The Wrong Lesson Learned

The security breach at Newark Liberty Airport two days ago was not the result of a lack of full-body scanners, but rather the incompetence of staff to secure an exit to prevent an individual from entering the secured terminal.

Yet, we now have calls to install full body scanners at the airport because the breach shows what exactly?

A security breach at Newark Liberty International Airport that exposed screening gaps — at a time of heightened alert — has led to calls for quick installation of electronic body scanners at one of the busiest jet ports in the nation.

Transportation and federal officials said the Transportation Security Administration must go beyond investigating the breach and quickly install additional body scanners or station bomb-sniffing patrol dogs near security gates.
Terminal C at Newark Liberty International Airport Monday morning following a security breach the night before stopping air travel.

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg criticized the TSA for failing to prevent someone from walking into a secure area of Newark airport Sunday night — just one week after an attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound plane.

Meanwhile, the TSA said passenger screenings were halted about 7 p.m. and Terminal C was shut down more than two hours after an unidentified man entered the terminal through an exit door at 5:30 p.m. He was later seen on tape leaving the terminal about 20 minutes later.

A bystander waiting for relatives to arrive told a security officer assigned to the area about the man, but officials needed to analyze the surveillance tapes to confirm a security breach had occurred before making any decisions about stopping the screenings because the bystander was uncertain of what he saw, said TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis.

The breach also grounded planes for six hours, creating a backlog that delayed some international flights for as long as five hours Monday, said Julie King, a spokeswoman for Continental Airlines.

The scanners might have been useful in detecting a terrorist carrying explosives on his person, like Abdul Mutallab, who tried to blow up the plane he was on with explosives sewn into his underwear and that would have been detonated with a liquid concealed in a syringe, but they would have been of no use for preventing the security breach at the airport.

In fact, this wasn't a screening gap, but a security cordon gap, where the perimeter of the controlled airport spaces were accessed by someone who didn't follow procedure. The TSA worker manning that control point has been reassigned, but we also have a blame game over why it took so long for security to be alerted and for various law enforcement agencies to be involved. It took two hours for federal authorities to lock down Terminal C after the security breach.

McCaffery told them the TSA officer at the gate had been momentarily distracted by a departing passenger’s question, as a rush of people came out the door from a flight that had just landed. While that was happening, an individual walked behind him, against the flow of people, apparently to talk to his girlfriend who had just cleared security and was already on the other side. TSA officials said the incident began some time around 5:20 p.m. but the lockdown was not ordered until 7:45 pm,

Lautenberg said the security breach and the TSA’s response were completely unacceptable.

"This security breakdown was inexcusable, especially when our aviation system was supposedly on high alert," said Lautenberg, calling for a full investigation to determine what went wrong and make sure it never happens again.

Menendez said he plans to specifically discuss with the Port Authority and TSA an expansion of the terminal’s video surveillance system, which is not operated by the TSA.

The video system was controlled by Continental Airlines, and it took time to locate the particular video showing the breach.

Meanwhile, security hasn't exactly been improved at all overseas airports that feed flights to the US, including those in countries that were put on a list for stricter scrutiny.

All the technology in the world can't secure the air traffic infrastructure and passengers if individuals can simply pass through the security perimeter unimpeded, or if the additional scrutiny on certain passengers is not initiated and carried out across the board. The gaps in security will persist.

UPDATE:
This doesn't inspire much confidence either. Gothamist reports that metal detectors at JFK airport didn't sound when a woman with a titanium hip implant passed through on several occasions. She alerted TSA and they didn't respond by changing security procedures either.

UPDATE:
I can't wait to hear the TSA excuse for this. Michael Yon facebooked that he got handcuffed at SeaTac (call it arrested or merely detained), but not for any national security issues, but rather refusing to answer questions unrelated to transportation security.

Got arrested at the Seattle airport for refusing to say how much money I make. (The uniformed ones say I was not "arrested", but they definitely handcuffed me.) Their videos and audios should show that I was polite, but simply refused questions that had nothing to do with national security. Port authority police eventually came -- they were professionals -- and rescued me from the border bullies.

