Get off the beach: Sit down — or stand up — and paddle offshore

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Sea kayakers in Portland have a couple of problems. First, it can be hard to find someone to paddle with, if you don’t already know a fellow enthusiast. Second, if you find someone willing to paddle, they likely don’t have their own boat — meaning you’re back out paddling solo again.
There’s nothing wrong with that, except it’s way more fun — not to mention a good bit safer — to paddle with friends. The easy solution, of course, would be to rent a boat for your willing partner. But until recently, renting a kayak wasn’t possible in the Forest City. Rather, prospective paddlers were forced to leave downtown and drive north or south along the coast, or to sort out the ferry schedules to and from Peaks Island on either end of the trip. All this precluded a quick after-work paddle or the spontaneous choice to laze around the swells of a weekend afternoon.

But salvation is here, and there are no more excuses. Portland Paddle opened its hatches last weekend, right at the East End Beach.

It’s a perfect spot to start a paddling trip — many owners already store their boats on the city-provided racks and launch from the beach. It’s a very protected little corner of the harbor with great views, and provides super-easy access to a wide range of destinations. You can take a relaxed excursion among protected inlets, (carefully) explore wildlife nesting areas, check out the rarely viewed seaward sides of lighthouses, and watch lobstermen do their work at close range — if you’re lucky, and have some cash on board, you may buy them fresh out of the trap!

Portland Paddle co-owners Zack Anchors and Erin Quigley are longtime East Enders who found themselves frustrated at the lack of paddling opportunities on the mainland hereabouts. So Anchors, a master Maine Guide who has led kayaking trips in many places for more than a dozen years, and Quigley, an experienced outdoorswoman who just got her Maine Guide license last month, teamed up to expand paddling opportunities in Portland.

They have about a dozen single kayaks and five tandems (as well as several stand-up paddleboards), all available for rentals by the day, half-day, or for an hour or two. (Buy a 10-rental punch card for a discount!)

The gear’s all new; they let me put the very first scratches on the hull of a shiny Necky Looksha in late May, on the first official Portland Paddle outing, an afternoon route around the back of House Island via Fort Gorges. It’s great stuff — put it to use!

Go it aloneIf you rent from Portland Paddle you’ll need some kayak experience and self-rescue skills. (See below for class information if you need to learn, or brush up, on those skills.) They have wetsuits, life jackets, spray skirts, and paddles available at no additional cost. (For a half-day single kayak rental with all the gear too, you’ll pay $40.)
Pop out to Fort Gorges in just a few minutes, or across to lunch on Peaks. Noodle among the islands for a relaxing afternoon of on-the-water sightseeing, and find a quiet beach to pull up on for a swim and a brief rest before heading back on your way. Paddle up the inland coast to Mackworth Island. Explore the inner harbor or even up the Fore River. Or head for the main passage out to the open ocean, checking out some of the more remote outer islands; adventurous paddlers can cross the channel (be careful!) to picnic at Willard Beach or Fort Williams Park.

Follow themIf you’re not up for a solo rental, Anchors and Quigley also lead guided tours around the harbor every day from now until September. (If the weather’s really windy or thunderous, they’ll cancel, but generally they run rain or shine.) You can get out there with the other sunset cruises, take a morning harbor tour, or go all day to the farther reaches of Casco Bay. The coolest thing on offer is an every-other-Friday moonlight paddle, heading out at sundown and letting darkness fall during the excursion. You might catch some bioluminescence in the water, and you’ll definitely get your own glow-stick.

Do as they doOf course, if you’re new to paddlesports, you’ll need to learn the basics. Sea kayaking is fun, and not difficult, but you ought to be prepared before heading out onto the ocean.
Classes, which cost just under $50 each (including use of a Portland Paddle boat and equipment), will be taught on a weekly schedule, with others added as demand requires. Most of them are three hours long, which is enough time to learn, try, and practice techniques without wearing yourself out. There are basic-skills classes to introduce you to sea kayaking — and the all-important rescue class. Intermediate and experienced paddlers can benefit from tailored classes on improved boat handling techniques, and even a rolling clinic. (And yes, there’s an intro to stand-up paddleboarding too.)

