Show d£h t Salt £akf Sribtinc Tuesday Morning—September 8 1987 Section A Page 12 Wild Fire Fighting No Longer Hit ‘em All Hard Situation “800 Square Miles Go Up in Smoke” the headline read on page one of Saturday’s Tribune It was not hyperbole Rather it accurately reflected the impact the past several days’ wild fires have made on the Western United States But those 800 square miles ought to be put into meaningful perspective Comparatively they aren’t a lot of ground For example Utah includes within its borders 84916 square miles Some of this state’s smaller counties in area don’t quite include 800 square miles: Salt Lake County has 756 square miles Piute 759 Weber 566 and Daggett 699 So far these devastating fires have been costly They have contributed to one death injured more than 50 people and destroyed at least 42 homes Still uncounted are innumerable barns and similar structures Yet it is incorrect to assume that the entire Western United States is being consumed Another erroneous assumption that ought to be avoided is that these fires will have no productive worth Of course much property will have been destroyed valuable timber burned vital grazing land denuded and important watershed resources imperiled At the same time for example thousands of acres will be cleared of downed and twisted snags leaving behind improved wildlife habitat where deer elk birds and other small and large animals can prosper Also fire often improves timber lands clearing them of underbrush that will allow greater and accelerated tree growth and enhancing the nutrients in the soil Also worth contemplating in the context of the massive firefighting effort going on in the West is the change in how professional land managers now regard fire A succinct summation of this change is that the US Forest Service now talks about “fire management” instead of “fire control” Forest Service people along with their counterparts in other federal and land management agencies no longer feel compelled to fight and extinguish every fire as quickly as pos sible and spare no expense in doing it Instead fire is now viewed not just as a threat to resources but also as a potential tool in land management It is also prudently recognized that some fires can be left to burn themselves out because they don’t endanger people or property are unlikely to consume valuable natural resources or are simply too costly or dangerous to fight They don’t deserve anyway the all-ocontrol effort of a few years ago An example of such a fire is the Deadwood Summit blaze 29 miles east of Cascade Idaho The fire which has burned over 18000 acres in the Frank ut Church-Rive- r hang-the-co- st of No Return Wilder- ness Area is in a designated fire management area and has been burning since July 31 Forest Service people have determined it is too costly to suppress and so are letting it burn while keeping a close watch on it to make sure it doesn’t exceed rational fire management parameters There are probably at this moment similar cases throughout the West where land managers have made a deliberate and thoughtful decision to let some of the current fires burn unchecked or to keep suppression efforts at a moderate or minimal level Under no circumstances however should the public get the impression that forest firefighters aren’t making effort to put out the several an all-onow burning The evifires hundred dence says differently: Nearly 20000 firefighters some from as far away as the Northeast and Deep South now on the firelines Those people are breaking their backs to stop the fires They are working long hours under very hazardous circumstances And given time and the right weather conditions they will soon prevail The general public will be doing those people a great disservice if they become critical of their efforts because some firefighters appear to be ignoring a particular fire Better that people indoctrinated by decades of Smoky Bear’s admonitions recognize that not all wild fires are worth fighting Some can be carefully watched while they burn ut Restore Protester Rights were the authorities all means the US I ' By Navy must conduct the fullest possible investiga-tio- n of the protester maimed by a weapons hauling train at Concord Calif The incident calls for official condemnation and the sternest avail-- ! able discipline When former Vietnam veteran Brian Willson lost both legs below the knees when run over by the Navy base train he became not only a senseless victim in the anti-wa- r movement but a martyr for factions everywhere anxious to berate the United States as a civil rights offender Mr Willson and those blocking the train by occupying tracks in front of it may have been violating laws they certainly didn't deserve death or injury It’s not as if protests on railroad tracks against weapons-haulin- g tactic trains Rather this country’s peace groups is a new anti-milita- ry have been using it for years The standard procedure is for authorities to arrest the squatters and move them out of harm’s way But last week the engine bound from the Naval Weapons Station at Concord plowed straight ahead hitting Mr Willson and severing his legs Why? I Where sponsible for clearing re- the tracks? Who gave the engineer the idea he could disregard human beings in the train’s path? Why would someone be put in charge of a diesel engine at a military weapons depot uninstructed as to the procedure when protesters show up? The Navy has promised a complete investigation Good Thorough it must be With everyone responsible for allowing this tragedy to occur identified and punished That doesn’t mean piling all blame on the protesters either This country’s free speech guarantees are supposed to tolerate people openly publicly demonstrating on behalf of their fervently held beliefs If they trespass are destructive or violate others’ rights the law allows arrests and convictions Killing and maiming those who commit civil disobedience as a way of challenging official policy or defying government practices may be the way opposition is handled by totalitarian regimes But it’s not and never should be the approved method in the United States of America The sooner Navy efforts in this particular atrocity restore that understanding the better ‘Oh look children — Dear old Uncle Ronald left you this box in his will Why don’t we ’ open it and see what’s inside England Needs a Bill of Rights Britain’s Secrets Act Hurts Citizens By Phillip Knightley Special to the Los Angeles Times In all the brouhaha