Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:
Loveland (Colo.) Reporter-Herald on video inside the U.S. Supreme Court:
The Supreme Court of the United States recently embarked on its constitutional mandate to settle disputes of the law and set precedents to be followed by judges in the federal court system nationwide.
Among the high-profile topics on the court's docket this year are issues involving the Americans with Disabilities Act, immigration enforcement by local entities and, perhaps next summer, the biggest of them all: federal health care reform.
Such weighty hearings will be in the public consciousness throughout the year — and they will be seen by only a few hundred people.
Right now, the Supreme Court justices do not allow visual recording devices into the courtroom; in fact, while they do allow audio recordings of arguments before the court, often those arguments are not released until months after they occur.
In placing the ban, justices have said they oppose video coverage of cases because they believe the process would be compromised.
Similar arguments were made when Congress fought the installation of video coverage of their proceedings, too. What resulted from that fight is C-SPAN and its companion networks, which provide coverage of the proceedings in the House, Senate, their committees and subcommittees as well as other public policy events in the Washington, D.C., area. To some, it's riveting footage; to most Americans it's something to turn on only in the most dramatic of times. Most likely, coverage of the Supreme Court would be the same. ...
The time has come for members of the Supreme Court to open the curtain to a wider audience, because it is only through transparency that members of the American democratic republic can know the scrutiny to which the nation's laws are subjected.
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The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee on federal immigration reform:
As Congress and the president fail to update the nation's obsolete immigration laws, states increasingly are stepping into the vacuum.
The gridlock over immigration law in Washington has persisted for a generation and, increasingly, is leading to a patchwork of ever-harsher laws and ordinances at the state and local levels, even though immigration under the U.S. Constitution clearly is a federal matter.
The spotlight that was on Arizona's draconian law last year now has shifted to Alabama's even more severe law. ...
A federal judge has rightly overturned some portions. ...
This harsh law is driving out legal immigrants and even citizens. Kids born in this country, who are U.S. citizens but may have an illegal parent, are staying out of school.
Construction workers, roofers, field hands, hotel cleaners and restaurant workers who are in the country legally are leaving their jobs and the state. No doubt, they feel unwelcome or may have family members and friends without the proper papers.
A telling photo shows an angry farmer telling Alabama state Sen. Scott Beason, who co-authored the law, that he's unable to harvest his tomato crop because farmworkers haven't showed since the new immigration law took effect. ...
Georgia, which also passed similar laws, also scared off many migrant workers and left crops rotting in the fields. Then it tried to compel unemployment compensation recipients to harvest crops, but as news accounts reported, "Workers were too slow and often quit because of the strenuous labor involved." ...
This latest controversy should provide more impetus for Congress and President Barack Obama to take up national immigration reform that realistically addresses the need for future flows of immigrants, rather than simply relegating people to the shadows of illegal immigration and having states make up their own immigration laws.
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Chicago Sun-Times on cellphone searches:
Privacy laws in the United States need an upgrade. Rapid advances in cell phones and computers are outstripping the ability of old laws to protect our personal lives.
Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to decide whether police need a search warrant before they look at text messages and other information on cell phones of people they have arrested or detained.
That's unfortunate. This is an area of the law that needs careful re-examination, and it needs to be done on the national level because we carry our phones with us from state to state.
Cell phones, along with laptops and tablet computers, can contain our life stories. Someone with your cellphone can read your past text messages, no matter how personal the content is. The phone can reveal whom you have called, who your contacts are, what your finances are like, what's on your personal calendar, photos of your friends and all of your recent email and voice mail.
That's information many of us would be less than eager to place in the hands of authorities — or any other strangers.
The case the Supreme Court declined to take came out of California, where police found incriminating evidence in a text message after they searched the phone of a man suspected of taking part in a drug deal. The California Supreme Court applied a rule that allows police without a warrant to examine items found on a person who is detained or arrested.
That rule works for a pack of cigarettes. But not for a smartphone. ...
Prompt, warrantless searches do have a proper place in the law. Police need them to make sure detainees aren't carrying weapons or destroying evidence.
But expanding that law to include mass-storage devices opens the door to troubling scenarios. ...
The Supreme Court needs to step in and resolve this issue.
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The New York Times on the "Occupy" movement and economic inequities:
As the Occupy Wall Street protests spread from Lower Manhattan to Washington and other cities, the chattering classes keep complaining that the marchers lack a clear message and specific policy prescriptions. The message — and the solutions — should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered. The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening.
At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity. ...
The protests, though, are more than a youth uprising. The protesters' own problems are only one illustration of the ways in which the economy is not working for most Americans. They are exactly right when they say that the financial sector, with regulators and elected officials in collusion, inflated and profited from a credit bubble that burst, costing millions of Americans their jobs, incomes, savings and home equity. As the bad times have endured, Americans have also lost their belief in redress and recovery. ...
It is not the job of the protesters to draft legislation. That's the job of the nation's leaders, and if they had been doing it all along there might not be a need for these marches and rallies. Because they have not, the public airing of grievances is a legitimate and important end in itself. It is also the first line of defense against a return to the Wall Street ways that plunged the nation into an economic crisis from which it has yet to emerge.