Become a regularThe first teaser for locals to become regulars is a discount punch card, which lets you prepay for 10 rentals and get a pretty sizeable discount for buying in bulk. You can get a kayak-only card for $250, a stand-up paddleboard card for $150, or a card offering five of each for $200.
Even more attractive for those of us who are seeking more of a paddling community is the weekly Wednesday night skill sessions, from 4:30 to 6:30 pm; $10 with your own kayak or $20 to use one of theirs. It’s a chance to hang out with other paddlers, brush up on some skills with an instructor, and maybe, just maybe, find a paddling buddy for those longer excursions.  ^

Portland Paddle | East End Beach, Portland | open through September, Mon-Thurs 11 am-7 pm; Fri-Sun 9 am-7 pm | portlandpaddle.net | 207.370.9730

Boost your safetyHelp the Coast Guard with a free sticker
 The Coast Guard is trying to cut down on unnecessary search-and-rescue missions, to leave time, energy, and focus for when it really counts. Paddlers can make it harder, or easier.
When any boat is found adrift, or washed up on a piece of coastline somewhere, the Coast Guard gets the call, and has to figure out whether someone’s in trouble (or several someones), or if it’s just one of those times when a boat slipped its mooring or got loose from a dock.
If power- or sailboats are involved, they have registration numbers on their hulls, which makes it fairly easy to contact the boat’s owner and see what might have happened. Not so for kayaks and canoes: Since there’s no registration required, there’s no easy way to track a boat to its human.
This sort of thing happened to canoes and kayaks more than 50 times in Maine and New Hampshire’s coastal waters last year, says Lieutenant Nick Barrow, who supervises the search-and-rescue command from the South Portland Coast Guard station. (By mid-May, there had already been nine so far this year.)
To prevent this, get a vessel identification sticker, fill it out, and slap it on your boat. Pick them up free from the Coast Guard during the June 15 boating safety day (all day over at the station on High Street in South Portland), or at paddle outfitters around the area. You put your own contact info and that of your emergency contact on a reflective surface that will hold fast to your boat, even if you, or your tie-up lines, don’t. (If you can’t find one, call the Coasties at 207.767.0320; they’ll figure out the easiest way to get you one. And hey, get two — and give one to the next paddler you see without one.)
The stickers are useful if your boat escapes on its own (meaning no extensive search is needed, and you get your boat back), and even more so if you’re actually in trouble. As Barrow points out, your emergency contact can give rescuers important information about where you were planning to go, what your level of experience is, and what equipment you had with you — all of which helps them plan a better, faster, more efficient search to get you home safely.

Press releases: Back to basics

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The past week's events in Augusta provide a teachable moment for Maine's elected officials and the public at large, on the topic of free speech. In a statement last Thursday, Republican Governor Paul LePage blasted Democratic legislators for having "attempted to silence the Governor and violate his right to freedom of speech."

Before we get into the specifics, let's talk for a moment about what freedom of speech means, and what it doesn't. It does not mean that a person can say anything at any time to anyone and face no repercussions. It means that the government cannot stop a private citizen from saying something the government does not like before it's said.

But if the government doesn't like what's been said, it can prosecute people (such as for leaking classified information). And the power of the courts can also be used if private parties don't like what's been said (such as in a libel case).

Now we can turn to LePage's two main complaints.

• "On Sunday [Democrats] refused to allow Governor LePage to speak with members of the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee regarding the Medicaid shortfall the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) faces for the remaining fiscal year which ends on July 1."

The committee was meeting in a hastily arranged Sunday work session, and heard testimony from Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew and Financial Services Commissioner Sawin Millett, as well as discussion among the legislators on the panel.

In legislative work sessions, public testimony is not permitted, though committee members often ask for comments from various interested parties, including state officials but also, at times, non-government employees who have particular expertise on a topic or could be affected by the legislation being discussed.

Paul LePage, private citizen, would not have been allowed to speak unless specifically asked by the committee — but that is not a violation of his right to free speech. It's a matter of legislative process. However, his role as governor should have gotten him a turn talking.

It's true that his administration's position was well stated and well explored by the two commissioners' appearances. But when the head of the state's government shows up to state his position in person, it's an unusual move, and reasonable to think that he should have been given his own opportunity to speak his mind — and, as is the protocol, to remain after making a statement to answer questions from committee members.

It's hard to argue that the administration was censored when top officials were afforded significant amounts of time to speak. But it is a failure to defer out of respect for the office of the governor, if not for the man himself.

• "Democrats have told the Governor that he cannot have a television in the Office of the Governor lobby area, which is on the second floor of the State House. In a letter, Governor Paul R. LePage informed Democratic Leadership today that the television is placed in the reception area of the Governor's Office. Senate President Justin Alfond today told Governor LePage in a morning meeting that he could not have the television on display."

This one's a no-brainer, not least because LePage's characterization of the TV's location is inaccurate — the "Office of the Governor lobby area" is in fact the Hall of Flags outside his office. Anyone, private citizen or public official, who set up a television — with any message, or even turned off and with no message whatsoever — in the Hall of Flags of the State House without proper permission from the bipartisan Legislative Council would have been asked to remove it.

