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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