UPDATE:
Back to the tragedy of errors at Newark Liberty: The TSA video system was inoperable at the time of the incident, and the TSA didn't have the phone number to contact Continental Airlines to get their video feed.

That's because CBS 2 has learned that when an unidentified man breached a secure area at Newark on Sunday night, delaying thousands of passengers for hours, the TSA cameras weren't working.

That's right – they weren't even recording, sources said, and needed a reboot, which the agency apparently didn't ask for. That set off a chain reaction of even more missteps that caused needless chaos and inconvenience for several thousand hapless passengers.

With the cameras inoperable, the TSA tried to get a second set of surveillance video from Continental Airlines. But the TSA apparently didn't know the correct telephone number and the specific procedures to get the footage. That caused a two hour delay in identifying the intruder and closing the airport to look for him.

When they finally got the footage, they couldn't find the intruder, discovering later that he had slipped out another entrance 20 minutes after he arrived.

Seattle Police Kill Suspected Cop Killer

The eagle-eyed police officer who saw something suspicious at a vehicle stop is a hero. Maurice Clemmons was found in the vicinity of a stolen car and when a police officer requested he show his hands, Clemmons did not comply.

The man suspected of gunning down four police officers in a suburban coffee shop was shot and killed by a lone patrolman investigating a stolen car early Tuesday. Four people were arrested for allegedly helping the suspect elude authorities during a massive two-day manhunt.

Maurice Clemmons was carrying a handgun he took from one of the dead officers when a Seattle policeman recognized him near a stolen car in a working-class south Seattle neighborhood about 2:45 a.m., Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel said.

The officer had approached the car, then detected movement behind him, saw Clemmons and ordered him to show his hands and stop.

"He wouldn't stop," Pugel said. "The officer fired several rounds, took the person into custody."

Clemmons had a serious gunshot wound from one of the four officers killed in the coffee-shop shooting. He has since died from his injuries, Pugel said.

The officer was investigating a stolen vehicle report. Clemmons was carrying a weapon taken from one of the officers he murdered. He also had a gunshot wound in the torso from return fire by one of the four officers killed at the coffee shop in Lakeland.

It's a bittersweet day for the Seattle area law enforcement agencies. They can rest a bit easier knowing that a cop killer is no longer in their midst, but they have to deal with the ramifications of the murder of four of their fellow officers in the line of duty.

At the same time, investigations continue into others who apparently provided Clemmons with assistance. Four people are in custody, including relatives, and more arrests are likely.

Just as it should, the clemency record of Mike Huckabee is coming under closer scrutiny. He commuted nearly twice as many sentences in his tenure as Arkansas governor than the three previous governors combined.

On Monday, Huckabee said he takes responsibility for making Clemmons eligible for parole in 2000, and called the case a failure of the justice systems in Arkansas and Washington. Huckabee cited the length of Clemmons' sentence — 108 years — and a state judge's recommendation that it be reduced as factors in his decision.

"If I could have known nine years ago that this guy was capable of something of this magnitude, obviously I would have never granted a commutation. It's sickening," Huckabee said on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor."

Clemmons was among 1,033 people who were pardoned or had their sentences reduced during Huckabee's 10 1/2 years as governor. Bill Clinton, Frank White and Jim Guy Tucker granted 507 clemencies in the 17 1/2 years they served. Beebe, Huckabee's Democratic successor, has issued 273 commutations and pardons since taking office in January 2007 — all but one of them were pardons after the completion of the inmates' prison terms.

Huckabee's role in gaining the release of a convicted rapist, Wayne DuMond, was the subject of an attack ad during his presidential run. While Huckabee's predecessor, Tucker, reduced DuMond's sentence making him eligible for parole, Huckabee took steps almost immediately after taking office to win DuMond's release.

Two members of the state parole board said Huckabee pressured them to show DuMond mercy, while Huckabee publicly questioned whether DuMond was guilty of the rape of a teenage girl. During the presidential primaries, a conservative group aired television commercials in South Carolina featuring the mother of Carol Sue Shields, whom DuMond killed in 2000 after his release.

And while he claims that he wouldn't have made the same choice had he known what would have happened in the Clemmons case, his PAC website continues to cast blame on others.