The Hall of Flags is a public place managed for the access, expression, and well-being of all Mainers. Its management is smooth and effective, allowing for a wide range of viewpoints and events to occur in a prominent public space. In this case, the deference should have been from the governor (who has ample platform to share his beliefs) to the shared spirit of the hall.

Poll numbers: Watch your backs, useless people

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The Maine People Before Politics poll released Tuesday is filled with problems, many of which have already been dissected by UMaine political science professor Amy Fried on her Bangor Daily News blog — and some of which have also been parodied by Maine People's Alliance activist Mike Tipping on his Twitter feed (@miketipping).

The questions are leading, and misleading, resulting in skewed and unreliable results. That's not too surprising for a group so closely aligned with Republican Governor Paul LePage — it is exactly the same organization as managed LePage's transition and inauguration into the Blaine House, and just changed its name to keep using the same funds.

But there's one question that is neither skewed nor misleading — and its results are the most illuminating of the bunch, showing the continuing breakdown of our entire political system.

Here's how the poll asked 500 people about Mainers' confidence in political parties:

"Which political party, Republican or Democrat, do you trust more to solve the problem or issue that you believe should be their highest priority?"

Apart from its obvious omission of the Green Independent Party and any sense of the relative prominence of non-party-affiliated politicians in Maine, this is a pretty fair question. And here are the answers, with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.5 percent:

REPUBLICAN 139 people, 28 percent

DEMOCRAT 139 people, 28 percent

BOTH EQUALLY 42 people, 8 percent

NEITHER 151 people, 30 percent

NOT SURE 29 people, 6 percent

So while we're arguing about the methodology of an obviously partisan group's obviously inept poll, let's be sure to remember that more people trust neither party than trust either the Republicans or the Democrats to actually achieve anything important. Ineffectiveness: At last, something all parties can agree on.

Learning works: Laptop program change sets schools back 10 years

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Governor Paul LePage described his recent decision to shift the laptop program from Macs to Windows machines as being driven by a desire to promote "college and career readiness." It's a sketchy correlation to say the least — and Tuesday's introductory webinar (mainly for school staff, but open to all) from Hewlett Packard did little to increase confidence.

The webinar started with a five-minute effort to ensure the screen-and-audio sharing technology was actually working, punctuated by uncertainty about which representatives of which companies would be making remarks, or had said they would be there to speak, but hadn't arrived yet. Not an auspicious start.

Next came a very friendly five-minute pitch that could have been from 2002, when the Maine Learning Technology Initiative was just kicking off with Apple and Macintosh laptops for middle-schoolers. Amy Dupuis, the HP representative, and HP "education strategist" Elliott Levin explained why "one-to-one learning" was the "new" direction for education, and how computers facilitate breaking away from the old classroom models.

The focus, repeated throughout the presentation, was on choice — how much flexibility the school districts, and even individual schools and classroom teachers, would have to customize their devices for maximum usability.

What we want from our school laptop program, though, is not the limitless range of choice HP kept touting, but a set of tools proven to work in education settings for students and teachers of varying capabilities. Such solutions aren't going to come from HP and its partners, teachers and tech leaders listening in were told.

While it's true, as Levin said, that "you shouldn't be limited to accessing textbooks from a single source," that was never true of the Mac-based program either.

What the Mac base did bring was a suite of hardware and software, like iPhoto and iMovie, that provided crucially important relative uniformity for teachers across the state, facilitating collaboration between professionals and among students.

That sharing has helped make the laptop program what it is — not the computer-skills instruction program LePage seems to envision, but a tool for education that supports thinking, acting, and learning at modern speeds.

Now, though, with everyone having to learn a new platform, and the very real prospect that no two platforms will be very much alike — even within school districts — the "college and career readiness" lesson will be painfully obvious:

Corporate America is filled with non-standardized, non-interconnected, confusing technology systems that have to be learned from scratch at every new school or job. Technology, as used in government and the private sector, is as often as much of an obstacle as it is an enabler. (Real-life example from this week: JPMorgan Chase's computer system can detect I'm not in California and decline the purchase attempts there of someone who has stolen my credit card number, but can't tell me what my new card number is for two days, and makes me wait another full day for online access to my account.)

We don't want obstacles to learning — we want enhancements! And we don't want students who've been taught to successfully fight with one specific program or operating system — we want graduates who can think broadly, widely, and creatively, and express those thoughts effectively.

All the technology-specific obstacles from 2002 had been cleared, through the power of collaboration and shared experience. LePage's decision has put them all back in place, and expanded the possible range of barriers to actually using technology to learn.

Press Releases: Can I get a witness?

