LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

NSA probe may hurt news media

At the risk of being labeled unpatriotic, I have to speak out against broad government access to phone records. The dismissive tone of the administration and its congressional echoes brings no reassurance in the context of the focused efforts to invade our privacy and erode our civil rights.

One perspective on this issue causes me particular concern: the impact on journalists and their ability to investigate and report beyond the spoon-fed talking points delivered to Fox News and the White House press corps. Consider the effect on the few remaining investigative reporters who rely on sources within the government to get accurate information. What risks will those sources be willing to take now that the government can track the phone calls of reporters back to their sources within the government?

One wonders if this was the mechanism by which they were able to identify Mary McCarthy, the CIA agent who allegedly provided information about the secret prison camps in Eastern Europe to reporters at The Washington Post. The resulting story won a Pulitzer Prize, but McCarthy was fired. If this phone record access continues, I think we can count on even less information about what our government is really doing, and the press will continue its transition to become nothing but a profit-driven instrument of propaganda.

I urge anyone who values a free press to contact your representatives in Congress and encourage them to fight this.

BYRON GLIDDEN

Eugene

Green building has an agenda

I was appalled reading the article "Growing Green" (Register-Guard, April 30). The plan to build a LEED-certified building is more about groups supporting shutting down the forest products industry than concern for global warming and energy conservation

Are we to frame a "green home" with steel studs or steel and concrete? Fact: "The global warming potential of steel-framed homes was 26 percent higher than the wood-frame home." Fact: "The global warming potential for the concrete-frame home was 31 percent higher than for the wood-frame home." These facts are taken from the CORRIM Report compiled by more than 10 universities and several associations.

Even though LEED promotes wood, which meets the Forest Stewardship Council's standards for sustainable materials, the council has heavy involvement from members of environmental groups. This is also like having your dog guard your dinner. We would be paying money to an organization that would like to shut the forest product manufactures down.

Oregon companies are required to follow the Oregon Forest Practices Act, which is one of the most comprehensive sets of forest practice regulations in the world.

Royal Caribbean's building was built with structural steel, steel decking, metal studs and pre-cast concrete. LEED is just another environmental activist group that believes cutting trees is a bad thing. Remember, trees are a renewable resource. Are steel, plastic and cement products environmentally friendly? I think not!

TERESA ADAIR 

Cottage Grove 

Wyden, DeFazio should stop sale

Southwest Oregon's Siskiyou Mountains are a unique and special place. For our future, we need the wild rivers and wild lands that make Oregon a great place to live, work and raise a family. We need today's leaders to make a stand so that future generations can see salmon running in the crystalline waters of the Illinois River.

Despite the claims of Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Peter DeFazio that they value the wild lands and wild waters of the Siskiyous, they have not made any efforts to protect the old-growth trees in large blocks of lands affected by the Biscuit fire. Next month, the Forest Service plans to sell the rights to log tens of thousands of mature and old-growth trees from the flanks of the Illinois River.

These forests are in large blocks of wildlands that the Forest Service staff identified three decades ago as logical additions to our wilderness system. While it takes an act of the entire Congress to designate wilderness, it will also take a commitment of our delegation to stop its destruction.

JEREMY HALL

Eugene

Respect all county employees

Lane County Commissioner Bill Dwyer's comment, "Why shouldn't we get the same benefits as we give to the lowest employee?" in reporter Matt Cooper's article (Register-Guard, May 12) is a tell-tale confirmation of county elected officials' attitudes toward county employees, which is both shameful and offensive.

Who is the "lowest" employee? Is it the parks employee who maintains the grounds and restrooms? Is it the health workers who are risking their own health to help someone who is ill? Is it a public works employee on a road crew who works for our safety? Or is it the janitor who cleans the Public Service Building?

In contrast, how do you classify the highest employee? Those who are more visible in the public eye? Those in management? Or those who use their positions in government to benefit themselves?

Recently in my workplace, another department needed help stuffing envelopes and we were asked to help. Our manager did not consider this mundane task beneath her, and she partnered alongside us to ensure another department's success. Consider what would happen if the elected officials would adopt this "lead by example" attitude and maybe just once worked alongside a lower county employee. I bet it would encourage and foster a team mentality throughout the county.

