January 8, 2001
Editorials
INS standards need teeth
After a mountain of lawsuits alleging ill treatment and an investigation by the Justice Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has issued standards for the treatment of immigrants held in federal and county jails. While the new standards provide some needed guidelines for housing these prisoners, they do not have the force of law, carry no sanctions and fail to address many of the larger issues plaguing the immigrant detainee system.
A state repair job
The governor's election task force needs to address fully all the malfunctions in Florida's voting process, and it needs to hold hearings at convenient times and places.
Disclosing medical mistakes
Patients are entitled to know if their doctors have a history of making mistakes. Under a new proposal by the federal government, Medicare beneficiaries could obtain reports on physicians who erred and compromised care.
Letters
Leonard Peltier should not be given clemency
Re: Collective guilt, and the man who pays, by Louise Erdrich, Jan. 1.
Perspective
Taking jobs, alienating customers
For weeks Americans have been told that the outsourcing of high-tech jobs is good for our economy. So said Greg Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in a recent report signed by President Bush. So, too, writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in articles praising the rise of call centers in India used for everything from making airline reservations and reading medical X-ray films to providing tech support for American computer firms.
Philip Gailey: Democrats fall off campaign finance reform wagon
Well, what do you know. Soft money is back, and it's making hypocrites of all those Democrats who fervently championed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, not to mention those Republicans who objected to the law's restrictions on issue advocacy.
Bill Maxwell: Who is for the farm worker?
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is touting legislation to improve the lives of Florida's 300,000-plus farm workers, who endure institutional and systemic injustices each day in our fields and groves and their personal lives.
Robyn E. Blumner: For some defendants, an American gulag
In Bernard Malamud's masterpiece The Fixer, inmate Yakov Bok was subjected to psychological torture in a Soviet gulag through the humiliations of constant shackling and repeated strip searches.
© Copyright 2001 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.
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