OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
OUR VIEW
Innovative internet
‘Safe Zones’ are
worth considering
B
uying or selling
items online that
require a face-to-
face, cash-for-property
transaction to conclude a
sale or purchase can be a
scary — and sometimes
dangerous — proposition.
Buyers and sellers usually
don’t know each other, or
their backgrounds, which
creates a safety concern
for those involved.
Cottage Grove, a small
community south of
Eugene, recently took a
low-cost, innovative idea
utilized by more than
300 police departments
across the country to help
make those transactions
safer for its residents. The
city created a designated
Submitted Photo/Amy Slay
“Safe Zone” where those The idea of a “Safe Zone” for inter-
face-to-face transac-
net purchases has merit.
tions can occur under the
watchful eyes of police officers. It’s a simple, proactive safety
concept that could be implemented here, too.
Following the leads of police elsewhere, Cottage Grove’s
city leaders decided to install cameras near the police station
to create 24-hour-a-day video coverage. The city also posted
a sign noting that the specific area is an “Internet Purchase
Exchange Location” and is under video surveillance at all
times. Police officers do not participate in the transactions,
but the department’s dispatchers monitor the cameras. The
recorded videos are saved for up to 75 days, according to
Cottage Grove Police Chief Scott Shepherd. Purchasing and
installing the cameras along with the sign only cost the city
about $200, he said.
The site isn’t limited to Cottage Grove residents, it can be
used by anybody, anytime. It can also be utilized for other
things, like custody exchanges, adding an increased level of
safety to them.
The “Safe Zone” concept is direct and simple. While the
overwhelmingly vast majority of internet-related transactions
are legitimate, the idea for “Safe Zones” percolated from a
series of horrific, high-profile crimes across the country in
the past few years stemming from transactions that originated
online. According to a variety of websites that track what
some have labeled as “Craigslist killings,” there have been
more than 100 murders associated with such meetings since
2007. By its own numbers, Craigslist generates 50 billion
page views per month with approximately 60 million users
in the United States, and the bargain behemoth isn’t the only
company in the business of digitally connecting buyers and
sellers.
Daily Astorian reporter Jack Heffernan contacted each
of the police departments on the North Coast about “Safe
Zones” and none have an existing program. We believe they
should. It’s a proactive idea the departments should investi-
gate and consider initiating.
The logic for a “Safe Zone” is brilliantly simple. If a
buyer or seller goes into a deal intent on committing a crime,
chances are the last place that person wants to be is near a
police station and on videotape. And if a person balks at the
idea of the transaction taking place near a police station, it’s a
good bet it’s probably someone you don’t want to meet.
Police also recommend consumers always take com-
mon-sense safety steps for internet transactions: Don’t go
to a transaction alone; make sure a friend or family mem-
ber is aware of the details; always insist on meeting in a pub-
lic place during the daytime; and never go into a stranger’s
house or let a stranger into yours.
Internet-associated crimes are a byproduct of the digital
revolution and initiatives like “Safe Zones” can help curb the
their growth and possibly save lives. While it may not have
been a problem here in the past, it only takes once for it to
become one.
Let’s not let that happen.
Connecting Trump’s dots
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
President Donald Trump sits at his desk after a meeting with Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, left, and members
of his staff in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday.
By THOMAS FRIEDMAN
New York Times News Service
E
very day, the president’s
behavior becomes more
worrying. One day he
demeans a federal judge who
challenges him;
the next day, with-
out evidence, he
accuses the media
of hiding illegal
voting or acts of
terrorism. His lack
of respect for institutions and truth
pours out so fast, you start to forget
how crazy this behavior is for any
adult, let alone a president, and just
how ugly things will get when we
have a real crisis. And crises are
baked into this story because of the
incoherence of President Donald
Trump’s worldview.
How so? The world today is
more interdependent than ever. The
globalization of markets, the spread
of cellphones, the accelerations
in technology and biology, the
new mass movements of migrants
and the disruptions in the climate
are all intertwined and impacting
one another. As a result, we need
a president who can connect all
of these dots and navigate a path
that gets the most out of them and
cushions the worst.
