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About Cannon Beach gazette. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1977-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 27, 2017)
4A • January 27, 2017 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com Views from the Rock A Hawaii trip with mom D SUBMITTED PHOTO Documents from WikiLeaks played a key role in the 2016 election. Cannon Beach, meet WikiLeaks T his column could get me arrested. Something only a little more extreme happened to journalist Barrett Brown, released in November after serving three years in federal prison for sharing a link to hacked emails from the intelligence group known as Stratfor. He was released from prison in late Novem- ber 2016. In a video on Brown’s website, Trevor Timm of the Free- dom of the Press Foundation says Brown “took information that may have been stolen or leaked and used it to do investiga- tive journalist in the public interest.” While originally facing up to 100 years in prison for sharing other Stratfor hacked links in a chat room with other journalists, 11 of 12 charges were dropped and Brown ended up pleading CANNON SHOTS guilty to transmitting R.J. MARX threats, aiding hackers and obstructing au- thorities from carrying out a search warrant resulting in his three-year incarceration. Many of the charges were a result of the leak of credit card numbers — six months after the hack was revealed, giving, Brown’s defense argued, credit companies plenty of time to protect the accounts. “This was a failure on our part,” Stratfor CEO George Friedman told investigators eight days after the hack and months before the leaks were shared by Brown. Unwisely, Brown, who said he was withdrawing from heroin at the time, threatened an FBI agent prior to his arrest in 2012. Along with jail time, Brown was ordered to pay more than $829,000 in fi nes. On a journalist’s salary, he’ll still be paying that back when Donald Trump Jr. is in the White House. Data dumps I can assure you I am not withdrawing from heroin, printing any leaked credit card numbers or issuing any challenges. But as any self-respecting muckraking local journalist would do, I poked around on WikiLeaks and typed in the search term “Cannon Beach.” Who knew what juicy items I might stumble on? Two particular items caught my attention. This document was obtained by WikiLeaks from the United States Congressional Research Service. According to the WikiLeaks site, the record service is a congressional “think tank” with a staff of around 700. Reports are commissioned by members of Congress on topics relevant to current political events. Despite taxpayer costs of more than $100 million a year, its electronic archives are, as a matter of policy, not made avail- able to the public. The link to Cannon Beach? Pretty tenuous, a mere footnote, referring to a 2005 opinion by Judge Sandra O’Connor on the subject of property takings — usually involving disputes between property owners and municipalities. A 1994 Supreme Court decision held that Cannon Beach’s denial of an oceanfront property owners’ permit application to construct a seawall in the dry sand area of their property “does not constitute an uncompensated taking under the Fifth Amend- ment to the U.S. Constitution.” It affi rmed the state’s goals of limiting development on “conditionally stable dry sand and the implementing city ordinances and department regulations do not constitute taking of the owners’ property.” This is not the stuff of Cold War espionage — it can also be found at supremecourt.gov. The second WikiLeaks reference to Cannon Beach comes in a hacked email from Stratfor, a global intelligence agency based in Austin, Texas. In February 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing the Global Intelligence Files, more than fi ve million hacked emails from the Texas headquartered “global intelligence” company Strat- for. The emails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. These were the leaks that got Brown, then a contributor to The Guardian and Vanity Fair, in trouble. According to WikiLeaks, the leaked Stratfor emails reveal “the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confi dential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lock- heed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.” The WikiLeaks site says “the emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.” Among the material several thousand emails exchanged by staff members between 2004 and 2011, including a short wire service report about the crash of a