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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 7, 2015)
4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2015 T HE D AILY A STORIAN Founded in 1873 STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor H ardly a week goes by without a new report of some massive data theft that has put BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager The DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager SAMANTHA MCLAREN, Circulation Manager Water under the bridge Compiled by Bob Duke From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers 10 years ago this week — 2005 “Before Monday I thought I knew what cold was.” Cold, Phil Huff now knows, isn’t waiting for the car’s heater to come on in the morning. Cold is standing alone outside in the middle of a damp winter night, dressed only in buckskins, a woolen robe and soggy moccasins, the only distractions the calls of coyotes and a bright moon appearing between rain showers. That’s what Huff and a dozen fellow Lewis and Clark re-enactors experi- enced at Fort Clatsop last week when they took on the roles of Corps of Dis- covery members for the park’s three-day living history program, “Wintering make him late. anticipation. This is the 200th anniversary of the year that Lewis and Clark reached the mouth of the Columbia River. - thing is that we are ready. The increase in the number of accommodations and restaurants over the past few years is considerable. in these parts, on a number of levels including the economic and the cultural. Astoria is coming of age. 50 years ago — 1965 As new snows plagued Clatsop County Monday, the weath- and the coast” Monday night and Tuesday. Authorities searched Astoria High School carefully for two hours Tues- male voice” warning that a time bomb had been set in the school to go off before noon. The search showed no sign of entry into the tightly locked building and no evidence of a bomb, so authorities permitted the opening of school at the regular time Tuesday morning. nounced Thursday. - - search and rescue operations center, ready rooms, and commu- nications center. Physical rehabilitation of Tongue Point Naval Station to house a Job - poration, training center Director Douglas V. Olds said Thursday. The Philco corporation, Olds said, has obtained a direct contract from the U.S. Government to do the rehabilitation work, estimated to cost more 75 years ago — 1940 - engineers turn it down. interview with Charles Mann, Tacoma, in the Portland Oregonian. Lewiston on the Snake River to Juneau, Alaska – the longest in- land waterway on earth. - should develop. - - - streams emptying into Puget Sound near Olympia. or government records into the hands of computer hackers. best defense against data encryption and more secure technology systems. The leaders of U.S. intelligence agencies hold a different view. Most prominently, James Comey, the FBI director, is lobbying Congress to re- quire that electronics manufacturers create intentional security holes — so-called back doors — that would enable the government to access data on every American’s cellphone and computer, even if it is protected by encryption. Unfortunately, there are no magic keys that can be used only by good guys for legitimate reasons. There is only strong security or weak security. Americans are demanding strong security for their personal data. Comey and others are suggesting that security features shouldn’t be too strong, because this could inter- fere with surveillance conducted for law enforcement or intelligence pur- poses. The problem with this logic is that building a back door into every cellphone, tablet, or laptop means deliberately creating weaknesses that hackers and foreign governments can exploit. Mandating back doors also removes the incentive for companies to develop more secure products at the time people need them most; if you’re building a wall with a hole in it, how much are you going invest in for personal data security and bad for business and must be opposed by Congress. In Silicon Valley several weeks ago, I convened a roundtable of ex- ecutives from America’s most inno- vative tech companies. They made it clear that widespread availability of data encryption technology is what consumers are demanding. It is also good public policy. For - cies like the National Security Agen- cy, as well as the Department of Jus- tice, made misleading and outright inaccurate statements to Congress about data surveillance programs — not once, but repeatedly for over a decade. These agencies spied on huge numbers of law-abiding Amer- icans, and their dragnet surveillance of Americans’ data did not make our country safer. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., rushes to the chamber during a procedural vote on the veteran’s benefits bill at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 25. Most Americans accept that there are times their government needs to rely on clandestine methods of intel- ligence gathering to protect national security and ensure public safety. But they also expect government agen- intended to be accessible only to government agencies following a le- gal process. Chinese hackers have proved how aggressively they will exploit any security vulnerability. A report last year by a leading cybersecurity the boundaries of the law, and they now know how egregiously intelli- intrusions in U.S. networks from a gence agencies abused their trust. This breach of trust is also hurting single cyberespionage unit in Shang- U.S. technology companies’ bottom hai. As another tech company lead- line, particularly when trying to sell er told me, “Why would we leave a services and devices in foreign mar- Why indeed. The U.S. House of kets. The president’s own surveil- Representatives rec- lance review group ognized how dan- noted that concern gerous this idea was about U.S. surveil- Built-in back and in June approved lance policies “can - directly reduce the doors have tisan amendment market share of U.S. been tried that would