UPDATE:
Watch for the inevitable scrutiny for the police officer who ultimately killed Clemmons. He will be put through the ringer to justify his actions. Also, watch for an all too likely wrongful death lawsuit from Clemmons' family, even though Clemmons acted irrationally and violent at every opportunity.

Suspect In Washington Cop Killings Surrounded; UPDATE: Or Not

Maurice Clemmons is no longer just a person of interest in the murder of four Lakeland, Washington police officers. He's the main suspect and his home in Seattle has been surrounded by police. The police think he may be injured or even dead as hostage negotiators are thus far unable to contact Clemmons.

Clemmons is believed to be in the Leschi house that police have surrounded in Seattle since late Sunday night.

"He has suffered a gunshot wound," Troyer said at a media briefing held just before 3 a.m.

Police know that Clemmons was wounded because they have detained other people — Troyer wouldn't say how many — who helped Clemmons after the shootings.

At the briefing, Troyer said police now consider Clemmons a suspect, rather than merely a "person of interest."

Police don't know the severity of Clemmons' wound, and Troyer said he may already be dead.

Investigators have no indication that Clemmons had a motive aimed specifically at any of the particular officers who were gunned down, Troyer said.

"He was upset about being incarcerated," Troyer said. "He was just targeting cops."

So, how did we get here?

To recap, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee granted Clemmons clemency despite protestations by prosecutors. That allowed Clemmons to leave prison in 2000 despite having been sentenced to a 48 year prison sentence and a separate 60 year sentence. Instead of using the opportunity of Huckabee's clemency to get a fresh start and make a new and better life, Clemmons became a one man crime spree in Arkansas and Washington State. He threatened a judge in one of his trials, and Washington classified him as someone who was highly likely to reoffend (in other words, he would likely restart his criminal activities even with supervision).

Clemmons has at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington. Even after the commutation of his sentence, he was sent back to prison for two armed robberies, and yet he was paroled.

In fact, Clemmons was somehow managed to secure bail on the latest of those Washington charges just this past week; a child rape and before that, he assaulted a cop.

Why did no judge at any step of the way recognize the imminent danger that Clemmons posed to the general public and order him held without bail? Why did anyone think that Clemmons would not be a menace to the public despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Despite his lengthy record of violence and the danger he posed to the public, Huckabee granted clemency and Washington and Arkansas officials had no problem granting him parole on other charges and even granting him bail on a child rape charge. He was accused of raping and molesting a 12-year old relative.

As a condition of that bail on the child rape charge, Clemmons was supposed to wear a GPS ankle bracelet, but law enforcement found his during a search of his wife's home.

Police have set up a memorial fund for the four officers murdered by Clemmons; Mark Renninger, Tina Griswold, Ronald Owens and Greg Richards.

All these events would not have occurred but for Huckabee granting clemency, and thus far the reasons proffered do little to justify the clemency; Huckabee reportedly claimed that he commuted the sentence because Clemmons was 17 at the time of the first crimes in Arkansas. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. The nature of the crimes, and the fact that the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld his conviction (Clemmons contested that he didn't receive adequate representation at court), brings Huckabee's judgment into question once again.

After all, this was hardly the first time someone whose sentence was reduced by Huckabee went on to commit more crimes.

UPDATE:
Reports suggesting that Clemmons was surrounded by police at his home appear to have been wrong. Police were indeed outside his home, but he wasn't there.

The News Tribune of Tacoma quoted Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff's Office, as saying a search of the Leschi home turned up a weapon but not the suspect, Maurice Clemmons.

Clemmons is on the run, Troyer said. The Leschi neighborhood remains on lockdown. Nearby Leschi Elementary School is closed.

A murder warrant has been issued for Clemmons.

Troyer said Clemmons was shot and wounded in a Lakewood coffee shop where the officers were killed.

Clemmons - a man with an extensive criminal history in Washington and Arkansas - was the suspect in the Sunday morning shootings of four Lakewood Police officers, who were gunned down as they worked on their laptops, Troyer said.

