Last week President Obama announced a lifting of the ban on offshore drilling for oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf along portions of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, as well as off parts of Alaska. Interior Secretary Salazar called it "a new direction in energy policy..."
Who is this announcement directed at? How should the president use it to position the "new energy policy" cited by Secretary Salazar?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/AR2010033100024.html?sub=AR&sid=ST2010033100712
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Does Adrian Fenty Need More Friends?
Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is running for re-election in 2010. A voter survey in the January 31 edition of the Washington Post found that the mayor's approval rating has dropped from 72% in January 2008 to 42% in January 2010. Among African-Americans, his approval rating was 29% -- down from 68% in 2008.
Poll respondents cited concerns including Mayor Fenty's refusal to give Nationals tickets to members of the City Council, a secretive trip he took to Dubai, and his failure to attend memorial services for the victims of the June 2009 Metro crash.
Now, a special counsel is investigating the Fenty Administration's awarding of some $86 million in construction project contracts without the approval of the City Council. Recipients of those contracts include Sinclair Skinner and Omar Karim. Both are college friends and fraternity brothers of Fenty's.
Mayor Fenty says that he is working to empower a new group of minority builders in the city, and that his administration has adhered to the city's requirements to do business with minority-owned companies. Critics say it has more to do with the contract recipients being friends of the mayor.
With his re-election prospects dimmed, what steps should Mayor Fenty take in order to rebuild his reputation?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/07/AR2010030701156.html
Poll respondents cited concerns including Mayor Fenty's refusal to give Nationals tickets to members of the City Council, a secretive trip he took to Dubai, and his failure to attend memorial services for the victims of the June 2009 Metro crash.
Now, a special counsel is investigating the Fenty Administration's awarding of some $86 million in construction project contracts without the approval of the City Council. Recipients of those contracts include Sinclair Skinner and Omar Karim. Both are college friends and fraternity brothers of Fenty's.
Mayor Fenty says that he is working to empower a new group of minority builders in the city, and that his administration has adhered to the city's requirements to do business with minority-owned companies. Critics say it has more to do with the contract recipients being friends of the mayor.
With his re-election prospects dimmed, what steps should Mayor Fenty take in order to rebuild his reputation?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/07/AR2010030701156.html
Monday, March 1, 2010
Training Plan a Dud with Maryland Town
No need to post to this blog this week -- for Wednesday's class, we'll discuss the situation used as the topic for your practical writing exercise.
Some Eastern Shore Residents Oppose Anti-Terrorism Bomb Drills in Their Back Yards
Who are the key players in this situation? What is the State Department's goal? Which stakeholders' support is necessary to achieving the goal? What messaging will be most likely to shape their opinions?
Some Eastern Shore Residents Oppose Anti-Terrorism Bomb Drills in Their Back Yards
Who are the key players in this situation? What is the State Department's goal? Which stakeholders' support is necessary to achieving the goal? What messaging will be most likely to shape their opinions?
Monday, February 22, 2010
White House Communications Plan Changes
Last week the White House announced that it was making changes to its communications strategy. The changes come amid administration concerns that the communications team had not taken the initiative often enough in policy debates. The changes are designed to revamp their operation from one that was more of a campaign-style approach to one that is more suitable for the demands of governance.
Which of the steps outlined in the article at the link do you think will be particularly effective? What challenges do they face in implementing this new strategy? Are there specific messaging strategies or tactics you recommend?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/14/AR2010021403550.html
Which of the steps outlined in the article at the link do you think will be particularly effective? What challenges do they face in implementing this new strategy? Are there specific messaging strategies or tactics you recommend?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/14/AR2010021403550.html
Monday, February 8, 2010
Winning Strategy for Offshore Windfarm
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar recently went to a section of Nantucket Sound between Cape Cod and Nantucket Island to inspect the site that has been selected for a wind energy farm. His visit was designed to evidence the Obama Administration's intent to act on developing renewable energy resources. The proposed Cape Wind project is supported -- and opposed -- by various stakeholder groups in Massachusetts.
There is a larger issue at play, too. On February 19, Sec. Salazar will convene a group of East Coast state governors to get their input on developing a broader regional approach to offshore wind energy development.
