Editorial Roundup: New York
Albany Times Union. October 3, 2023.
Editorial: A win for privacy
The state Education Department made the right call on facial recognition technology.
Look up: Is a camera on you right now? They’re the 21st century’s eyes on the streets, posted on bus stops, in places of business, even in our doorbells. There’s one ready and waiting in our pocket, too — in the cellphone that’s also tracking our location and sending notes to advertisers on the things we browse for.
In the world of digital tracking and social media oversharing, the concept of privacy may seem outdated, maybe even naive. But privacy won a victory last week when New York state banned the use of facial recognition technology in schools. The decision came after the state Office of Information Technology Services prepared a report on the use of the biometrics in schools that concluded the risks outweigh the tool’s potential benefits. It’s the right call: Using face scans for school security won’t work, and it raises a host of other problems.
Several years ago schools in Lockport, Niagara County, used Smart Schools Bond Act money to install a facial recognition system. After parents raised concerns (and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit), the state initiated a moratorium until the technology could be better studied.
Lockport said its goal with facial recognition was to help prevent school shootings by being able to quickly identify the presence on campus of a person who has been deemed a threat. No question: That is a worthy objective. But this isn’t the right tool for that job — not least because the system would already have to “know” the face of a likely shooter and identify them as a threat. That won’t work in many situations, including in the all-too-common scenario of a current student showing up to school with a weapon.
OK, how about looking for a rifle? These systems don’t appear to be very good at that, either: Too many false hits on items like brooms cloud the data.
There’s more: Facial recognition technology has trouble identifying nonwhite people, which raises questions about bias and fairness. And then there are the privacy issues: How will the data be used? Will school officials check the face data logs to investigate misbehavior on school property? Who’ll have access to the dataset? Under what circumstances might it be given to the police? How about immigration authorities? How long will the data be stored, and how will it be kept safe from leaks or hackers?
We’re glad that the state Education Department looked at all these uncertainties and concluded that using this technology in schools wasn’t worth it. But keep those questions in mind, because the state did give schools the OK to use another biometric technology “after seeking parental input”: digital fingerprinting, which some schools use so kids can buy school lunch or check out library books with just a touch.
The same privacy issues must be weighed before schools create records of children’s fingerprints: How securely, and for how long, will the data be stored? And who — including, potentially, law enforcement — will ever be able to access it?
Communities should have a chance to weigh in and set boundaries before schools collect any biometric data from children. We don’t need to believe in the possibility of a Big Brother state to realize that normalizing surveillance chips away at some oft-neglected rights: the right to autonomy and the right to be left alone. As the saying suggests, giving up liberty for some temporary safety is a dangerous bargain.
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New York Post. October 1, 2023.
Editorial: Give NYers an ethics watchdog they can trust
That disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo gets to hang on to his ill-gotten $5 million book payment is just the latest sign that New York state’s leaders are incapable of imposing any ethical restraints on themselves.
The only thing keeping corruption remotely in check is the risk of federal prosecution.
Last month, a state judge ruled that the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government is an “unconstitutional fourth branch of government.”
That decision is on appeal, but for now the panel is even a more toothless joke than the “watchdog” it replaced, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, a k a JCOPE or, more accurately, J-JOKE.
JCOPE in its 11 years mainly served as a weapon at Cuomo’s disposal, a way to threaten legislators who crossed the gov.
When Gov. Kathy Hochul engineered a successor “cop,” no one mourned JCOPE — but the doubts it would be any tougher now stand confirmed.
The only way to get genuine policing of Albany politicians is to amend the state Constitution to allow for a truly independent ethics authority beyond the influence of the pols it’s supposed to watch.
As it stands, New York’s state lawmakers are not only the nation’s best-paid and laziest, but also a good-government laughingstock.
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Wall Street Journal. October 2, 2023.
Editorial: Donald Trump’s Fraud Trial in New York
Is this a case about inflated asset values or partisan politics? Yes.
New York’s civil fraud trial against Donald Trump and his business empire started Monday in a Manhattan courtroom, and the great shame is that he and state Attorney General Letitia James can’t both lose. In comments at the courthouse, Mr. Trump called it a “witch hunt,” and he has a point. Yet the investigation also seems to have caught some typical Trumpian deception.
Judge Arthur Engoron granted partial summary judgment to the state last week, ruling that Mr. Trump presented grossly inflated financial figures to lenders. This is “not a matter of rounding errors or reasonable experts disagreeing,” he wrote. Mr. Trump’s famed triplex residence in Trump Tower is 10,996 square feet, but he repeatedly claimed 30,000 square feet.
“Defendants absurdly suggest that ‘the calculation of square footage is a subjective process that could lead to differing results,’” the judge added. “Well yes, perhaps, if the area is rounded or oddly shaped,” but “good-faith measurements could vary by as much as 10-20%, not 200%. A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud.”