But Trump is a dot exploiter,
not connector. He made a series of
reckless, unconnected promises,
not much longer than tweets, to get
elected, and now he’s just checking
off each one, without thinking
through the linkages among them
or anticipating second-order
effects.
It is a great way to make
America weak — and over-
stretched — again.
Where do I start? Trump wants
to get tougher with China on trade
and security. That’s not crazy. But
how would I do that? I’d organize
an alliance of Pacific trading
nations that surround China and
enlist them in a trade pact that sup-
ports U.S.-style rule of law, greater
market access for U.S. intellectual
property and products and pro-
motes U.S. values — as opposed to
China’s. I’d call it the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, or TPP for short.
Oh wait, President Barack
Obama did that, but Trump
scrapped TPP on Day 1, without,
I am sure, having read it. Now
there is every reason to believe our
Asian-Pacific allies will fall even
more under China’s economic sway
and trade “rules.” How smart is
that?
And by the way, why is labor in
Mexico cheaper than in America?
One reason is that Mexico has
weaker labor rights and environ-
mental standards. Let’s see … what
would TPP require of Mexico and
other signatories? That they bring
their labor rights and environmen-
tal standards closer to ours.
It’s amazing
what a mess
you can make
when you only
check boxes
and don’t
link them.
Instead, Trump is building a
wall to keep out Mexican immi-
grants and force companies to
move to the U.S. Let’s see … what
happened after 9/11, when the
border crossings with Mexico and
Canada were severely constricted
for security? It forced some assem-
bly line shutdowns at U.S. auto
companies, like Ford, because their
supply chains stretched to Mexico
and Canada. The lower-cost work
is done in Mexico and then inte-
grated with higher-value-added
work in America, which enables
our car companies to compete on
price in Europe, Japan and China.
So what did the U.S., Canada
and Mexico do after 9/11? They
created a North American security
envelope, explained Seth Stodder,
Obama’s assistant secretary of
homeland security, so if you fly
into Mexico or Toronto from
the Middle East, our Homeland
Security Department now probably
knows about it.
“Since 9/11, we and our
Mexican and Canadian partners
have worked to secure the North
American perimeter by sharing
information on people and goods
coming to our countries, cross-ref-
erencing that information against
terrorism databases and working
collaboratively to identify potential
bad actors trying to come to North
America,” Stodder said. If we build
a wall and demand that Mexico
pay for it, how long will it go on
cooperating with us?
And if Trump forces all these
U.S.-based multinationals to move
operations from Mexico back to
the U.S., what will that do? Help
tank the Mexican economy so
more Mexicans will try to come
north, and raise the costs for U.S.
manufacturers. What will they do?
Move their factories to the U.S. but
replace as many humans as possi-
ble with robots to contain costs.
The U.N. says there’s a record
65 million displaced migrants and
refugees, mostly from the develop-
ing world, trying to get into secure
places like the U.S. or Europe.
Why? A mix of civil wars, state
failures, climate stresses and popu-
lation explosions. What did Trump
do his first week? Appoint climate
deniers to key posts and ban U.S.
aid to health groups that provide
abortion as a family-planning
option in developing nations.
Trump wants to partner with
Vladimir Putin to defeat ISIS in
Syria — a worthy goal. But Putin
hasn’t been trying to defeat ISIS.
He’s been trying to defeat democ-
racy in Syria to keep the genocidal
pro-Russian dictator there in power.
Will that be our goal, too?
And who are Putin’s allies in
Syria? Iran, Hezbollah and Shiite
mercenaries from Pakistan and
Afghanistan. Will they be our
allies, too? No. We will enlist Iraqi
and Syrian Sunnis to help us, says
Trump. Really? But he just barred
them from entering the U.S. How
cooperative will they be?
And whom else might this
ban keep out? Remember Steve
Jobs? His biological father was
Abdulfattah “John” Jandali. He
came to America as a student in the
1950s and studied at the University
of Wisconsin. He was from …
Homs, Syria.
It’s amazing what a mess you
can make when you only check
boxes and don’t link them.