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Remember when public appearances by elected officials were things daily-newspaper reporters went to? Times have changed. On April 16, Republican Governor Paul LePage spoke at a public gathering in Skowhegan, a town whose commercial interests have had a rocky dispute with the guv over his reluctance to issue a bond for investment there. Despite the almost certainty of newsworthy (or at least amazingly quotable) utterances, no media bothered to attend.

So no reporter was present to protest the request from LePage's office to bar recording equipment. Since taking office he's been famously wary of having his words transmitted to the public at large. Nevertheless, no reporter was present, even to take notes, when LePage again demonstrated why that wariness might be justified.

The people of Maine got lucky, no thanks to professional journalists. Only by the purest non-journalistic chance did we learn even more about the troubling ways in which the governor's mind works.

He made the laughable claim (laughing was the response of the UMPI spokeswoman when she heard about it) that there's a "little electric motor" inside a wind turbine on the UMaine-Presque Isle campus, turning the blades even when there's no wind — "so that they can show people wind power works."

At least one intrepid regular person captured LePage's audio and leaked it not to a reporter but to a progressive activist who also blogs for the Bangor Daily News and writes a commentary column for the Kennebec Journal.

The incident has gotten national attention, and again confirms for LePage-watchers that our governor has a dangerously distant relationship with the truth.

It should also confirm for Mainers that our traditional press corps has a dangerously distant relationship with covering our elected officials.

• Even when official faults crop up CLOSE TO THE NEWSROOM, reporters aren't always on top of things. But in a rare example of airing of its dirty corporate laundry, the Portland Press Herald last week ran a sizeable story headlined "Press Herald parent accuses former CEO of misusing more than $530,000."

The Richard Connor era at the PPH was previously most notable for its claims of wonderful profitability to the public — followed by claims of dropping revenue and outright poverty to its employees (who collectively own a portion of the company), resulting in, among other things, massive tensions when it came time for talking about raises.

The legacy of Connor, who left in late 2011, is in its final death throes, now that the Press Herald's employee-theft insurance policy has validated claims Connor misused $537,988.68 in company funds. The man himself steadfastly — almost Trumpishly, now that we think of it — denies any wrongdoing and claims the PPH and its insurance company, Travelers Casualty and Surety, have everything all wrong and that he did not, in fact, do anything untoward.

Of course that hasn't stopped him from admitting doing at least some of the things Travelers determined he shouldn't have, telling reporters for the Press Herald and theBangor Daily News that he did indeed spend company funds for personal dental work, to buy an SUV for his son's use, and on Camden vacation rentals while he was looking for a residence shortly after arriving on the scene in 2009.

It's just, he claims, those expenses were genuinely company-related — so it wasn't theft. He might actually believe that: Connor always had a flair for grandiosity. He treated the newspaper like his personal journal, writing bizarre columns about astrological readings and exercising a very heavy hand in news coverage decisions.

Now we learn he used the paper as his personal bank, too, putting $90,000 in personal expenses on company credit cards and using a further $70,000 in company funds to pay his personal credit card, as well as giving himself "$287,224.78 in unauthorized salary increases and bonuses," according to an accounting released by the Press Herald. Now that's grandiose.

Mind power: North Pond Hermit's secret: meditation?

Published in the Portland Phoenix

When asked what he did most of the time while he lived in the woods for the past 27 years, Christopher Knight, known worldwide as the "North Pond Hermit" or the "Hermit Burglar," had a simple answer (relayed to the Kennebec Journal by Maine Game Warden Terry Hughes): "I would read books," Knight said, "and I would meditate."

Knight may not, of course, be the ideal exemplar of a meditator. "He stole from people," points out Peter Comas, a member of Vadra Vidya, a Portland-based Tibetan-tradition meditation group. "At its best meditation allows one to become more comfortable with oneself and the world . . . Our approach is not to withdraw from the world," he says. Meditation promotes "a deep sense of ethics, (asking) what does it mean to be a responsible person and to be fully aware of the effects of your activities on other people?"

That said, when practiced regularly over the long term, meditation has been shown in scientific studies to improve concentration and emotional stability, lessening the effects of anxiety and major depression. In other words, his practice might have helped Knight withstand the mental challenges of the solitude and secret life he chose.

Bill Barry, director of the Brunswick Portland Shambala Center, another Tibetan-tradition group, says meditation "changes your material wants that most of us have." He also notes that "most of us are afraid of being alone by ourselves . . . Someone like (Knight) obviously has transcended that fear," a lesson that can come from meditative realization that we are, in fact, always all alone, Barry says.

Other important discoveries have also come from long-term hermit meditators, of which there is a strong tradition in south Asia, such as learning that "our thoughts aren't real," Barry observes.