prohib- companies.” One in- government dustry estimate sug- elsewhere with it from the mandating that gests that lost market technology compa- share will cost just disastrous nies build security the U.S. cloud com- weaknesses into any results. of their products. I billion to $35 billion introduced legisla- over the next three tion in the Senate to years. accomplish the same goal, and will heavily in new systems, including again at the start of the next session. Technology is a tool that can be encryption, to protect consumers from cyberattacks and rebuild the put to legitimate or illegitimate use. trust of their customers. As one par- And advances in technology al- ticipant at my roundtable put it, “I’d ways pose a new challenge to law be shocked if anyone in the industry enforcement agencies. But curtail- takes the foot off the pedal in terms ing innovation on data security is of building security and encryption no solution, and certainly won’t re- store public trust in tech companies into their products.” Built-in back doors have been or government agencies. Instead we tried elsewhere with disastrous re- should give law enforcement and in- sults. In 2005, for example, Greece telligence agencies the resources that discovered that dozens of its senior they need to adapt, and give the pub- lic the data security they demand. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is been under surveillance for nearly a year. The eavesdropper was never a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The problem with meaning By DAVID BROOKS New York Times News Service ot long ago, a friend sent me a speech that the great civic leader John Gardner gave to the it, “meaning” has become the stand-in concept for ev- erything the soul yearns for and seeks. It is one of the few phrases acceptable in modern parlance to describe a fundamentally spiritual need. Yet what do we mean when we use the word of what is right and wrong, about how you might get better over time. Meaningfulness tries to replace structures, stan- dards and disciplines with self-regarding emotion. years after he graduated from that The ultimate authority of college. David meaningful is the warm The speech is chock-full of Brooks tingling we get when we practical wisdom. I especially liked is that life should be about - ingful. Meaningfulness more than material success. “The things you learn in maturity The person leading a meaningful life tries to replace moral systems with aren’t simple things such as acquiring has found some way of serving others the emotional corona that surrounds information and skills. You learn not acts of charity. to engage in self-destructive behavior. It’s a paltry substitute. Because Second, a meaningful life is more You learn not to burn up energy in anx- satisfying than a merely happy life. meaningfulness is built solely on an iety. You discover how to manage your Happiness is about enjoying the pres- emotion, it is contentless and irreduc- tensions. You learn that self-pity and ent; meaning is about dedicating one- ible. Because it is built solely on emo- resentment are among the most toxic self to the future. Happiness is about tion, it’s subjective and relativistic. You receiving; meaningfulness is about get meaning one way. I get meaning talent but pays off on giving. Happiness is another way. Who is any of us to judge character. about upbeat moods Happiness is Because it’s based solely on senti- “You come to un- and nice experiences. derstand that most People leading mean- ment, it is useless. There are no criteria about enjoying ingful lives experience to determine what kind of meaning- people are neither for you nor against you; a deeper sense of satis- fulness is higher. There’s no practical the present; manual that would help guide each of they are thinking about faction. us as we move from shallower forms themselves. You learn In this way, mean- meaning that no matter how ing is an uplifting state of service to deeper ones. There is no is about hard you try to please, of consciousness. It’s hierarchy of values that would help us some people in this what you feel when select, from among all the things we dedicating world are not going to you’re serving things might do, that activity which is highest and best to do. love you, a lesson that beyond self. oneself to the Because it’s based solely on emo- Yet it has to be said, then really quite relax- as commonly used to- future. of meaningful go away then the cause ing.” Gardner goes on in and vacuous, the prod- that once aroused them gets dropped, - this wise way. And then, at the end, he uct of a culture that has grown inarticu- lows. There’s no reliable ground. goes into a peroration about leading a late about inner life. The philosophy of meaningfulness meaningful life. “Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out at the people in history who achieved emerges in a culture in which there is no of your own past, out of your affections great things — like Nelson Mandela common moral vocabulary or frame- and loyalties, out of the experience of or Albert Schweitzer or Abraham Lin- work. It emerges amid radical plural- humankind as it is passed on to you. ... coln — it wasn’t because they wanted ism, when people don’t want to judge You are the only one who can put them to bathe luxuriously in their own sense each other. Meaningfulness emerges together into that unique pattern that of meaningfulness. They had objective when the fundamental question is, do will be your life.” and eternally true standards of justice Real moral systems are based on a Gardner puts “meaning” at the apo- and injustice. They were indignant gee of human existence. His speech when those eternal standards were vio- balance of intellectual rigor and aroused reminded me how often we’ve heard lated. They subscribed to moral systems moral sentiments. Meaningfulness is that word over the past decades. As — whether secular or religious — that pure and self-regarding feeling, the Nu- traSweet of the inner life. my Times colleague April Lawson puts