberties attorney, a librarian and law enforcement officials came together Tuesday night at a "Law Enforcement and the War on Terror in Nevada County" forum put together by local Libertarian Lance Brown.

Close to 100 people showed up at the Center for the Arts to hear the panel guests, which included Mason, Fjeldsted, Nevada County Sheriff Keith Royal, Lt. Commander Ed Michalkiewicz, of the California Highway Patrol; Grass Valley Police Chief John Foster, Nevada City Police Chief Lou Travato, Truckee Police Chief Dan Boone, and Graham Noyes, a Nevada City civil liberties lawyer. The forum was moderated by Rich Somerville, editor of The Union.

Noyes said citizens need to consider government policies, including the massive increase in powers for surveillance, the changes to immigration policy, the increases in security, and some of the lessening of restrictions on law enforcement authority.

"We need to look at both the impacts on citizens on these changes and also the effectiveness of these policies," said Noyes.

Noyes warned that Patriot II is in the works - a piece of legislation that, unlike the Patriot Act, does not have an expiration date.

Mason said he is operating on a single, guiding principal in deciding which terrorism cases get opened.

"I tell my people that we are to focus on acts and not on who or mere association, but rather on criminal bad acts," said Mason. "That way we're not looking at people based on their ethnicity, not looking at people based on their culture, or the manner in which they're practicing their religion. I have no interest in suppressing constitutionally protected acts."

Mason said the agency's challenge is intelligently deploying limited resources.

Though the agency can, for example, read e-mails through a program called "Carnivore," it is not designed to read e-mails randomly.

"It's not set up so we can just flip it on and just listen to or read e-mails randomly," said Mason. "In a society where 27 million people watch 'Am I Hot?', can you imagine listening or reading random e-mails as your sole duty? I think I'd rather shoot myself."

Royal said the county has had minimal costs in fighting terrorism, mostly limited to 30 reports of possible anthrax after Sept. 11, 2001, all of which were unfounded.

"In general, law enforcement practices have not changed; but we are more sensitive to national incidents," said Royal.