Editorial voices from elsewhere
Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States as compiled by the Associated Press:
Gasoline prices are at their lowest levels in seven years. That’s pretty good news for motorists throughout the nation during the holiday season.
Then again, tell that to the tens of thousands of Americans who have lost their jobs in the now-beleaguered petroleum industry states.
The slide comes on the heels of a long trend of increased employment and petroleum production in the United States. As energy experts often point out, this is a classic boom and bust industry. Don’t expect many Americans to cry crocodile tears for the Exxons of the world; they have recorded large profits in recent years.
The only sure thing about the current bust in the oil industry is that it won’t last. Stronger economies in the United States, Europe and China could propel greater demand. More tension and uncertainty in the Middle East could do the trick, too.
The use of drones – for commerce and recreation – is soaring in the United States, and it’s no wonder. The unmanned aircraft perform many tasks that can be hazardous for humans: police surveillance, forest fire observation, and toxic hazard assessment, to name a few.
A report released Dec. 11 by Bard College’s Center for the Study of the Drone said that, based on Federal Aviation Administration data from the past two years, 241 close encounters – within 500 feet – have been observed between drones and manned aircraft, including 28 that caused pilots to veer away. Ninety of the near misses involved jets.
Mandatory registration is a plus, but it alone will not prevent midair collisions. Observance of the rules by drone owners is essential. For larger and more advanced flying machines, the Bard College study’s authors recommend sophisticated solutions such as “geo-fencing,” which is software designed to limit a drone’s flying range, and “sense-and-avoid” systems to help unmanned aircraft anticipate and avoid a possible collision.
Adopting these and other measures would treat America’s highflying machines more like aircraft and less like toys. Safety in the skies is not child’s play.
Facebook is a $245 billion business built on two comforting notions. One is that the people who see the family pictures, political rants and cat videos that you share on the social networking site are your friends.
The other is that your communications over the “community” of 1.5 billion people can be private.
Both of these ideas turn out to be wrong – at least some of the time – and the nation is replete with stories of “private” messages between “friends” that have gotten the sender divorced, fired or jailed.
Now the notion of social media privacy has become an issue in the aftermath of the San Bernardino mass killing in which one of the shooters was a Pakistani national who may have made statements about her commitment to jihad and the terrorist Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
Where do we as a society draw the line between sensible security measures and Orwellian intrusion into private lives? This is the question that has led to vigorous debate about searches, wiretaps and the collection of telephone and email meta-data. Strong arguments can be made on both sides of the privacy-versus-security divide, but when it comes to the privacy of Facebook posts, it should not be a tough call.
Information sent over Facebook and other social media platforms should not be considered private communications – not by the people who use the platforms, and not by law enforcement agencies looking to prevent crimes. Monitoring content and paying attention to who’s talking to whom in a public space is not an erosion of our civil liberties; it’s just common sense.