UNIVERSITY
Forest service employee seeks free speech protection
WASHINGTON |AP) - A former For
est Service employee is railing on Con
gress to provide more freedom of speech
protection to service workers critical of
their administrators' efforts to excessive
ly log national forests.
In testimony prepared for a House sub
committee hearing Thursday. Jeff
DeBonis of Fugene. Ore said the Forest
Service is "often less than honest in its
public disclosure of the environmental
impacts" of logging
"The agency is purposefully and
knowingly overcutting our national for
ests to meet the demands of the timber
industry and short-sighted politicians."
he said.
DeBonis is the director of the Associa
tion of Forest Service Employees For En
vironmental Ethics. He worked more
than 12 years for the Forest Service be
fore resigning in February.
"The Forest Service is not protecting
your resources. It is not meeting its obli
gation to the American people and their
public trust." he said during a news con
ference Wednesday.
“We are finding that the past practices
of turning old-growth forest ecosystems
into tree plantations is not working." he
said.
DeBonis said 5 percent of all Forest
Service workers now belong to his or
ganization. He was scheduled to testify
Thursday before the House Post Office
and Civil Service Committee's subcom
mittee on Civil .Service.
"More employees are speaking out in
support of a more environmentally ethi
cal agency and being subject to varying
amounts of reprisal," he said in his pre
pared testimony.
"Congress needs to review and stan
dardize the myriad conduct and ethics
policies of government agencies to
strengthen free speech rights of govern
ment employees." he said.
Subcommittee chairman Rep. Gerry
Sikorski. D-Minn.. confirmed that the
panel is receiving complaints "in esca
lating numbers, collectively and individ
ually, privately and in public fashion"
from the 40,000 civil servants employed
by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land
Management.
DeBonis said Forest Service biologists
and other resource specialists are “iso
lated and pressured to conform — be
'team players' so as not to interfere with
getting the cut out.
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Inventor debates
suicide machine
DETROIT (AH) - Suicide
machine inventor Dr. Jack
Kevorkian said "I am not a
martyr” as he defended his use
of the controversial device
Wednesday, contending that
officials are persecuting him.
"The courts would love to
burn me at the stake. The pros
ecution is. figuratively speak
ing,” he said during a lecture
with former Oakland County
Prosecutor L. Brooks Patterson,
now in private practice.
“But a patient comes to me
dying of disease, needing
help," Kevorkian said. "As a
doctor, what am I supposed to
do? I am not a martyr."
Patterson said it's not courts
that oppose the retired Royal
Oak pathologist, but the public.
"I think he’s shooting the
messenger. By today's law in
the United States — that's in
the 50 states and United States
territories — no one defines su
icide as a crime. That brings us
to assisted suicide," he told his
audience at the Detroit-area
chapter of the Society of Profes
sional journalists.
"In 22 states and in three
U S. territories, assisting sui
cide is a crime, it’s a stated
public policy.” Patterson
On June 4. Kevorkian hooked
his machine to janet Adkins,
54. of Portland. Ore Adkins,
who suffered from Alzheimer’s
disease, pressed a button on the
machine to make lethal drugs
flow into her veins, and died in
the back of his van in a subur
ban Detmit park.
Prosecutors obtained a tem
porary injunction against
Kevorkian to keep him from us
ing the machine, which they
seized, or from aiding any oth
er suicides. Criminal charges
haven't berm pressed.