U.S. F-15 fi ghter jet into the ocean 35 miles off Cannon Beach. The single-seat aircraft, based at the Portland Air Base, was from the 142nd Fighter Publisher David F. Pero Editor R.J. Marx Sales/Advertising Manager Betty Smith Production Manager John D. Bruijn Classifi ed Sales Jamie Ramsdell Advertising Sales Holly Larkins Brandy Stewart Contributing writers Lyra Fontaine Rebecca Herren Katherine Lacaze Eve Marx Nancy McCarthy SUBMITTED PHOTO Journalist Barrett Brown was jailed for distributing links to a global intelligence company. Brown was ordered to pay more than $829,000 in fines. On a journalist’s salary, he’ll still be paying that back when Donald Trump Jr. is in the White House. Wing of the Oregon National Guard, went down while on a training mission. The incident was nationally reported by United Press International (cited in the leaked document) and results of the investigation — that the pilot became disoriented during fl ight — published by The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Washington Post and others. Protections needed Releasing hacked emails from WikiLeaks became a charac- teristic of the 2016 presidential campaign, leading to the demise of Hillary Clinton and her top aides, notably campaign vice chairwoman Huma Abedin (wife of the notorious nude Tweeter Anthony Weiner) and John Podesta, former chairman of the Clinton campaign. To me, the email revelations were about as exciting as some- body else’s Chinese food order. But they upset a lot of people on both sides and arguably led to a Trump win, along with a nudge-nudge wink-wink from the nation’s FBI chief James Comey. What do the Cannon Beach WikiLeaks reveal? That a federal agency and international think tank really may not know much more than the rest of us: analysis of a 1994 Supreme Court decision and the rehashing of old news. Intelli- gence agencies, it appears, get the news from … the newspaper. With huge data dumps available to anyone with an internet connection, secrecy is only as good as your encrypted software. Even Stratfor’s intelligence information is available to the public with a subscription — $39 a month or $349 a year. A year of the Cannon Beach Gazette is a lot less and apparently has much of the same information. According to FreeBarrettBrown.com, Brown is now work- ing at D Magazine in Dallas, living in a half-way house while out on parole. Brown’s defenders seek to turn him into a cause célèbre, but he is far from the only journalist at risk for doing their job. An arrest warrant was issued for NPR’s Amy Goodman when she covered the Dakota Pipeline story — charges later thrown out by a North Dakota judge. The Committee to Protect Journalists lists 259 jailed reporters worldwide; 81 of those are in Turkey, a U.S. ally. On January 10, we observed the anniversary of “Common Sense,” Thomas Paine’s classic plea for independence and a model of journalistic dissent. Shockingly, the United States is listed as No. 47 out of 180 countries in the world in terms of press freedoms, described by the international journalists’ group Reporters Without Borders as especially weak in terms of federal protections for whis- tle-blowers and lacking a federal shield law to protect sources. Maybe I’m watching a little too much “Homeland,” but I’m wondering if a little more public information just might make us a lot safer. CANNON BEACH GAZETTE The Cannon Beach Gazette is published every other week by EO Media Group. 1555 N. Roosevelt, Seaside, Oregon 97138 503-738-5561 • Fax 503-738-9285 www.cannonbeachgazette.com • email: editor@cannonbeachgazette.com SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Annually: $40.50 in county, $58.00 in and out of county. Postage Paid at: Cannon Beach, OR 97110 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Cannon Beach Gazette, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103 Copyright 2017 © Cannon Beach Gazette. Nothing can be reprinted or copied without consent of the owners. id I tell you about my mom? How she is my in- spiration in birding, reading, writing and well just about everything that makes my life deep and meaningful! Did you hear about the time we traveled to Hawaii together? Oh wait, that’s what’s happening right now! We are on day three of as seven-day visit on Maui! Hawaii is the only state in the Union that my mom has not been to until three days ago. That completes her bucket list. And for me, you may be already thinking, “Oh, the birds! Susan must be in paradise!” (excuse the pun) Well, you couldn’t be more accurate! I am loving it. The