The exact type of meditation Knight practiced is unclear, but there is evidence that different styles carry strong benefits. Katie Grose, co-director of the Greater Portland Transcendental Meditation Center, says "TM" — a standardized, uniform method of practice — has repeatedly been found in peer-reviewed studies to vastly reduce stress. It also can help heal people with post-traumatic stress; some have speculated that Knight's departure for the woods may have been related to some trauma suffered during his youth.

Meditation may have also helped Knight deal with the cold — he reportedly had no regular source of heat, apart from a stove he only used to cook. He used many sleeping bags, but he may also have used his mind. For one thing, Barry says, meditation can change a person's perception of discomfort, allowing greater toleration of harsh circumstances.

And then there's a Tibetan meditation technique called tummo ("inner fire"), which is said to allow even thinly clad people to remain warm outdoors in freezing temperatures.

A 1982 article in the scientific journal Nature documented the ability of monks trained in tummo to elevate their body temperatures despite cold surroundings. Herbert Benson, the scientist who conducted that research, also documented in a 1985 study the ability of monks trained in tummo to sleep comfortably on bare rock at 15,000 feet in zero-degree temperatures with just a woolen cloak for insulation.

Monks in other studies have been able to slow their metabolisms significantly, and to sit in cold rooms and dry wet sheets with their body heat alone. (A more extreme version is the Japanese practice of taki-shu-gyou, in which a person meditates underneath a waterfall and strives to remain warm and focused without shivering.)

If Knight goes to jail for any period of time, meditation might help him there too. The 2007 documentary The Dhamma Brothers explores meditation practice in an Alabama prison; other similar programs have shown success in reducing inmates' stress in confinement and dealing with often-violent prison culture. Knight, now being held on burglary and theft charges at the Kennebec County Jail, is no doubt already feeling discomfort in the change from living alone outdoors; perhaps his mental skills will help him endure further suffering, if the courts impose it.

Press Releases: On Walls and Laws

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The West End News last week broke the story that the Portland Press Herald is resuming active exploration of erecting a paywall for its online news offerings. While the PPH site has said nothing of the sort yet, it's worth wondering how such a change could affect the larger local news ecosystem.

Right now, a lot of the news you see on television and hear on the radio comes, at least initially, from newspapers. It's a common national situation, most extensively documented in Baltimore in 2010 by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a DC-based part of the Pew Research Centers. The study found that "much of the 'news' people receive contains no original reporting. Fully eight out of ten stories studied simple repeated or repackaged previously published information. And of the stories that did contain new information nearly all, 95%, came from traditional media — most of them newspapers."

Right now, most TV and radio stations subscribe to the AP's broadcast wire service, which, among other things, compiles and repackages print-media stories for on-air use. (This is what you hear when MPBN's Morning Edition host, Irwin Gratz, reads a few snippets, often including the phrase "The Portland Press Herald reports this morning...")

The paywall itself will likely not affect the broadcasters much. But they could be hit hard if the paywall's debut is coupled with a change in thePPH's membership in the Associated Press.

If the Press Herald keeps sending its stories to AP, then TV and radio stations will keep getting that information for their existing cost. But since that would mean PPH stories would be available elsewhere for free, it would make more sense to kill the AP connection. The broadcasters would be stuck either paying AP for less, or shelling out for the PPH separately.

In OPEN-GOVERNMENT NEWS, the group calling itself Maine's Majority — a far more hyper-partisan organization than the public it claims to represent — last week launched a dangerous and hypocritical assault on government transparency, by way of a political attack on admittedly loony ex-Maine treasurer Bruce Poliquin. Seems Poliquin asked for a state-compiled email list to expand the audience for his electronic missives after leaving office. MM executive director Chris Korzen sent out an email claiming Poliquin "abused" Maine's Freedom of Access Act, "to obtain (a) public list for personal use."

But the FOAA has no other purpose than to give people access to public information they want. It doesn't, and shouldn't, consider their reasons for asking, or what they'll do when they get the info.

Korzen's release admits Poliquin broke no laws. (Though it is tacky and may have violated the terms of his mass-email contract.) It went on to self-contradictingly say both that the email list (which had already been compiled for public purposes) is "publicly-owned" — and that its use by the public should therefore somehow be restricted.

When I pointed out to Korzen that trying to restrict what people do with public records once they're out of official hands is a dangerous and slippery slope (think: government-imposed restrictions on free expression), his response was almost immediate: "I really don't care. This is my job."

In an extended email conversation (see the full correspondence at thePhoenix.com/AboutTown), Korzen took harder and more sweeping swings at Poliquin, at one point saying he "would love to see the law changed so we can prosecute people who do what Poliquin did," and in another message condemning him for having "used public information to advertise himself for business/political/personal purposes."