About an hour before Troyer's early Monday briefing observers believed tear gas was shot into a structure by a Leschi home, which was described as a trailer. Police set up a command center hours earlier near the home at East Yesler Way and 32nd Street, just blocks from where a Seattle police officer was shot and killed last month.

UPDATE:
Huckabee's political action committee released a statement, blaming everyone but himself for the decision to commute Clemmons' sentence.

Should he be found to be responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State. He was recommended for and received a commutation of his original sentence from 1990, this commutation made him parole eligible and he was then paroled by the parole board once they determined he met the conditions at that time. He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him. It appears that he has continued to have a string of criminal and psychotic behavior but was not kept incarcerated by either state. This is a horrible and tragic event and if found and convicted the offender should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Our thoughts and prayers are and should be with the families of those honorable, brave, and heroic police officers.

Who exactly recommended his parole, and why wasn't the concerns of the prosecutors taken into account? Huckabee is right that there were others who deserve blame, but his initial action to commute the sentence must be reexamined in detail.

UPDATE:
The Seattle Times reports that police are looking for a green '97 Mazda Millenia w/ WA license plate 208-SSX. It's registered to Clemmons' wife. He may be attempting to flee the state and head back to Arkansas but police are also responding to a report that blood was found at Cowen Park in Ravenna.

More details are emerging about Huckabee's commutation of Clemmons' sentence, including the fact that Clemmons claimed he was a changed man - that he found religion.

"I succumbed to the peer pressure and the need I had to be accepted by other youth in my new environment and fell in with the wrong crowd and thus began a seven (7) month crime spree which led me to prison," Clemmons wrote in his application to Huckabee.

Clemmons said he came from "a very good Christian family" and "was raised much better than my actions speak (I'm still ashamed to this day for the shame my stupid involvement in these crimes brought to my family name.)," he wrote.

"Where once stood a young (16) year old misguided fool, who's (sic) own life he was unable to rule. Now stands a 27 year old man, who has learned through 'the school of hard knocks' to appreciate and respect the rights of others. And who has in the midst of the harsh reality of prison life developed the necessary skills to stand along (sic) and not follow a multitude of do evil, as I did as a 16 year old child."

Clemmons added that his mother had recently died without seeing him turn his life around and that he prayed Huckabee would show compassion by releasing him.

The documents indicate Clemmons' release from prison was supported by Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Marion Humphrey, who cited Clemmons' age at the time of his crimes and called his sentence excessive. His release was unanimously approved by the parole board.

Humphrey also apparently married Clemmons to Nicole Cheryleen Smith in 2004.

Huckabee fell for this, despite the harsh nature of the crimes he committed and the lengthy prison sentences handed down and affirmed by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Then, there's the crimes he committed immediately after his release from prison the first time:

Clemmons was released from prison in August 2000, said Dina Tyler, spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Corrections.

He was sent back to prison on a parole violation — a robbery charge — in July 2001, according to Tyler.

He received a 10-year sentence, Tyler said, but records show he was paroled in March 2004. He was to remain on parole until 2021.

Clemmons moved to Washington state while still on parole. He spent the past several months in jail on a child-rape charge but was released last week after posting a $15,000 bond. His release here came despite seven other pending felony charges, according to court records.

He didn't even make it a year before being sent back to prison. Yet, he was granted parole for a 10 year sentence just three years later.

UPDATE:
Why did Arkansas withdraw a no-bail provision that would have kept Clemmons in Washington custody while he was pending trial?

Arrested on July 1 after he came to Pierce County Superior Court, Clemmons was initially held on a no-bail warrant out of Arkansas filed after he was charged with assault and malicious mischief case in relation to the May incident. In Pierce County, Clemmons' bail amounted to $190,000 in the cases against him, which by early July included a second-degree child rape charge.

On parole for various felony convictions in Arkansas, authorities claim Clemmons violated the conditions of his release during the May incident when he allegedly punched a police officer, broke several windows and hit an elderly man in the head with a rock. The allegations that followed -- that he raped the then-12-year-old daughter of an acquaintance -- would also have placed him in violation.

Speaking Monday, Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said Arkansas withdrew the no-bail hold on July 22, ultimately enabling Clemmons to post the $190,000 bail and gain his release from custody.