over “Spycatcher” g the memoirs of Peter Wright e assistant to the director general of MI-- 5 the main lesson is in danger of being overlooked: Britain’s desperate need for a Bill of Rights Until now it has usually been assumed in other countries that in Britain a bastion of Western democracy a citizen has the same rights as those guaranteed by say the US Constitution It has come as something of a shock therefore to learn that the British press has no automatic freedom to publish the British citizen no automatic right to ing formation vital to his This is why “Spycatcher” can be bought in any American book shop but not in a British one This is why American newspapers can debate the importance of the book’s contents but a British newspaper would risk crippling fines and maybe the jailing of the editor if it attempted to do so This is why the British media is not allowed to report crucial parts of the continuing legal action in Australia where the British government has taken “Spycatcher’s” publishers to court to prevent them from publishing the book there best-sellin- one-tim- well-bein- This is why in an intriguing role reversal an issue of Pravda has been banned in Britain because of what it had said about Wright and "Spycatcher” “Spycatcher” makes the news but it is not the only example of how the lack of any constitutional right to publish has deprived British citizens of information they might need in order to regulate their society Jock Kane a formal employee of GCHQ (the British equivalent of the National Security Agency) has for years been trying to reveal what he claims is widespread corruption in the organization His book on the subject was seized by Special Branch police officers and a still photograph of GCHQ headquarters was banned by the Independent Broadcasting Authority leaving a blank screen in the middle of a current affairs program A book called “One Girl’s War” the memoirs of a woman MI-- 5 officer has been banned even though it deals mainly with a woman’s love for a fellow officer during World War II Justifying the ban a government spokesman said that if a diary of an MI-- 5 officer’s experiences in say India in 1912 were to turn up in someone’s attic the government would still do it’s best to prevent publication on principle Shameless Framers Wouldn’t Share The Best Job With Any Newcomers New York Times Service WASHINGTON — I want to be a delegate to the next Constitutional Convention (Con Con II) Here’s my platform: amend the Con- stitution to make it possible for naturalized citizens to become president or vice president of the United States The present blatantly discriminatory eligibility clause is a blot on the national escutcheon and an anachronistic offense to conscience “No Person except a natural born Citizen” reads Article II Sec 2 “or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible to the Office of President” Who slipped in that nativist bigotry at the convention whose 200th anniversary we mark this month? No record by any of the Framers gives us a clue to original intent but a letter from John Jay to George Washington shows a genesis in an obsessive concern for national security: “Permit me to hint” wrote Jay an aristocrat who later served as the first chief justice “whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government and to declare expressly that the commander in chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen” In other words don’t trust any of them sneaky furriners to command our army Of course when Jay’s idea was written into the Constitution the framers took care to exempt themselves: whether born in America or elsewhere all were born subjects of what became "foreign” governments and not until Martin Van Buren in 1836 did we have a “natural born” president As a result of Jay’s xenophobia eight United States citizens million are today denied the opportunity to seek the highest office in the land The three percent of our population who are Americans by choice may aspire to serve as speaker of the full-fledg- Another Viewpoint or chief justice or to hold posts like chairman of the joint chiefs or national security adviser — but when it comes to the brass ring of politics the greatest flaw remaining in our Constitution relegates these naturalized citizens House or senator ultra-sensitiv- to e second-clas- s status The “natural born” phrase unfairly burdens children of Americans born abroad (as it did Gov George Romney in 1968) because it casts a shadow across any candidacy: if would surely elected the president-elec- t d face a challenge on the impediment in the Supreme Court That means Minnesota Sen Rudy Bosch-wit- z is blocked from advancement because he was born in Berlin and Connecticut’s Sen Lowell Weicker because he was born (of American parents) in Paris New Hampshire Gov John Sununu whose US parents were in Havana when he was born and Vermont’s Gov Madeleine Kunin born in Zurich and naturalized 40 years ago can forget about higher office Other citizens distinguished in their fields silently bridle at their political limitation The economist and former Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith is out as a potential president because he’s from Canada Henry Kissinger under whom two US presidents served is from Germany and Felix Roha-ty- n financial savior of New York is from Austria My newly-retire- d colleague James Reston could never entertain secret dreams of power because he was born in Scotland and my new Op-E- d Page colleague A M Rosenthal cannot occupy Lincoln’s bedroom because he came from Canada (My other columnist sidekicks and I are constitutionally clean but do not expect lightning to bom-abroa- strike) Buying Bonds Could Help Save Rain Forests From The New York Times Imagine that there was a way to serve endangered environments like - pre-- I the Amazon rain forest one that also eased the foreign debt burden blocking Third World development Environmentalists and proponents often at odds would cheer Thanks to the Frank Weeden Foun- dation of Connecticut there's no need to imagine It has provided a way to buy in effect bonds for biology devel-opme- ' : I different varieties of birds and more species of trees than all North America In July Conservation International a US environmental group used a $100000 Weeden grant to buy discounted Bolivian debt certificates Then it swapped these to the Bolivian government in exchange for iis agreement to expand the Beni Biosphere Reserve The reserve in Bolivia’s Amazon basin