Of course, Korzen had done exactly that too: He asked for public records (correspondence from Poliquin about email lists), got the information, and then used it for his own purposes (sending out a political-attack announcement).

Given this latest instance of shrill knee-jerk partisanship, and compounded by a clear failure to understand the important concept of government transparency, it's time to tell lawmakers something I never thought I would suggest: From now on, ignore Maine's Majority.

BREAKING NEWS: Founder Chris Korzen ‘quits’ Maine’s Majority #mepolitics

Published on thePhoenix.com

See the following email exchange (read up from the bottom). Not sure who's empowered to accept his resignation, but it's as clear as day: Chris Korzen is leaving the Maine's Majority group he founded. Further, he admits that does not understand the difference between requesting public records from the government to use in a publicity campaign to promote a political perspective and, well, requesting public records from the government to use in a publicity campaign to promote a political perspective. He's just sure that when he does it, it's good, and when Bruce Poliquin does it, it's bad.

Here's my last message to Chris:

You have made my exact point. Poliquin would likely say he is exposing abuse of the system, and that you're advertising. All I'm saying is that I don't want the government determining whether either, both, or neither of you is telling the truth. Open government and free speech can get messy, but the mess is better than the alternatives.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

Please. Print this, so the world can see how ridiculous my life has become. If you don't, I will. If exposing abuse of the system is now synonymous with advertising, then seriously, I quit.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:14 PM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

In your 12:21 pm message you finally boiled down your argument against Poliquin to this:

"He used public information to advertise himself for business/political/personal purposes."

You did too.

You used public information (the results of your FOAA request that included Poliquin's request for the email list) to advertise yourself (your point of view, your organization, your political cause) for business/political/personal purposes (to promote your perspective on both a potential candidate and an existing state law).

(Okay, I'll let you off the hook on "personal," but with the observation that I hear more about Poliquin from MM than I do from the man himself - which is damn hard to do.)

And you do this all the time - you make FOAA requests, receive the results, and do with them what you want to.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

I feel like I'm in the twilight zone here. How is what Poliquin did something that we do all the time?

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Let me summarize:

-You put out a press release accusing Poliquin of doing something you do all the time, including the exact same thing you did in order to discover and publicize his action.

-You claim that what he did is "abuse" of FOAA.

-You claim what you did is not.

-You say that releasing the 10,000 email list would be "wrong" - though not illegal (and it's clearly legal).

-You admit that Poliquin did not release the email list.

So what message was I supposed to get from the press release? 

Right now I'm at:

Maine's Majority hates Poliquin so much it'll attack him for doing something MM does all the time, and is so out-of-its-head bothered by Poliquin's behavior that MM will attempt to take down Maine's open-government act in the process.

Somehow I think that's not the message you meant to send.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

That's right - he has not.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

That's a fair point, and worth having a decent argument over. It's just not even close to what you said in the press release, or in any of our correspondence up until this very message. You also haven't claimed that Poliquin released the 10,000 email records to the public.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

I do understand your point. I just think you're wrong. We released a public document consisting of an email from one public official to another. We did not release the 10,000 email records - which I do have in my possession. Releasing those records would have been wrong.

-------- Original message --------
From: "Inglis, Jeff" <JInglis@phx.com> 

Date: 03/26/2013 12:32 (GMT-05:00) 
To: Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> 
Subject: Re: PRESS RELEASE: Former Treasurer Poliquin abused Freedom of Access Act to obtain public list for personal use 

My point is that you're trying to object to his actions on a principle so broad it indicts your own actions. (And if the legislature agreed with you, we'd have no more open government at all - because the government would always retain control what's done with its information.)

It's extremely simple: You "used public information to advertise (yourself/your organization/your point of view/your cause) for business/political/personal purposes."

You object to what he did, but depend on doing the exact same thing to make your objection. I simply fail to see the difference, and you haven't made it any clearer.

I think it would be equally interesting to see if a broad segment of the public thinks we should shut down government transparency in an attempt to remedy spam.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:28 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

I don't know where you're going with this, Jeff, but I've already answered this question.

It's a good question, though, and I hope you're planning to write about it. It would be interesting to hear what a broad segment of the public thinks constitutes abuse of the FOAA.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

I'm not sure you did either of those things - given that responding to FOAA is hardly collusion.

But what you're suggesting is that people shouldn't be allowed to use public information for business/political/personal purposes. That's pretty broad. So what should they be allowed to use public information for?

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:21 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

Really? We exposed the government's abuse of the public trust and collusion with big-monied outside interests. That's exactly what FOAA is for.