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Sioux City (Iowa) Journal on Republican presidential primaries and caucuses:
Iowa should do whatever it can to avoid moving the date for its presidential caucuses into December. ...
The decision (in violation of national party rules) by Florida to move its primary up to Jan. 31 set in motion decisions by several other states. South Carolina moved its primary up to Jan. 21 and Nevada Republicans said their caucuses will be held on Jan. 14.
Iowa and New Hampshire will hold on to their number one and two positions in the nomination process, respectively, but they haven't set dates. State law requires New Hampshire to hold its primary at least seven days before the next contest, which means Jan. 7 at the latest.
New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner recently told Politico he will make no decision on a date for his state's primary until at least Oct. 17.
State Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn should pick up the phone, call Gardner and seek to work out an agreement under which the two states both can hold their contests the first week in January ... We understand the separation between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary would be shorter than is traditional, but the two states would remain one and two.
And Iowa wouldn't be pushed into December.
Since the national Republican Party created this game of musical chairs by not enforcing its caucus and primary calendar rules, it isn't going to be of any help in determining these last two dates.
Together, Iowa and New Hampshire must do it themselves.
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The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn., on proposed Medicare information legislation:
In the partisan atmosphere of Congress, there is one thing on which Republicans and Democrats should agree: Americans need accurate information about Medicare.
Sen. Bob Corker's bill requiring the government to provide an annual statement to taxpayers detailing how much they have paid into Medicare and how much they have received in benefits would do just that.
The Tennessee Republican has a Democratic co-sponsor who agrees — Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado. Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee and Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin last March introduced a similar bill in the House.
What they and every other American of any political persuasion should be concerned about is that nearly 50 million people on Medicare, as well as those entering the program at the age of 65 in the near future, are likely to receive more in benefits than they have put into the program before they die.
But without changes in the program, anyone under 55 likely faces higher costs and, possibly, longer waits before they qualify for coverage. And the longer the integrity of the program is not addressed, the more dramatic changes will have to be.
Corker's bill simply would require a breakdown of Medicare contributions and benefits to be sent via mail or email to people each year.
Simple, directly distributed information about Medicare — free of political spin or scare tactics — could make a great difference in the ability of Americans to formulate their own opinions about one of the U.S. government's most touchy topics. ...
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The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky., on Herman Cain:
So in the Republican sweepstakes for the presidential nomination, Sarah Palin has ended the speculation by declaring she's not a candidate. Likewise, Chris Christie is going to stay on the job as New Jersey governor. Rick Perry is sinking in the polls, Mitt Romney has yet to catch fire and here comes Herman Cain, don of Godfather's Pizza and, as it turns out, tough love for his fellow Americans.
In a week that saw his poll numbers climb, the same week that Americans took to the streets to protest Wall Street breaks and persistent unemployment, Cain went on record with this warm and fuzzy statement: "Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself! It is not someone's fault if they succeeded, it is someone's fault if they failed."
Wonder if that's been poll-tested as a 2012 mantra for the GOP?
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The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch on debit-card fees:
Congress hailed it as a victory for consumers last year when it decided to impose price controls on banks, capping "swipe" fees they charge merchants for debit-card transactions.
In reality, what Congress imposed was a new monthly tax on debit-card users.
Bank of America recently announced it will charge its debit-card users a $5 monthly fee in an effort to offset billions of dollars of revenue lost to Congress' intervention. Wells Fargo, the country's biggest bank, is testing a $3 monthly fee for debit cards later this month. And Chase has piloted a $5 fee in Wisconsin. ...
Merchants complained that banks were gouging them to subsidize other operations, such as free checking. They insisted government should regulate debit fees to reflect the true cost of processing transactions, lowering prices for retail customers. ...
As a result, banks anticipate losing billions of dollars of revenue each year. Such losses, of course, simply get passed along to consumers — who will see real banking-fee increases. ...
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said telling private companies what they can charge for goods and services amounted to price fixing.
The new debit-card fees are another example of why government should not pick losers and winners in the marketplace: The likeliest loser is the consumer.
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Japan Times, Tokyo, on phasing out nuclear energy:
The Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), Japan's largest labor organization, in its Oct. 4-5 convention decided to pursue a society that will eventually stop relying on nuclear power. This is a departure from its earlier policy of pushing building of new nuclear power plants. Within Rengo, power company unions that support the promotion of nuclear power are a strong force.
Rengo's leadership should be praised for correctly understanding the severity of the disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and responding to the public's strong call for phasing out nuclear power.
Rengo President Nobuaki Koga told the convention that the Fukushima crisis has made the leadership realize that when an accident happens at a nuclear power plant, it causes enormous damage. Since Rengo is the biggest supporter of the Democratic Party of Japan, it is hoped that its decision will positively affect the DPJ and the administration of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
In order to reduce Japan's dependence on nuclear power, Rengo has proposed securing alternative energy sources that can replace nuclear power, aggressively promoting renewable energy sources and pushing energy-saving measures. As a short-term measure to secure a sufficient supply of energy, Rengo has accepted restarting nuclear power plants currently out of operation on the condition that the government strengthens and verifies their safety and that local people accept their restart...
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