Employees should all be considered equal in value, but different in function. When people feel valued and are treated with courtesy and respect, they become more efficient and productive in any work environment.

TAMARA MAHN 

Springfield

Unsung heroes brighten a day

I appreciate the unsung heroes who live and work among us. These are the people who redeem humanity when we often see so much that's bad. Sometimes there's hope.

I was driving to work recently on 11th Avenue by Northwest Christian College and saw a woman herding a group of ducklings out of the road and gutter while two adult ducks foraged in the grass nearby, completely oblivious to the danger. All the ducklings made it back up the curb except one, which disappeared down a storm drain!

When I got to work, I called the Eugene Water & Electric Board. The helpful receptionist gave me a number for the city of Eugene. I called the city and was told that workers had already gone out and saved the ducklings. I love that there are people out there who go out of their way to save small, stupid ducklings. It makes my heart happy.

Moreover, this gesture reminds me that humanity might have some value other than to be self-serving. Since we created the danger in the first place, somehow it seems only right that we take responsibility for the ramifications.

So I'm grateful to the woman who stopped traffic to herd ducks and to the EWEB receptionist for giving me the city's phone number and not making me feel foolish. And I applaud the city of Eugene folks who just went out there and saved all those endangered duckies.

SUSAN BELHASSEN

Springfield

Expel the GOP from Congress

My first serious excursion into politics was at the age of 16 with Barry Goldwater's ill-fated 1964 campaign. Once I was eligible to vote in 1969, I was proud to say I was a Republican.

That pride took a hit when President Nixon and the Watergate scandal shook the foundations of our democracy, but we survived. President Reagan restored the pride. Since Reagan, my Republican pride meter has bounced up and down. It it began to dive significantly a couple of years ago.

Finally, no longer willing to be associated with the policies of the Bush administration, I changed my registration to independent.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, we now learn that three of the major phone companies have cravenly furnished private telephone call information on 200 million of their innocent, unsuspecting customers to the National Security Agency. Kudos to Qwest for standing up to the government. There is no way this is related to anti-terrorism efforts.

What is it going to take to get Congress to investigate the unconstitutional activities of the Bush administration? A wholesale expulsion of Republicans from Congress would enable the other party to exercise oversight of the executive as it did with Nixon.

Even then - with the revelation that senior members of Congress of both parties have known about this latest domestic spying program for years - I am fearful that nothing of consequence will be done.

ED KEMP

Walterville

It's time for citizen activism

Eighty percent of the American public claim to be environmentalists. So why are we trembling on the brink of ecological devastation?

Perhaps what we need aren't more environmentalists, but more involved citizens advocating for change. Understandably, most people just want to relax after a hard day's work. What if businesses donated an hour a week of their employees' time to a local nonprofit? A business could repay the community for its financial support, while enhancing its image.

What if people combined some of their socializing with advocacy? At a neighborhood potluck, what if everyone spent 10 minutes writing a letter condemning logging in their drinking water supply?

No one wants to be serious all the time. But the reason we are afforded the luxuries of being able to say what we want and hold whatever beliefs we want is because countless people have given their blood, sweat and tears - even their lives - to ensure that we have those liberties. If we do not act now, future generations will curse our names.

JOSH SCHLOSSBERG

Eugene

Media must do better with Iran

Wow! Recently, we got yet another political cartoon showing a "mad dog Iran" gleefully making nuclear bombs. These cartoons take up a lot of space. Yet, with all this space used in this way, I haven't seen even one attempt to outline the actual evidence of Iran's nuclear program.

Iran's leaders might truly be as unstable as our own, but that's not what I need to know. Our country, it's plain as day now, was fooled or led to believe that Iraq was a horrible danger that had to be dealt with right away. Many people have died and the cost has been many billions of dollars, surely enough to support decent health care for everyone. And for what, a Shiite government that backs Iran?

What I need to know is what hard evidence there is that Iran indeed is pursuing nukes. I need to know who else is enriching uranium and why Iran being treated differently. I need to know if the United States is living up to its own obligations under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. And I need to know if we're being lied to again.

Let's face it, the disaster that is Iraq is at least partly the fault of our supposedly free media, which grossly failed to seek or tell us the truth. Please don't do that again. There are lives at stake.

CHARLES ROEHRICH

Eugene