He used public information to advertise himself for business/political/personal purposes.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 11:25 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Perhaps more succinctly: What do you see as the difference between what he did and what you did?

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 11:16 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

And so the legislature has. FOAA stands as it does, making both your actions and Poliquins perfectly legal and procedurally and morally defensible. (Private contracts with private companies aside.)

Your complaining about it fails my logic, as follows:

1. It has been for years - and is likely never to change - legal to get voter registration information from the government, and send to those addresses mailings for political purposes - whether from a campaign or a political-action committee, or even an elected official doing constituent mailings. (I'm pretty sure Maine's Majority has used this process, too.)

2. It is a long-standing principle of open government that requests must be granted without regard to the requester's purpose. Example 1: If you ask for your neighbor's property-tax record from town hall, you must get it, whether you intend to take out a newspaper ad claiming your neighbor is a freeloading crony of local politicos who gets a break on his taxes, or whether you are going to contest your own property-tax assessment based on information relating to your neighbor's property, or if you want to frame it and put it on your living-room wall. Example 2: If you ask for correspondence with a state agency or official, you must get it, regardless of whether you are going to publish it in print, post it online, issue a press release, or keep it in a safe-deposit box.

3. Poliquin asked for an email list, which is public record under FOAA. The government had to give it to him, and can place no restrictions on what he does now.

4. You asked for correspondence, which is public record under FOAA. The government had to give it to you, and could place no restrictions on what you do with it now.

5. You imply that the government should be unable to prevent you from doing what you did, but definitely claim that the government ought to stop him from doing what he did.

6. You fail to make a distinction between these two acts, which are, again, utterly identical in procedural, legal, and moral terms.

7. When offered a suggestion of a more nuanced problem you might use to refine your argument, you not only reject that argument - which is an issue of public debate - but reiterate your insistence that the government should somehow control information that is in the hands of the public (or perhaps condition release of public information on the intent of the requester).

8. When asked for a means by which that could happen, you defer to the body that created the provisions you object to.

What am I missing?

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

I'll let the Legislature write the laws.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 10:59 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Okay, so what do you think should or shouldn't be allowed? And how would that be enforced?

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 10:55 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

I don't have a problem with the public having access to personal information. I have a problem with the notion that it's OK for the public to do whatever they want with that information.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

What you seem to be saying suggests that my guess was right - your concern is not about abuse of FOAA, but rather about public access to personally identifying information, some of which has for many years been available through FOAA, with no problems.

Unless I'm terribly mistaken, you want to be able to continue to do what you did - ask a government agency for correspondence (including with private citizens), get that information unredacted, and announce to the public that a specific person, whose name you use, has done something or other.

That's exactly what you did. But the way you constructed your release suggested that you want to outlaw doing that exact thing - because you claimed that taking a government response to an FOAA request and using it for whatever you wanted should be prosecuted. Contrary to the language of your release, I think you and I agree that it's simply not an abuse of FOAA to use public information for your own gains.

If your concern is that Poliquin can get people's email addresses in bulk from the state, that's something very different than saying the government should have control over what the public does with public records that have been released.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 10:30 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

Maybe we just live in different worlds, or maybe we just disagree. A lot of people I talk with are furious that the BDN tried to publish the names of concealed weapons permit holders. It doesn't matter that the BDN expressly said it wouldn't do this; the fact is that they could have, and that was enough for people. So, in that respect, at least part of FOAA now has a bad name. We're now likely going to lose the ability to verify that there aren't any felons running around out there with concealed handguns, because the public is afraid that information will be misused.

It seems that your point is that it's a necessary consequence of open government that your name can wind up in the paper or on an ex-treasurer's email list. It's a fair point. I simply disagree. I think we can make a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate use of FOAA data, and that they way to strengthen the legitimate uses is to denounce the illegitimate uses.

It's the same thing with SPAM. The law allows you to buy lists, harvest email addresses from web sites, etc. You can send these folks an individual email or compare them with your own list. But as soon as you send them a bulk email asking them to buy something you're on the hook for big penalties. That's a legal distinction between a legitimate and in illegitimate use of information. We can do the same with the FOAA.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 10:04 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Since when does open government have a bad name? People give themselves bad names. Open government is an admirable concept. And almost never are open-government rules given criminal penalties - they're civil violations at best.

But where I'm really running into confusion is with your apparent idea that the government should (or even can) control what members of the public do with information they have in their possession.

The whole point of open government is so people can get information about their government. What they do with it, and why they ask for it, is not in the purview of open-government principles. In fact, it's counter to the ideal. If the government is going to prevent someone from disseminating, analyzing, or otherwise using the results of open-government requests, then how exactly is government open? ("We'll tell you how many people we're abusing in prison, but you can't tell anyone else?" That's the opposite of the point.)