Lindquist acknowledged that prosecutors in Pierce County did not request that Clemmons' bail amount be increased after the no-bail hold was dropped. They did, however, argue successfully against a reduction proposed by Clemmons' attorney.

"Typically, that amount would be enough to hold a defendant," Lindquist said at his office. "This would all be a moot point if the no-bail hold was still in effect."

In the weeks that followed the removal of the no-bail hold, Clemmons was able to put together a bond payment and secure his release on Nov. 23. Days before his release, prosecutors had filed paperwork indicating they would seek a life-sentence against Clemmons under Washington's "three-strikes" law targeting persistent offenders.

Obamavilles? Shantytowns Pop Up Around Nation?

While some folks don't think that this is a mirage and that some cities have faced this situation for years at a time, it is undeniable that many of these cities have encouraged homelessness and sport unemployment figures that are twice the national average even in good times.

Reports about how these shantytowns have sprung up are creeping into news reports, including the New York Times.

Like a dozen or so other cities across the nation, Fresno is dealing with an unhappy déjà vu: the arrival of modern-day Hoovervilles, illegal encampments of homeless people that are reminiscent, on a far smaller scale, of Depression-era shantytowns. At his news conference on Tuesday night, President Obama was asked directly about the tent cities and responded by saying that it was “not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours.”

While encampments and street living have always been a part of the landscape in big cities like Los Angeles and New York, these new tent cities have taken root — or grown from smaller enclaves of the homeless as more people lose jobs and housing — in such disparate places as Nashville, Olympia, Wash., and St. Petersburg, Fla.

In Seattle, homeless residents in the city’s 100-person encampment call it Nickelsville, an unflattering reference to the mayor, Greg Nickels. A tent city in Sacramento prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to announce a plan Wednesday to shift the entire 125-person encampment to a nearby fairground. That came after a recent visit by “The Oprah Winfrey Show” set off such a news media stampede that some fed-up homeless people complained of overexposure and said they just wanted to be left alone.

The problem in Fresno is different in that it is both chronic and largely outside the national limelight. Homelessness here has long been fed by the ups and downs in seasonal and subsistence jobs in agriculture, but now the recession has cast a wider net and drawn in hundreds of the newly homeless — from hitchhikers to truck drivers to electricians.

“These are able-bodied folks that did day labor, at minimum wage or better, who were previously able to house themselves based on their income,” said Michael Stoops, the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy group based in Washington.

The surging number of homeless people in Fresno, a city of 500,000 people, has been a surprise. City officials say they have three major encampments near downtown and smaller settlements along two highways. All told, as many 2,000 people are homeless here, according to Gregory Barfield, the city’s homeless prevention and policy manager, who said that drug use, prostitution and violence were all too common in the encampments.

It shouldn't come as a surprise in places like Fresno. The homelessness issue is one that is the result of political choices made by the local governments that encourage homelessness through the economic policies and practices. That speaks volumes over the political choices made by the elected leaders. Increasing the minimum wage has meant that people who were formerly employed in those jobs may now face loss of their jobs because their employers can't afford to pay the higher wages, increased taxes, and maintain the same staffing levels. Higher unemployment rates can be traced to the higher minimum wages.

Gov. Schwarzenegger, instead of taking a zero tolerance approach and demanding that these people be placed in shelters, is setting the stage to making the situation permanent by allowing the group to take up residence on the state fairgrounds. How is that a solution to the problem? He's just shuffling these people around.

Meanwhile, the situation in places like San Francisco and Seattle are the result of government policies that tolerate homelessness and encourage homeless people from other jurisdictions to come. My own experience in Seattle finds that quite a few of these homeless are mentally ill and unstable and need medical care, rather than being on the streets where they can menace people and cause harm to themselves or others (particularly around Pioneer Square). The policies by the local governments are anything but humane and just; they're tolerating lawlessness and do not address the core reasons why these people are on the street in the first place. Unaffordable housing as a result of government policies that restrict construction of housing and pushing to expand lending to those who are incapable of repaying their obligations means that prices rose unnaturally.

It's all about the unintended consequences.