is home to 13 species of dangered plants and animals more than 500 In August Costa Rica launched a more systematic program run through its Ministry of Natural Resources Potential donors are now being solicited to buy $54 million of outstanding debt to be recycled through the Central Bank for local currency bonds Revenues will go for land acquisition park management and reforestation For Costa Rica reforestation also makes possible future export earnings from harvests of precious woods non-prof- it The Third World's low credit rating these days actually works to multiply the value of an environmentally linked donation Bankers’ jitters about possible debt moratoriums and defaults have driven debt prices well below face value US dollars used to buy up debt certificates thus yield far more than their normal equivalent in local funds In the case of Costa Rica a donation of $250000 would pay for environmental bonds worth $500000 Swaps like these can meet only a fraction of outstanding third world debt Costa Rica’s program aims to convert a little more than 10 percent of its total debt burden Bolivia’s about 15 percent But the bonds do give interested donors a way to help conquer two urgent third world problems Governments and multinational institutions could play an even greater role Sens Alfonse D’ Amato of New York and Robert Hasten of Wisconsin and Reps John Porter of Illinois and David Obey of Wisconsin are sponsoring legislation that would direct the US representative at the World Bank to propose an environmentally linked debt relief program through the bank The idea merits congressional attention and support Why do we allow Jay’s outmoded suspicion to dry up our talent pool and insult our most valuable imports? A reasonable residency requirement is understandable as is the same age requirement that applies to senators and we were wise to limit service in the presidency to two terms But the dead hand of the present should not lay on the future: let tomorrow’s people decide who they want to be their president Place of birth should no longer be a barrier A few years ago Sen Thomas F Eagle-to- n dropped a bill in the hopper to amend the Constitution: "A person who is a naturalized citizen of the United States and who is otherwise eligible to hold the office of president or vice president shall be eligible to hold such offices after being a United States citizen for eleven years” The proposed resolution died in committee demonstrating that the Congress is loath to rise above nativism on this issue The other route provided by the framers to change the Constitution is through the states and a new convention On to Con Con II! Special Branch officers raided the offices the BBC and seized the master tapes of a television series that criticized Britain as having a government obsessed by secrecy They took away van loads of documents relating to the program broke down the door of the house occupied by the program maker and removed his files in an effort to discover his sources Anthony Cavendish a former officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service Jhe equivalent of the Central Intelligence Agency has written a book critical of shortcqm- of Phillip Knightley is author of “The Seciirthe ond Oldest Profession: Spies & Spying 20th Century” (Norton) ings in the service but he has been warned that if he attempts to publish it he could tape criminal prosecution Yet while the British public is deprived of serious and important information Fleet Street’s gutter press is free to publish an amazing amount of rubbish some of it total fiction The Sun for example has made yp interviews with the widows of war heroes and barged into hospitals where the victims of ghastly road accidents lie injured Members of the royal family smart under a barrage of invented stories about their personal lives This nonsensical contradiction — a press that appears free to publish only valueless information — would end if Britain had a Bill of Rights with a clause along the lines of the American 1st Amendment guaranteeing freedom of expression and in another clause again modeled on US law protecting a citizen’s right to reasonable privacy At one stroke this would enable the quality press to raise serious matters for serious debate and at the same time prevent the gutter press from invading the ordinary Citizen’s privacy It would also cope with the Draconian Official Secrets Act which is behind much of the censorship that goes on in Britain This act makes it a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment for anyone to pass or receive an official secret defined as whatever the government says is secret Almost every government employee from keeper in the Royal Parks to clerks in the Inland Revenue Service are required to sign the act which lasts for life Consider what would have happened to “Spycatcher” and the Official Secrets Act if Britain had a Bill of Rights If the government felt that “Spycatcher” threatened national security and sought an injunction to prevent it from being published the judge considering the application would be able to weigh the freedom to publish against any danger to the national interest All would know where they stood Everyone’s rights would be protected Instead the law has been put to improper use Because the Official Secrets Act does not reach beyond the shores of Britain the government had to use other legal methods to try to stop Wright from publishing in Australia where he now lives It has invoked a rarely used section of contract law — the proposition that an employee owes his employer a duty of confidentiality to try to stop Wright and has used the law of contempt on any newspaper that has tried to pre-emthe confidentiality hearing have been asked to grant injuncJudges tions the correct purpose of which is to restrain a foreseen injury in this case the revelation of secrets But the secrets are out therefore in British law a new precedent is being set — it is now possible to get an injunction against the threat of something that has already happened So while in the publishing world will be remembered as a remarkable best seller elsewhere it has already raised major constitutional issues If it succeeds in initiating momentum for a British Bill of Rights then it will have achieved an historical importance far greater than its author now a sick old man ever dreamed “Spy-catche- r” - pt “Spy-catche- r” “Lately every time I say something he has to give the Democratic response to it” r t A |