I can't believe you're intentionally advocating that the government exercise prior restraint on use of public information. It strikes me as against your goals, and your group's goals, as well as being mutually exclusive. 

What if, for example, a person or group were allowed to ask for FOAA requests made by others, and the government says "We have to give it to you, but you are forbidden from telling others. They all have to ask individually for exactly the same thing." Your press release would vaporize, as a violation of the law. What you're claiming to want to outlaw is something you did in getting this information, something you do all the time, something news organizations and members of the public do constantly, and is in fact the reality of open government: Once information it out of government's hands, its dissemination and use is no longer under government control.

If I try to imagine what you might actually mean, I wonder if you are somehow trying to argue for protecting some types of personal information when it's in the government's hands - but that's a very different thing than suggesting someone who asks for information from the government should be restricted in how they use it.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:43 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

They exist so the public can ensure that government is doing its job, not so aspiring piblic officials can build their email lists. I would love to see the law changed so we can prosecute people who do what Poliquin did. He gives open government a bad name.

-------- Original message --------
From: "Inglis, Jeff" <JInglis@phx.com> 
Date: 03/26/2013 09:35 (GMT-05:00) 
To: Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> 
Subject: Re: PRESS RELEASE: Former Treasurer Poliquin abused Freedom of Access Act to obtain public list for personal use 

He may well have violated terms of a private agreement with a private company. That's not my beef - and it doesn't seem to be yours, either, from the release.

You're claiming it's an "abuse" of open-government laws for a requester to get information from the government and use it for whatever the requester wants. 

Problem is, there's no other purpose of open-government laws - they exist so that people can ask questions of their government and get answers, and then publicize those answers, for whatever purpose the requester has.

Go ahead and shout about him breaking the rules of Constant Contact. Nobody cares, and you know that - which is why you made the release sound like he had misused open-government laws, when he used them exactly properly. And so did you, in announcing to people that he did this. The issue comes when you call both of those things - which are procedurally, legally, and morally identical - "abuse."

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:31 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

He's going to lose his Constant Contact account over this. I'll take my chances with the court of public opinion.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

If it's "abuse" to make FOAA requests and use the resulting information for whatever your private purposes are, you're as guilty as Poliquin. Which, by the way, is not guilty of anything at all.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:23 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

And your job? Pretending that abuse doesn't happen because you're afraid of the consequences? The only reason why we know he did this is that we were obtained his request through another FOAA request. The system works. Go write that story.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Sucks that your job is weakening open government.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:13 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

Jeff, Jeff, Jeff... I really don't care. This is my job.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:10 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris - 

It's a VERY slippery and dangerous slope to try to start dictating what can and can't be done with public records after they're released to the public. Please don't weaken Maine's existing open-government laws further by pursuing this.

Jeff

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:07 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

For Immediate Release
March 26, 2013


Contact:
Chris Korzen

207-358-9731

chris@mainesmajority.org

Former Treasurer Bruce Poliquin abused Freedom of Access Act to obtain public list for personal use

Portland – In February 2013, mass emails from a personal account of former state treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Poliquin began inexplicably turning up in some Mainers' inboxes. A Maine's Majority investigation has determined that Poliquin obtained the emails through a Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request, and subsequently used this public information for his own personal gain.

In the early hours of December 9, 2012, Poliquin submitted an FOAA request to the Treasurer's office for “a copy of all email and other addresses used in the Office of the State Treasurer's Outreach Program.” In response, he received 10,742 email addresses. Five days earlier, the legislature had confirmed Neria Douglass to succeed Poliquin, effectively ending his tenure as treasurer.

Some two months later, Mr. Poliquin began sending bulk emails to the owners of those addresses through a Constant Contact email marketing system. The emails are political in nature (titled, for example, "How to Fix Maine's Ongoing Budget Crisis”) and point recipients toward a brucepoliquin.net web site.

“Although Mr. Poliquin legally obtained his former office's email records, his personal use of this public information constitutes a blatant abuse of the Freedom of Access Act,” said Maine's Majority executive director Chris Korzen. “Poliquin is clearly trying to set himself up for a future election bid, and he's now using state resources to build his communications infrastructure. He should stop using this publicly-owned email list immediately.”

Ironically, at least one influential Maine Republican appears to agree. Earlier this month, Sportsman's Alliance of Maine director and former state representative David Trahan told the Maine Heritage Policy Center's Maine Wire blog, “FOAA was designed for citizens to keep government in line, not for political targeting.”

While Poliquin does not appear to have broken any laws, he has likely violated Constant Contact's Anti-Spam policy, which requires users to obtain informed consent from recipients before sending bulk email.

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