Writing of unintended consequences, there's this: registry requirements for sex offenders that leads those offenders to conclude that going homeless is a way to avoid ostracism and may actually make communities less safe.

Nice.

Seattle Stupidity Revisited

It seems that the Mayor of Seattle has had second thoughts about the no-salt added policy pursued by the City while claiming that the ecological effects of adding salt to the roads would harm the salt-water of Puget Sound.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced this morning that the city will reverse its decade-old policy and use road salt to melt ice in future storms.

The mayor set certain conditions for using salt: on hills, arterials or snow bus routes, and on routes to hospitals and other emergency facilities when at least 4 inches of snow is predicted, if ice is predicted, or if extreme cold is expected to last more than three days.

The city earlier refused to use salt, saying it's bad for the environment, and instead spread sand over the roads.

"In normal Seattle winters, this practice has served us well," Nickels said in a City Hall news conference today. "This time, liquid de-icers were not enough. People were frustrated, and so was I."

Nickels has faced criticism over the city's reaction to back-to-back snowstorms over the past two weeks. Buses could not run in many parts of the city and roads remained icy and rutted days after snow had fallen.

I guess the Mayor probably saw the bad public relations nightmare that ensued, to say nothing of the possible serious hit from lawsuits as a result of law enforcement being unable to reach people during emergencies in a timely fashion or the numerous auto accidents that resulted from roads that were worse than ice skating rinks because they were on hills.

Nothing is so clarifying as watching the potential for lawsuits pile up, and the city grind to a halt because of a snowstorm.

Of course, there are limitations to common sense:

The mayor set certain conditions for using salt: on hills, arterials or snow bus routes, and on routes to hospitals and other emergency facilities when at least 4 inches of snow is predicted, if ice is predicted, or if extreme cold is expected to last more than three days.

Making sure that hills are treated along with arterials and snow-bus routes is common sense, but requiring that four inches of snow fall before salt is used makes no sense. It doesn't take four inches of snow to cause problems. It can be as little as an inch - because it's the freezing of water that causes ice and turns roads into hazardous ice skating rinks.

HT: Ace

Seattle Stupidity

Seattle has chosen to let nature determine when the police will respond to emergencies. The City has, in its infinite wisdom, opted to not throw salt down on the roads in the hilly city and will allow the "snow-packed" roads persist until warmer weather ensues.

To hear the city's spin, Seattle's road crews are making "great progress" in clearing the ice-caked streets.

But it turns out "plowed streets" in Seattle actually means "snow-packed," as in there's snow and ice left on major arterials by design.

"We're trying to create a hard-packed surface," said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. "It doesn't look like anything you'd find in Chicago or New York."

The city's approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.

The icy streets are the result of Seattle's refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.

"If we were using salt, you'd see patches of bare road because salt is very effective," Wiggins said. "We decided not to utilize salt because it's not a healthy addition to Puget Sound."

By ruling out salt and some of the chemicals routinely used by snowbound cities, Seattle has embraced a less-effective strategy for clearing roads, namely sand sprinkled on top of snowpack along major arterials, and a chemical de-icer that is effective when temperatures are below 32 degrees.

Seattle also equips its plows with rubber-edged blades. That minimizes the damage to roads and manhole covers, but it doesn't scrape off the ice, Wiggins said.

That leaves many drivers, including Seattle police, pretty much on their own until nature does to the snow what the sand can't: melt it.

The city's patrol cars are rear-wheel drive. And even with tire chains, officers are avoiding hills and responding on foot, according to a West Precinct officer.

Snow packed roads? You mean ice-packed.

Police have rear wheel drive vehicles and can't navigate in some areas of the city because they simply don't have the traction up and down the hills. If you don't have one of those dreaded four wheel drive vehicles aka SUVs, you're out of luck.

Why did Seattle do this instead of doing what practically every other major city in the US does? They don't want the salt to get into the Puget Sound.

That's right. The possibility of salt runoff into Puget Sound - a salty body of water connected with the Pacific Ocean (itself salty) trumps common sense.

