For the week of January 23 - 29, 2002

Idaho’s ‘slippery slope’

Commentary by PAT MURPHY

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Since they may have forgotten, it’s worth reminding the ends-justify-the-means thinkers at the Idaho Capitol:

The reason the United States has remained so strong and resilient through crises, and so envied by millions, who’re scrambling to emigrate here, is because of our openness, our freedoms and minimal heavy-handedness in our laws.

Yet, in the name of "protecting" Idahoans, state Attorney General Alan Lance and like-minded legislators are needlessly considering laws that are endemic to repugnant authoritarian regimes in countries abroad.

Lance’s innocuous sounding proposed laws shutting down public access to public documents in the name of anti-terrorism are the first small steps toward the proverbial "slippery slope" that start innocently enough but ultimately lead to even worse.

Will the proposed laws have a sunset date to expire? Will they contain a catchall provision conveying to Lance, the governor or some other authority the arbitrary power to seal any public documents in the name of "security"?

Come, come. Does anyone seriously believe that Idaho state government is on the priority list of international terrorists? Mountain Home Air Force Base, maybe.

If terrorists are intent on some maniacal act here, simply sealing a few documents won’t discourage them.

It’s obvious that all the questionable, frantic, sometimes theatrical efforts in the name of security by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and Attorney General Lance have been to protect the state’s political class and their papers, which, to put it bluntly, are far less critical to the state’s and nation’s survival than a long list of other institutions, facilities and individuals.

Everyone who lived through the era of smoke-filled, backroom wheeling and dealing before "Government in the Sunshine" laws remember abuses of the public trust by bureaucrats and politicians in the name of "efficient" government.

One can only imagine what documents some politicians in Idaho would like to seal from public inspection in the name of security, just as President Bush has signed an order making it difficult for historians to access presidential papers, an act that some suspect is designed to conceal controversial conduct of his father.

Kempthorne’s and Lance’s progressively more stringent "security" measures also fly in the face of the Republican Party’s mantra that it is a bulwark against too much government policing people’s lives.

Gosh, what next out of the politicians? Is it possible some state legislator trying to protect his job will claim that Osama bin Laden is really behind term limits to deprive state government of career politicians?

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How ironic: the cynical executives at Enron and its see-no-evil auditor, Arthur Andersen, have become a blessing to America’s most scornful critic of politicians and corporations, consumerist gadfly-turned-Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats by dozens gladly took Enron and Arthur Andersen campaign cash. And since the system that’s supposed to protect workers and investors ¾ regulators, Wall Street analysts, auditors, corporate CEOs ¾ failed, Nader can crow "I told you so": avaricious politicians and corporations are in a nefarious complicity and can’t be trusted.

For months to come, Nader will feast joyously on headlines spewing from Washington investigations into Enron and Arthur Andersen of sleazy corporate conduct.

Nader will try to convert the daily testimony into political advantage for his Green Party, which collected 2.8 million votes of the 2000 presidential vote (2.74 percent of the total) and has eclipsed the boom-and-bust populism of Pat Buchanan.

Whereas Nader’s message might’ve been dismissed, it now has new credibility because of corporate executives and politicians who lived up to his accusations.

 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.