European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 22, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday August 22,1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 13 invasion of dear diary violates Constitution Williams fire like everyone else i smacked my lips at the revelations in a Young Treasury aide s diary of the pres ident being furious at a Friend s decision to remove himself from the Whitewater line of fire. Like everyone else i derided the aiders ludicrous at tempts to wriggle away from his written record As for example in his description of a High official s at tempt to deceive a Senate committee with half truths As gracefully ducking  like everybody else i missed the Central Point of the exercise what right does Congress or the cops for tha matter have to pry into anybody s personal diary the diarist Joshua Steiner showed in one entry the fear now Felt by anyone in pub1 lie life who dares express Pri vate thoughts in a personal Jour Nal been battling to Hertz Madison. Wrote two pages about what s been going on suddenly realized that i could be subpoenaed like pack Wood and the most innocuous comments could be taken out of context. So on that subject,nothing." in the Pursuit of wrongdoing we Are doing wrong. Under the Guise of enforcing ethics Well meaning zealots in Congress have fixed their eyes on hitherto inviolate private diaries by so doing they Are undermining our fourth amendment right to Protection against unreasonable search and seizure and fifth amendment Protection against self incrimination. This despite the court s 1977 decision that of the 42 million pages of documents and 880 tapes seized from Richard Nixon the dict belts he dictated each evening constituted a private diary that had to be re turned to him forthwith. Because the supreme court in 1984 stripped away fifth amendment Protection for business records the diary snoopers now argue that any thoughts that we have written Down can be used against  need not be absolutist on the Sanctity of what the French Call be journal Intima if police can showgrounds for suspicion that a terrorist s diary contains plans to blow up a building a judge can reasonably order it  in the Case that chilled Josh Steiner into writing on that subject nothing . Senate is. Packwood judge Thomas Jackson ruled that the ethics commit tee s interest in maintaining Public Confidence in the Senate As an institution made its search for any kind of misconduct regardless of relevance to the original charges  this gave staffers License to rummage through thou Sands of pages of the intimate details of five years of sen. Bob Packwood s life fishing for anything that republicans planted  Glove simply Fco Frame by client. Could be used against him on any  outrageous ruling obtained by an ethics committee More intent on satisfying a few forehead than on protecting every american s privacy set the precedent that has turned Washington into an open City for diary  s not As if diaries represented irrefutable evidence. Rarely does the diarist put Down exactly what he hear immediately afterwards More often its a first draft impression of what he thinks happened. When Steiner writes Harold and George the called to say that by was furious How do we know that Ickes and Steph Nopoulos had just seen the presi Dent blowing up hearsay. Though always self serving and often too Sloppy to be evidence diaries of Public officials help us estimate How it really  once Drew together the diary entries of three Lin Coln Cabinet members plus the raw notes of the Secre tary of War and the diary of his portrait Painter to get a rough idea of what really happened in the Cabinet meeting of july 22,1862, when the emancipation proclamation was discussed. Such primary sources about administrations to come Are being denied us by Congress. Asked by a sympathetic inquisitor after his ordeal if he was still keeping a diary the Young Clinton diarist breathed no  everybody laughed. Historians Aren t laughing. Ordinary people who buy the 5 million Blank diaries sold every year with the expectation that their intimate notes will be inviolate Aren t laughing. A of us  and would be diarists should take a serious look at the Rush to break the Seal of the self confessional. Just As our Home is our Castle our mind is our Citadel of privacy and so should be our mind s most intimate expressions in a personal diary. C new York times gun control Only glances real Root of violence All the Rev. Canon John Frizzel wanted was to have me on a november panel to talk about ending gun violence in America. What he got was a bigger Load of my own confusion and frustration than any mortal should have to  Washington Cathedral with which Frizzell is associated is joining with the coalition to Stop gun violence for a three Day conference in Washington that will try to Supply some answers to questions regarding gun violence. I m afraid that none of the answers will be supplied by me i Don t have any. I not even All that sure about the questions. A. If the search were for a Way of curbing accidental shootings or to keep guns out of reach of children some combination of gun control and mandatory firearms safety training might  i Don t think the coalition and the Cathedral would schedule a three Day conference and invite participants from across the country to discuss accidental shootings which however tragic Are not what come to mind when we think of gun  does come to mind Are the armed robberies the almost offhand As saults and the coldblooded killings often involving Young men and frequently associated with illegal drug trafficking that make so Many City dwellers petrified of travelling in their own  what might a panellist pro pose to curb such violence gun control Well i m More of a supporter of gun control than even the reverend Canon whose preference is for screening Licens ing and safety training for gun owners. Mine is for making it much much tougher than i now is to acquire handguns an impossible to acquire assault weapons. But i Don t be Lieve for a minute that even the toughest gun control Law would make Pur communities noticeably William Raspberry safer. Maybe if there were some Way to retrieve All the guns Al ready in circulation Short of course of House to House searches d be willing to support a Law to do it and to outlaw the manufacture of new firearms. But that s so far beyond the realm of possibility and Public tolerance As to be not Worth talking  Only sort of gun control legislation that could conceivably be enacted by the most progressive legislators would in my View do not a blessed thing to make dangerous City streets  can t abide the National Rifle association but that gun lovers lobby is right about one thing when guns Are outlawed Only outlaws will have , so gun control is problematic but does that mean that there s no Way to re Duce gun violence probably not much in the Short term and for this reason the violence we Are enduring is in my View Only marginally a firearms problem or even a Law enforcement problem. It is simply another manifestation of problem i have described As the con science Tessness of a Small but significant element among us children who have reached adolescence Jand beyond without having internalized any important sense of right and wrong who have no internal brakes on their behaviour who can maim destroy and kill without remorse. These Are the Young people for who automatic weapons fire seems a reason Able response to being cheated Cut off i traffic or even dissed and who place scant value even on their own lives let alone yours. Worse As the influence of these con science less ones increases in school Yards and on the streets youngsters who were brought up As moral and responsible beings find themselves forced to choose Between an utterly emasculating Wim lishness and readiness to engage in retaliatory or even preemptive Vio Lence. Be stripped or be strapped. We can try our Best to protect our Good sons and daughters from the Vio Lence by providing Safe places for their recreation. We can increase the number of police officers on the streets. And we can do what is necessary to reduce at the source the Supply of conscience less youngsters a by enlisting Church and Community in a crusade for their academic economic and spiritual redemption. We need to do these things and Many others not so much to protect our selves As to save our children. And it is those same things that Over time will make our communities Safe Agam y Small Comfort in that for those including me who Are increasingly fear Ful of the violence in our towns and cities. It sounds hopelessly Long term somewhat vague and a Little Sappy even to me.1 but i think it s the truth. Our communities won t be Safe from our children until we first make them Safe decent an nurturing places for our children. 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