Next week at the state capitol

Next week will be a big week at the state capitol as Governor Corbett gives his first budget address, a proposal that his budget secretary has suggested would be a "day of reckoning."

But on the civil liberties front, it appears all should be relatively quiet, for a change. Several bills in which we have an interest have been re-referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee, including Senate Bill 3, banning insurance coverage for abortion in the insurance exchanges created by healthcare reform, and Senate Bill 9, requiring government-issued ID for public aid. Bills expanding the controlled substances law are currently on the tabled calendar, and SB 1, the school vouchers bill, is expected to go to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Though the legislature is always full of surprises, no committees are scheduled to vote on civil liberties-related bills.

The biggest potential threat this week is House Bill 317, which adds two new aggravating circumstances for capital cases. It would bring the total number of aggravating circumstances, i.e. circumstances in a homicide that could lead to the death penalty, to 20. At a time when Illinois and Montana are considering repeal of the death penalty, followed on the heels of repeal by New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico, this bill actually expands the death penalty here in PA.

It's possible that HB 317 could get a vote next week. One would think it would go to the House Appropriations Committee before getting a floor vote since the death penalty has proven to be a very expensive government program. But one never knows at the capitol.

After next week, the legislature breaks for several weeks for budget hearings. (Yes, I'm already thinking about the days off I'll be taking this month.) Ah, but civil liberties will still be on the docket this month, as the House Democratic Policy Committee will hold several hearings on school vouchers and the House State Government Committee will hold hearings on ID to vote (on March 21) and on a resolution asking the federal government to address concerns raised over TSA airport searches (on March 30).

In between, I'll be getting some rest. It will really crank up in April.

Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

The U.S. military and all of our intelligence services are facing a shortage of Arabic linguists - and have been for some time. In 2003, for example (two years after September 11th, for the math impaired), the State Department had only 60 employees fluent in Arabic and only five with skills sufficient to go on Middle Eastern news and talk television programs.

This shortage very well may have contributed to the tragedies of September 11th happening at all. On September 10th, the NSA intercepted two messages from known al Qaeda operatives who were considered "high priority" - "Tomorrow is zero hour," said one; "The match is about to begin," was the other. Because these messages were from high priority targets, they were shunted into the translator's queue to be translated...which, due to the high volume of messages and the low number of translators, took two days. Until September 12th.

Clearly, a reasonable and effective defense strategy would be for our government to actually know what people from the Middle East (including those who mean us harm, those who may be trying to prevent harm, and those who want to engage in an ongoing dialogue about how we can improve international relationships and work together on safety threats) are saying to them and be able to talk back.

Yet despite all the talk of aggressive recruitment of linguists, signing and re-enlistment incentives, and stop-loss measures, our government seems intent on shooting itself in the foot when it comes to developing and employing a pool of desperately-needed Arabic language talent.

First, it rejects the already-established talent of men and women who very much want to use their skills on behalf of their country. Just one year after September 11th, the military discharged six Arabic linguists (along with three additional linguists in other critical languages) solely because they had been found to be gay. These "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" discharges have continued up to the present, including the highly-publicized firing of fluent Arabic speaker and West Point graduate Lt. Dan Choi last year.

Then, it harasses a young college student who is studying Arabic, detaining, handcuffing, and aggressively questioning him over the course of a four-hour ordeal as he tried to make his way back to school in California, because of the Arabic-language flashcards he had in his pocket. Among the questions Nick George was asked was whether he knew what language Osama bin Laden spoke. So now our government has made it suspicious behavior not only to speak a language that hundreds of millions of people around the world speak, but to develop language skills that are in painfully short supply and are needed for defense measures that are significantly more effective than violating the Constitutional rights of airline passengers who pose no threat to flight safety.

Maybe it's just me, but perhaps we need some better strategies.

Becca in Harrisburg