birds here are ex- BIRD NOTES otic, loud, color- SUSAN PETERSON ful and plentiful! We are stay- ing in upcountry Makaweo. By the end of the fi rst day, I had nine birds on my list and nine of them were life listers(birds i had never seen before) and that was mostly from sitting on the lanai and walking around the neighborhood. Quoting the gracious friend we are staying “When I imagine a birder, you fi t the bill” I have yelled out bird sightings and names in the middle of conversations. And I am wearing out my sandals when I do my happy dance, usually done when I see a new bird. Not sure that’s what other birders do, but I like that my “image” is a positive one. My list is up to 20 now and includes a very special sighting of a pair of Nenes — Hawaiian goose — with a chick. I may come back to the Oregon coast, but reporting from Hawaii seems like a possibility too! Please join the First Sunday Cannon Beach Bird Walk. The next one will be on Sunday, Feb. 5, so if you’re in town, join us at 9 o’clock at the Lagoon Trail on 2nd Street. Bring binoculars and wear appropriate clothing. Everyone is welcome! Mark you calendars for the fi fth annual North Oregon Coast Birdathon April 8. More details soon at coastwild- life.com • • • Susan has spent her life enjoying the great outdoors from the lakes and woods of Northern Minnesota, Mount Adams in Washington and now the Oregon beach envi- rons. After spending many pleasurable hours driving her avid birder parents around, she has taken up birding as a passion. Susan resides on Neawanna Creek in Seaside where her backyard is a birder’s paradise. OBITUARIES Evelyn Mae Brown March 13, 1922 — Jan. 1, 2017 Born March 13, 1922, to John P. and Tillie (Olson) Paulson in Duluth, Minnesota, Evelyn Mae Brown, 94, passed away Jan. 1, 2017, in Lacey, Washington. In 1944, Evelyn married Jack B. Brown in Kirkland, Washington. The two lived for each other, and they en- joyed a wonderful 70 years together. They honeymooned in Seaside, Oregon, lived in Seattle while Jack was a ca- reer Seattle fi refi ghter and she a secretary for the Renton School District, and spent their last 40 years together in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Evelyn moved to Lacey in mid- 2015 to be closer to her daughter and family. Evelyn is survived by her son, Michael John Brown; daughter, Jacquelyn (Brown) Shammel; four grandchil- dren; and three great-grandchildren. She was predeceased by her husband; brothers, Al Brown and Leonard Brown; and sisters, Helen Linder and Alma Dean. No services are planned. Please share memories at www.FuneralAlternatives.org LETTERS Professionals appreciated We want to thank all law enforcement agencies and the Seaside Fire Department for the professional and car- ing way they handled the situation on Whispering Pines. We appreciate you all for a job well done. Again, thank you. Larry and Sharon Johnson Seaside Obituary Policy The Seaside Signal publishes paid obituaries. The obituary can include a small photo and, for veterans, a fl ag symbol at no charge. The deadline for all obituaries is 9 a.m. the business day prior. Obituaries may be edited for spell- ing, proper punctuation and style. Death notices and upcoming services will be published at no charge. Notices must be submitted by 9 a.m. the day of publication. Obituaries and notices may be submitted online at www.dailyas- torian.com/forms/obits, by email at ewilson@dailyastorian.com, placed via the funeral home or in person at The Daily Astorian offi ce, 949 Exchange St. in Astoria. For more information, cal 503-325-3211, ext. 257. Letters welcome Letters should be exclusive to The Cannon Beach Gazette. We do not pub- lish open letters or third-party letters. Letters should be fewer than 500 words and must include the writer’s name, address and phone numbers. You will be contacted to confi rm au- thorship. All letters are subject to editing for space, grammar and, on occasion, fac- tual accuracy. Letters written in response to other letter writers should address the issue at hand and, rather than mentioning the writer by name, should refer to the headline and date the letter was published. Discourse should be civil and people should be referred to in a respectful manner. Letters referring to news stories should also mention the headline and date of publication. Submissions may be sent in any of these ways: E-mail to editor@cannonbeachga- zette.com; Online form at www.dai- lyastorian.com; delivered or mailed to the Gazette offi ce at 1555 N. Roosevelt, Seaside, OR, 97138. THE NATIONAL AWARD-WINNING