Consider this meeting scheduled for February 19. Which stakeholder groups would you expect to support offshore wind development? Which would you expect to oppose it? What messaging would you recommend to help solidify support from allies, mitigate opposition from foes, and win over agnostics?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/07/AR2010020702965.html
There is a larger issue at play, too. On February 19, Sec. Salazar will convene a group of East Coast state governors to get their input on developing a broader regional approach to offshore wind energy development.
Consider this meeting scheduled for February 19. Which stakeholder groups would you expect to support offshore wind development? Which would you expect to oppose it? What messaging would you recommend to help solidify support from allies, mitigate opposition from foes, and win over agnostics?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/07/AR2010020702965.html
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Changing Mind About Changing Trial Venue?
The Obama Administration is reportedly considering moving the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and several other September 11 terrorist attack suspects. After Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed that the federal court in New York City was the "right place" to try the alleged terrorists, it seems unlikely that that will be the venue.
What is at issue here? Local security requirements or national security interests? The use of civilian courts vs. military tribunals?
Which stakeholders -- and which stakeholder interests -- are the Administration hoping to meet by this move?
Sept. 11 Trial Likely to Get New Venue
By Peter Finn, Carrie Johnson and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Obama administration has all but abandoned its plan to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, on trial in Lower Manhattan, according to administration officials.
A senior administration official said no decision has been formalized, but the Justice Department is already considering other venues. Said another official close to the discussions: "New York is out."
The reversal would mark the latest setback for an administration that has been buffeted at every turn as it seeks to close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Its options for closing the prison had already been dwindling, and without the backdrop of Ground Zero for a trial, the administration would lose some of the rich symbolism associated with its attempt to forge a new approach to handling high-profile al-Qaeda detainees.
The decision to reconsider the plan for Mohammed's trial comes after a surge of political opposition to holding it in Manhattan, a venue that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. described in November as the "right place."
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I), an early supporter of holding the trial in the city, said this week that the security and financial costs would be too onerous. And in a letter to President Obama on Friday, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said a New York trial heightened the risk of a terrorist attack.
"Without getting into classified details, I believe we should view the attempted Christmas Day plot as a continuation, not an end, of plots to strike the United States by al-Qaeda and its affiliates," Feinstein said. "Moreover, New York City has been a high-priority target since at least the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. The trial of the most significant terrorist in custody would add to the threat."
Late Friday, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) issued a statement saying a decision to relocate the trial from Lower Manhattan "is obvious."
Moving the trial in the wake of political objections would not augur well for the administration's plans to bring other leading Guantanamo Bay detainees to other federal jurisdictions. Administration officials have said they plan to put about 35 Guantanamo detainees on trial, either in federal court or in military commissions.
Republicans and a number of Democrats in Congress have demanded that the detainees be tried in a military commission at Guantanamo Bay, arguing that they are enemy combatants in a war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, not criminals deserving of the protections of civilian court.
But the decision to bring Mohammed and his cohorts onto U.S. soil for a civilian trial is a linchpin of Holder's tenure, and an administration official said the Justice Department would not back down on the central principle of trying the men in federal court and inside the United States.
That commitment was welcomed by proponents of using criminal courts to try terrorist suspects.
"As long as these trials occur in federal criminal courts with proper due-process protections, the actual venue doesn't matter very much," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "All of our federal courts are equipped and able to handle such cases. That's where they belong, and that's where they should stay."
But the administration would appear to have few good alternative locations. There was intense local opposition in the other mooted venue, the Eastern District of Virginia, and simply moving the case to another federal courthouse is likely to lead to a replay of the controversy that bubbled up in Manhattan.
Some officials have suggested that a federal proceeding could be held within a military base, keeping with the administration's desire to hold a criminal trial while providing the kind of security bubble that would contain the impact on a community.
Within the Southern District of New York, there is an Air National Guard base near the city of Newburgh, but using it would require building a courthouse and pretrial detention center.
