Taking Note

Facebook Haiti

The first news I received about the massive 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti did not come from Katie Couric, Anderson Cooper, or even the Huffington Post. I first learned about the earthquake in Haiti when a friend posted her condolences in her Facebook status. I clicked onto her profile and discovered she had posted a link to an article about the earthquake on her page.

Within an hour of the 7.0 earthquake - at least a quarter of my 2,300 facebook friends were posting instructions in their status for texting donations to Hatian born hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti Foundation. Yele Haiti's Facebook page has over 94,000 fans, countless photos from inside Haiti, and, of course, the reminder to donate $5 by texting YELE to 501501. Yele Haiti has already raised over $2 million for the relief efforts.

Public Supports Moving Forward on Climate Change

Health care reform is occupying almost everyone’s attention these days, which is understandable given its level of importance and how close we are to big decisions in Congress. But other critical issues remain on Congress’s agenda and will be taken up once the health care situation is resolved. On the top of that list is climate change. Just-released data from the Pew Research Center suggests the public is ready to move forward in this area.

First, the public rejects the idea that the United States should go alone in addressing climate change. By 56-32, they say that the United States “should join other countries in setting standards to address global climate change” rather than “set its own standards to address global climate change.”

Second, the public gives 50-39 support to “setting limits on carbon dioxide emissions and making companies pay for their emissions, even if it may mean higher energy prices” (emphasis added).

These findings indicate that legislators should not rest on their laurels even if they succeed in passing health care reform. The public appetite for change is clearly broader than that.

Immigration Detention Reform Can't Wait

When the Obama administration pledged earlier this month to overhaul our government’s practice of jailing undocumented immigrants, it was an overdue acknowledgment of a festering problem that has quietly grown out of control.

Immigration detention is the fastest growing form of incarceration in the United States today. Some 400,000 immigrants are detained each year in a network of deplorably inadequate facilities across the country. Most of these prisoners have committed no crime save the civil infraction of being in the country illegally. Indeed, many of them are children: 8,000 children were held in immigration detention facilities in 2007. Worst of all, many of these prisoners have come to America seeking political asylum. They have fled war, tyranny, persecution, and torture only to have their trauma compounded as they are locked up in the United States.

Share Your Thoughts on New Media in the Policy Arena

This post was written by Hummy Song and John Baronian.

Change is happening in the world of media and policy—and fast. The promise of interactive new media is now real through Web 2.0 applications that provide a platform on which all individuals may participate and communicate freely. The new administration has already taken steps to incorporate this into their style of governing. According to Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House, the President and his administration will not only send email updates regarding major announcements and decisions, but also “publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days [to] allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.” This is just one example of the movement toward greater transparency and interactivity in new media.

Don't Turn the Page on Wiretapping without Knowing What it Says

Remember the wiretapping scandal? With the election of Barack Obama and a widespread confidence that the new president will not abuse the prerogatives of his office in the Bush fashion, it might seem that Washington can simply turn the page on the past eight years, starting afresh with a renewed commitment to the rule of law. But as I argued in an Op-Ed for yesterday's New York Times, critical questions about the warrantless wiretapping program remain unanswered, and it may be impossible to restore the balance between aggressive intelligence work and robust protection of civil liberties without first comprehending the nature and extent of the abuses of the past eight years. The full piece is below.

And as if in answer to my questions, Newsweek has come through with an extraordinary cover-story package, revealing the identity of the Justice Department lawyer who first alerted the New York Times to the illegal program, and in another story, providing a (partial) explanation of what prompted numerous senior Justice officials to nearly resign over the program in the spring of 2004. Hopefully congress and other press outfits will seize on these new revelations and continue to untangle the various strands of this complicated -- and still significant -- story.

Big Brother Hasn’t Won
By PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE

IF you thought the wiretapping controversy ended last summer, when Congress blessed the Bush administration’s warrantless-wiretapping program by passing a new surveillance law that greatly enhanced the powers of the National Security Agency, think again. The legacy of the illegal operation represents a serious problem for the Obama administration.