The ruling goes on for pages like this: Despite four appraisals pegging his Seven Springs estate at $30 million or less, Mr. Trump claimed it was worth $261 million. He valued apartments in New York as if their rents weren’t regulated. His figures for several golf clubs “included a 15% or 30% ‘premium’ based on the ‘Trump brand,’” according to the judge, even while lenders were told no such premium was added.
Judge Engoron acknowledged that this asset puffery doesn’t seem to have created losses for the creditors: “Defendants correctly assert that ‘the record is devoid of any evidence of default, breach, late payment, or any complaint of harm.’” The judge said, however, that legally speaking this is “completely irrelevant.” Whether he is correct under New York law is a possible subject of appeal.
Perhaps the state will argue that the lenders might have demanded better terms if they’d seen accurate information. New York is the nation’s financial capital and has an interest in stopping deceit in the marketplace.
But the lenders weren’t naifs and had to know Mr. Trump’s penchant for lying. Mr. Trump appears to believe he could claim anything, as long as he tacked on a disclaimer. “They call it ‘worthless clause,’” he said in a deposition, “because it makes the statement ‘worthless.’”
Yet Mr. Trump is right that Ms. James is a partisan Democrat who campaigned on going after him. The night she won the AG’s race in November 2018, she proclaimed: “I will be shining a bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings.” This is an abuse of prosecutorial power, targeting a person and then hunting for something to charge him with.
There is also cause to wonder about Judge Engoron’s sweeping judgment when there are no clear victims. The judge’s pretrial ruling last week would essentially strip Mr. Trump of control over assets in New York, including Trump Tower. Ms. James wants to ban him from doing business in New York. It’s hard to believe anyone not named Trump, and not so loathed by Democrats, would be facing such a sanction.
Mr. Trump showed up in court Monday for a reason, using every opportunity to portray himself as a political victim. His claim will resonate with many because of Ms. James’s targeting and Judge Engoron’s caustic opinion. If Democrats hope all of this will keep Mr. Trump from the White House, they may discover they are helping him win the GOP nomination to face a weak and unpopular President Biden.
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Plattsburgh Press-Republican. October 4, 2023.
Editorial: Hard times urge us to come together
There is a lot of bad in the world. We see it every day.
There are wars, terrorism, human trafficking, thievery, rioting, assault... you name it and we’ve seen it.
It seems especially bad these days when social media is full of negative posts about crime and tragedy and the posters and commenters bemoan our state of society.
And then there is the social media political battlefield where the anger spews constantly, pitting one side against the other in the nastiest of terms.
Some days it seems all is lost and we are headed for doomsday.
Our hearts collectively sank this past weekend when we learned of an AMBER Alert about a missing nine-year old girl at Moreau State Park in Saratoga County about two hours south of here.
Charlotte Sena’s bicycle was found, and police believed it to be an abduction.
She had been riding around the camp with her friends and wanted to go around the loop one more time before dinner. When she didn’t return, her parents experienced every parents’ worst nightmare.
The AMBER Alert kicked in and the public was given her description and as much information as possible, and law enforcement began a massive search.
Unfortunately we know from experience that the first few to 24 hours are the most critical in cases like this. The longer a child goes un-found, the lower the odds of having a successful outcome.
By early evening Monday, we were approaching the 48-hour mark and still no word of Charlotte being found and our hopes dimmed.
Then, they were miraculously buoyed when we heard that she had been found and in good health and a suspect was in custody.
We rejoiced at her discovery and thanked the heavens. We also thanked law enforcement and the first responders.
During the 48 hours of Charlotte’s disappearance, we saw something that we needed to see. We saw not just a community, but a nation coming together to hope and pray for the best for Charlotte and her family.
Social media was flooded with sentiments of caring and concern and hope. And it came from all sorts of folks. Folks who normally are at each other’s throats on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) about politics, domestic and international policies and issues, actually came together in calling for Charlotte’s safety.
And it wasn’t just a community of caring. It seemed the whole world was watching and caring. One person posted that the entire east coast was praying for her return.
Here in the North Country, the story touched us especially hard since it occurred only two hours south of here. The abductor could have easily traveled through our area, making everyone especially nervous.
But it also made us vigilant and people were eager to spread the word and keep an eye out for any signs.
In that sense, we came together as a people united in good and caring for our fellow human beings.
At a girls soccer game at Beekmantown Monday night, the crowd erupted in cheers when the announcer said that Charlotte had been found and was in good health. It was a heartwarming moment of relief that we all shared.
These kinds of stories most definitely touch us in so many ways and prompt us to do a self-evaluation of our lives and take a moment to reflect on our family and realize how much they mean to us.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have those feelings of caring and concern dominate our lives on a daily basis without having to experience a near-tragedy to spark them?
Whether we realize it or not, we are all in this together, folks. So let’s be kind, considerate and peaceful every day of our lives.
Life will be so much better for it.
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