The administration also hopes to acquire a state prison in Thomson, Ill., both to hold military commissions and to house detainees who are deemed too dangerous to release but unprosecutable. Conceivably, the Thomson facility, which would be guarded by the military, could also house a federal courthouse and a federal prison wing for detainees such as Mohammed.
Officials said they have not decided where to turn, and the administration still needs funding from Congress to acquire the prison in Illinois. One official said several domestic locations are under review.
A "military base is not cuckoo," said one official, acknowledging the administration's dwindling set of options.
Romero said the ACLU, a harsh critic of military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, would not object to a military cocoon for a temporary federal courthouse in the United States.
Others, including relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, said the administration should reconsider its decision to close Guantanamo Bay.
"I applaud the president for recognizing that a better decision needs to be made," said Hamilton Peterson of Bethesda, who lost his father and stepmother on United Flight 93, which went down in Shanksville, Pa. "But it seems insane to those of use who have visited the pristine $40 million courthouse in Cuba that he would not use it. I would hope he would also revisit the issue of military tribunals."
What is at issue here? Local security requirements or national security interests? The use of civilian courts vs. military tribunals?
Which stakeholders -- and which stakeholder interests -- are the Administration hoping to meet by this move?
Sept. 11 Trial Likely to Get New Venue
By Peter Finn, Carrie Johnson and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Obama administration has all but abandoned its plan to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, on trial in Lower Manhattan, according to administration officials.
A senior administration official said no decision has been formalized, but the Justice Department is already considering other venues. Said another official close to the discussions: "New York is out."
The reversal would mark the latest setback for an administration that has been buffeted at every turn as it seeks to close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Its options for closing the prison had already been dwindling, and without the backdrop of Ground Zero for a trial, the administration would lose some of the rich symbolism associated with its attempt to forge a new approach to handling high-profile al-Qaeda detainees.
The decision to reconsider the plan for Mohammed's trial comes after a surge of political opposition to holding it in Manhattan, a venue that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. described in November as the "right place."
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I), an early supporter of holding the trial in the city, said this week that the security and financial costs would be too onerous. And in a letter to President Obama on Friday, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said a New York trial heightened the risk of a terrorist attack.
"Without getting into classified details, I believe we should view the attempted Christmas Day plot as a continuation, not an end, of plots to strike the United States by al-Qaeda and its affiliates," Feinstein said. "Moreover, New York City has been a high-priority target since at least the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. The trial of the most significant terrorist in custody would add to the threat."
Late Friday, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) issued a statement saying a decision to relocate the trial from Lower Manhattan "is obvious."
Moving the trial in the wake of political objections would not augur well for the administration's plans to bring other leading Guantanamo Bay detainees to other federal jurisdictions. Administration officials have said they plan to put about 35 Guantanamo detainees on trial, either in federal court or in military commissions.
Republicans and a number of Democrats in Congress have demanded that the detainees be tried in a military commission at Guantanamo Bay, arguing that they are enemy combatants in a war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, not criminals deserving of the protections of civilian court.
But the decision to bring Mohammed and his cohorts onto U.S. soil for a civilian trial is a linchpin of Holder's tenure, and an administration official said the Justice Department would not back down on the central principle of trying the men in federal court and inside the United States.
That commitment was welcomed by proponents of using criminal courts to try terrorist suspects.
"As long as these trials occur in federal criminal courts with proper due-process protections, the actual venue doesn't matter very much," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "All of our federal courts are equipped and able to handle such cases. That's where they belong, and that's where they should stay."
But the administration would appear to have few good alternative locations. There was intense local opposition in the other mooted venue, the Eastern District of Virginia, and simply moving the case to another federal courthouse is likely to lead to a replay of the controversy that bubbled up in Manhattan.
Some officials have suggested that a federal proceeding could be held within a military base, keeping with the administration's desire to hold a criminal trial while providing the kind of security bubble that would contain the impact on a community.
Within the Southern District of New York, there is an Air National Guard base near the city of Newburgh, but using it would require building a courthouse and pretrial detention center.
The administration also hopes to acquire a state prison in Thomson, Ill., both to hold military commissions and to house detainees who are deemed too dangerous to release but unprosecutable. Conceivably, the Thomson facility, which would be guarded by the military, could also house a federal courthouse and a federal prison wing for detainees such as Mohammed.