It means that if you're in a life-threatening situation, you're at the mercy of law enforcement of possibly being incapable of navigating to your location or delaying in getting to your location. It means that the incidence of car accidents are going to be higher.

Most importantly to the eco-nuts, it means that the evil SUV reigns supreme. How exactly does that work?

Then again, it's Seattle. Stupid.

Bagged

Seattle has decided to impose a 20 cent per disposable bag fee on all bags at grocery stores (HT: jcm at LGF).

This is being done in the name of saving the environment.

The fee, along with a ban on foam containers, will take effect January 1, 2009. The City Council is claiming that they're using a market economic strategy to change consumer behavior:

The goals of the bag fee and foam ban are to cut down on waste, reduce the use of environmentally harmful plastics and cut the production of greenhouse gases. Implementation will reduce the use of scarce resources, decrease pollution of our environment, and significantly reduce a source of litter in our streets and parks.

These proposals are important elements of the Zero Waste Strategy, the Seattle Plan to increase recycling and reduce our solid waste, a plan that received the unanimous endorsement of the Council and Mayor last year after a careful and thorough review of how we can step up to meet the environmental expectations of our community.

The foam ban and green fee for shopping bags are just two of several parts of the city's new waste reduction and recycling strategies approved by the Council and mayor in 2007. The overall goal is to increase Seattle's recycling rate to 70 percent by 2025 and reduce the amount of waste shipped to landfills by at least one percent per year over the next five years.

The bag and foam proposals were developed by a coalition of community organizations, including People for Puget Sound, Foam Free Seattle, and the Bring Your Own Bag campaign, along with businesses like Puget Consumers Cooperative. As a result of their work, the Council and Mayor agreed to make reducing Styrofoam and plastic bag use the first priorities in considering substances that could be banned or restricted as part of the Zero Waste strategy.

The bag fee is the right alternative because it utilizes market forces to accomplish a public good. People can choose to pay the fee or bring their own bag to the store. Any revenues that the City receives from people who choose to pay the fee rather than switch to reusable bags will be required by law to return to the Solid Waste Fund, where they can be used to provide bags for low income consumers, promote recycling and waste reduction, and reduce solid waste rates. This program makes the polluter pay, and rewards those who do the right thing.

This is redistribution of wealth in play once again, and those who aren't saavy to pick up on this will be screwed. They will pay the fees, and will see none of the benefit.

The Seattle ban hits both plastic bags and paper bags. Never mind if you reuse the bags to put garbage in or recycle down the road. You'll be paying the fee.

Expect other cities to pick up on the bag fee as a revenue generator since they're finding a hard time keeping up with motor fuel revenues that have dropped as people have changed their driving habits and tobacco tax revenues continue to drop as fewer people smoke.

I suspect that once people start realizing how much the bags are costing, some will respond by choosing to buy fewer items altogether. Instead of helping the local economy, the Seattle city elders are going to help keep the local economy in the tank.

UPDATE:
I forgot to mention where all this money is going:

The green fee is intended to encourage and promote the use of reusable shopping bags. The city will set aside at least $1 million to distribute bags to seniors and low income households. Retailers will keep 5-cents of every bag to cover administrative costs. Retailers grossing less than $1 million annually will keep the entire 20-cent fee.

So, certain small retailers will basically pocket the fee, and other retailers will receive 25% of the fee to offset their administrative costs. The remainder will go to the Solid Waste Fund.

FBI Seeks Individuals For Questioning

The FBI is interested in talking with these two men, who were seen acting suspiciously on one of the many Seattle area ferries that cross Puget Sound.

The FBI is asking for the public’s help two identify two men who have been seen acting strangely aboard Washington State ferries recently.

According to federal agents, passengers have seen the men on several occasions exhibiting unusual behavior. The FBI did not say precisely what that unusual behavior entailed.

Anyone who knows the men or there whereabouts are asked to call the FBI at (206) 622-0460.

So, what has the Seattle Post-Intelligencer done through this? They've dutifully run an article outlining what is going on, but have refused to run the photo of the men. How exactly would anyone know who to look for based on the description provided in the article except as to go by a photograph? These are people of interest and every opportunity should be provided to enable the authorities to make contact with these individuals.