Officials said they have not decided where to turn, and the administration still needs funding from Congress to acquire the prison in Illinois. One official said several domestic locations are under review.
A "military base is not cuckoo," said one official, acknowledging the administration's dwindling set of options.
Romero said the ACLU, a harsh critic of military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, would not object to a military cocoon for a temporary federal courthouse in the United States.
Others, including relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, said the administration should reconsider its decision to close Guantanamo Bay.
"I applaud the president for recognizing that a better decision needs to be made," said Hamilton Peterson of Bethesda, who lost his father and stepmother on United Flight 93, which went down in Shanksville, Pa. "But it seems insane to those of use who have visited the pristine $40 million courthouse in Cuba that he would not use it. I would hope he would also revisit the issue of military tribunals."
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Google in China?
Freedom of speech is a fundamental American right. And the Internet has done more to promote the exercise of free speech than any other innovation in our lifetimes. But what happens when an American Internet service provider does business in countries that restrict free speech? What compromises does it make, and do those compromises create gaps between stakeholder expectations and the company's behavior?
Google, which has operated in China since 2006, recently announced that it was considering withdrawing from the country in response to Chinese security attacks and government censorship. What impact does that potentially have on Google's revenues, reputation and operational integrity?
In China, Google flexes some foreign policy muscle
By Rob Pegoraro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 24, 2010; G01
It's not every day, week, month or year that one American company essentially threatens to fire an entire country -- much less one with its own stock of nuclear weapons.
But Google not only suggested that it would have to walk away from its business in the People's Republic of China, it did so in a Jan. 12 blog post condemning a list of Chinese offenses including censorship and attempted break-ins of its computer systems.
"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered -- combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web -- have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China," Google declared in the post. "We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn," its China-based search site.
That's a far more public rebuke than anything the U.S. government has said in public. Next to that, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech on Internet freedom Thursday reads like a diplomatic (understandably so) attempt to catch up to Google's lead. (And China's Foreign Ministry predictably blasted Clinton's speech, saying that the United States should "cease using so-called Internet freedom to make groundless accusations against China.")
Google's newfound militancy cannot be what the Mountain View, Calif., Internet firm had in mind when it agreed to do business in China in 2006.
At the time, Google took a lot of criticism for agreeing to censorship by Beijing's Communist rulers of Google.cn. In response, it argued that it could make more of the Web's information available to Chinese users with a locally based search engine, and that disclosing when censorship forced it to withhold relevant results -- it follows a similar practice in the United States after removing a YouTube video in response to claims of copyright infringement-- lent transparency to its operation.
(Considering that China's Web filtering apparently operates by making users think that an un-"wholesome" site doesn't exist or isn't working, that second argument seems a fair point.)
Further, Google said it would keep its Gmail and Blogger services based offshore to protect Chinese users of those sites.
But Google might not have realized then that the Chinese government would alter the bargain by demanding stricter censorship or blocking other Google services -- or that Chinese hackers would launch a widespread, well-orchestrated series of attacks on its computers and those of other U.S. companies to break into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
There aren't many things foreign companies can do to stop the abuses of another country's government, but suggesting that the other country's money is no good has to be among the most severe responses possible.
By way of comparison, when Western computer manufacturers didn't want to install "Green Dam" Web filtering software, they did not publicly threaten to boycott the Chinese market -- and, with help from protests by Chinese users, Beijing backed down on that requirement.
Is Google mashing down the panic button just to distract people from worrying about the security of its own systems? That's possible.
But if you analyze its moves in strict business terms, it's easier to conclude that Google is acting against its own shareholders' interests. The company may have a minority of the search market in China, but even that current business is substantial. The potential rewards for staying in the market are far larger. Neither is something to toss aside lightly.
What comes next? Who knows? Google says it has not yet removed the filters on Google.cn and continues to talk with Beijing about its next move. But why would that regime relent on such a fundamental instrument of state control? Is a shunning by Google that much of a punishment?
That's what makes Google's move -- essentially, setting aside business concerns to act more like a fourth branch of government with its own foreign policy -- so bold. Especially if you compare it with the past conduct of tech companies in the Untied States that complied with warrantless wiretap requests.
And yet there's something just a bit odd about our most public defender of human rights being an unelected, for-profit company that happens to run an e-mail service in which computers scan your messages to match them up with ads.
If you were waiting for confirmation that Google takes your privacy and its "don't be evil" commandment seriously, this act of defiance may be all that you'd hoped for. But please don't treat it as a reason to hand all your business over to Google; applaud the company if you wish, but don't let yourself forget how to fire it.
Google, which has operated in China since 2006, recently announced that it was considering withdrawing from the country in response to Chinese security attacks and government censorship. What impact does that potentially have on Google's revenues, reputation and operational integrity?
In China, Google flexes some foreign policy muscle
By Rob Pegoraro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 24, 2010; G01
It's not every day, week, month or year that one American company essentially threatens to fire an entire country -- much less one with its own stock of nuclear weapons.
But Google not only suggested that it would have to walk away from its business in the People's Republic of China, it did so in a Jan. 12 blog post condemning a list of Chinese offenses including censorship and attempted break-ins of its computer systems.
"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered -- combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web -- have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China," Google declared in the post. "We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn," its China-based search site.
That's a far more public rebuke than anything the U.S. government has said in public. Next to that, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech on Internet freedom Thursday reads like a diplomatic (understandably so) attempt to catch up to Google's lead. (And China's Foreign Ministry predictably blasted Clinton's speech, saying that the United States should "cease using so-called Internet freedom to make groundless accusations against China.")
Google's newfound militancy cannot be what the Mountain View, Calif., Internet firm had in mind when it agreed to do business in China in 2006.
At the time, Google took a lot of criticism for agreeing to censorship by Beijing's Communist rulers of Google.cn. In response, it argued that it could make more of the Web's information available to Chinese users with a locally based search engine, and that disclosing when censorship forced it to withhold relevant results -- it follows a similar practice in the United States after removing a YouTube video in response to claims of copyright infringement-- lent transparency to its operation.
(Considering that China's Web filtering apparently operates by making users think that an un-"wholesome" site doesn't exist or isn't working, that second argument seems a fair point.)
Further, Google said it would keep its Gmail and Blogger services based offshore to protect Chinese users of those sites.
But Google might not have realized then that the Chinese government would alter the bargain by demanding stricter censorship or blocking other Google services -- or that Chinese hackers would launch a widespread, well-orchestrated series of attacks on its computers and those of other U.S. companies to break into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
There aren't many things foreign companies can do to stop the abuses of another country's government, but suggesting that the other country's money is no good has to be among the most severe responses possible.
By way of comparison, when Western computer manufacturers didn't want to install "Green Dam" Web filtering software, they did not publicly threaten to boycott the Chinese market -- and, with help from protests by Chinese users, Beijing backed down on that requirement.
Is Google mashing down the panic button just to distract people from worrying about the security of its own systems? That's possible.
But if you analyze its moves in strict business terms, it's easier to conclude that Google is acting against its own shareholders' interests. The company may have a minority of the search market in China, but even that current business is substantial. The potential rewards for staying in the market are far larger. Neither is something to toss aside lightly.
What comes next? Who knows? Google says it has not yet removed the filters on Google.cn and continues to talk with Beijing about its next move. But why would that regime relent on such a fundamental instrument of state control? Is a shunning by Google that much of a punishment?
That's what makes Google's move -- essentially, setting aside business concerns to act more like a fourth branch of government with its own foreign policy -- so bold. Especially if you compare it with the past conduct of tech companies in the Untied States that complied with warrantless wiretap requests.
And yet there's something just a bit odd about our most public defender of human rights being an unelected, for-profit company that happens to run an e-mail service in which computers scan your messages to match them up with ads.
If you were waiting for confirmation that Google takes your privacy and its "don't be evil" commandment seriously, this act of defiance may be all that you'd hoped for. But please don't treat it as a reason to hand all your business over to Google; applaud the company if you wish, but don't let yourself forget how to fire it.
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