Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 123, No. 17 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
January 19, 2014
Obama fuels reform on some NSA spying WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s orders to change some U.S. surveillance practices put the burden on Congress to deal with a national security controversy that has alar med Americans and outraged foreign allies. Yet he avoided major action on the practice of sweeping up billions of phone, email and text messages from across the globe. In a speech at the Justice Department on Friday, Obama said he was placing new limits on the way intelligence of ficials access
phone records from hundreds of millions of Americans — and was moving toward eventually stripping the massive data collection from the gover nment’s hands. His promises to end government storage of its collection of data on Americans’ telephone calls — and require judicial review to examine the data — were met with skepticism from privacy advocates and some lawmakers. But Obama has made it nearly impossible for reluctant leaders in Congress to
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avoid making some changes in the U.S. phone surveillance they have supported for years. Obama admitted that he has been torn between how to protect privacy rights and how to protect the U.S. from terror attacks — what of ficials have called the main purpose of the spy programs. “The challenge is getting the details right, and that is not simple,” he said. His speech had been anticipated since former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden
made off with an estimated 1.7 million documents related to surveillance and other NSA operations and gave them to several journalists around the world. The revelations in the documents touched off a public debate about whether Americans wanted to give up some privacy in exchange for intelligencegathering on terror suspects. The president said his proposals “should give the American people greater confidence that their rights are being protected, even
In this Dec. 19, 2013, file photo, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel takes questions as he briefs reporters at the Pentagon in Washington.
SUNDAY
suspected terrorists. Plans to end the sweep of phone records have been building momentum in Congress among both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. Congressional leadership and the chairmen of the intelligence committees who for years have signed off on the programs have opposed dramatic changes. Obama’s order signals that the phone program must be overhauled, and lawmakers called his speech a welcome first step.
as our intelligence and law enforcement agencies maintain the tools they need to keep us safe.” Obama acknowledged more needs to be done, but he largely left it to Congress to work out the details. The NSA says it does not listen in on the phone calls or read the Internet messages without specific court orders on a case-by-case basis. But intelligence officials do collect specific information about the calls and messages, such as how long they lasted, to try to track communications of
When do nuclear missteps jeopardize nations’s security?
WASHINGTON (AP) — At what point do breakdowns in discipline put the country’s nuclear security in jeopardy? And when does a string of embarrassing episodes in arguably the military’s most sensitive mission become a pattern of failure? Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is now concer ned “there could be something larger afoot here,” according to his chief spokesman, and “wants this taken very, very seriously.” The disclosures of disturbing behavior by nuclear missile officers are mounting and now include
alleged drug use and exam cheating. Yet Air Force leaders insist the trouble is episodic, correctible and not cause for public worry. The military has a wellestablished set of inspections and other means of ensuring the safety of its nuclear weapons. But as in any human endeavor, military or civilian, the key to success is the people, not the hardware. Until recently, Hagel had said little in public about the setbacks and missteps in the nuclear missile force reported by The Associated Press beginning last May. See MISSTEPS, Page A3
NM town fighting As fire wanes, dangerous conditions remain oil firm’s proposal
SANTA FE (AP) — Communities south of Santa Fe are fighting a proposed railway loading site for crude oil in Lamy. The New Mexican reports residents say that Pacer Energy Marketing’s plan to transport crude oil from the Four Cor ners area could bring more truck traffic and a risk of train derailments. The Oklahoma-based Pacer is proposing trucking the oil to a ter minal owned by Santa Fe Southern Railway, where the oil would be transferred to rail cars and shipped to refineries south of Albuquerque. Pacer has already started doing improvements on the Lamy terminal. Crude oil producers have turned to railroads
more frequently for shipping as oil production climbs around the country. Pacer Energy gathers oil from about 600 wells in northwestern New Mexico, according to the company. Right now, it offloads the oil at a rail ter minal in Thoreau. The Lamy property would be a backup terminal.
Hayden R yan, Pacer’s director of business development, it takes three and a half tanker trucks to fill up one railroad tanker car and between six and eight trucks would drive through Lamy daily. Residents say the number of trucks and their weight on a two-lane county road are concern. The say the site is also close to the community’s water well.
United Way
GLENDORA, Calif. (AP) — A wildfire in the suburbs of Los Angeles was a smoldering shadow of its former self, but hundreds of residents of a foothill neighborhood remained evacuated and extremely dangerous fire conditions were expected to last well into Saturday. Another wave of evacuees retur ned Friday evening to their homes, this time in Azusa, 25 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, a day after their neighbors in Glendora did the same. But one Azusa neighborhood known as Mountain Cove remained too close to the remaining fire, so its residents would have to spend another night away, Los Angeles County emergency officials said. Flare-ups occurred within the burn area of about 3 square miles but none escaped the perimeter,
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One guitar. One voice. And a whole slew of opportunities. That is probably how Marie Manning would sum up her life. She’s proof that utilizing your talents can really pan out.
Collected
$499,499 Goal
$525,000
95%
Of Goal Collected
HIGH 69 LOW 28
TODAY’S FORECAST
AP Photo
An aircraft drops fire retardant on the Colby Fire on Friday, near Azusa, Calif.
other structur es wer e damaged, accor ding to early assessments.
Red-flag war nings of critical danger due to the combination of winds, extremely low humidity and extraordinarily dry vegetation were repeatedly extended during the week. The National
Weather Service said some war nings would expire Friday evening but others would remain for mountain areas until 6 p.m. Saturday.
“The conditions are still extreme out there,” said Tom Contreras, supervisor of the Angeles National Forest.
Manning: A girl with a guitar and a dream AMY VOGELSANG RECORD STAFF WRITER
of Chaves County
said Mike Wakowski, commander of the multiagency firefighting force. Containment was estimated at 30 percent. “Things are progressing nicely,” Wakowski said. “It’s looking pretty good.” Crews took advantage of the lower temperatures and wind conditions overnight to set backfires to take out potential fuel for the blaze, and continued Saturday to mop up. The fire erupted early Thursday in the Angeles National For est when Santa Ana winds hit a campfire that authorities said was recklessly set by three men. Gusts quickly spread flames from the San Gabriel Mountains into Glendora and Azusa, where some 3,700 people had to evacuate at the fire’s peak. Five homes wer e destroyed and 17 other houses, garages and
• DEBRA ARCHES • CHRIS JOHNS • ACELL YOUNG
It all started with her mom and an old guitar. Manning’s mom used to perform in Fort Worth. As it sometimes happens, though, life responsibilities eclipsed the music, and the guitar was all but forgotten. Until Manning picked it up.
“It was this rinky-dink guitar I would always mess around with,” Manning smiled. Even with a string or two missing, she tried to make the old instrument sing. The guitar received a true second chance when Manning’s fourth-grade teacher agreed to give her lessons, often times free of charge to help Manning’s mom — a single parent. “She would even make me dinner sometimes,” Manning said. She is still in contact with the teacher
• GLENN LATIMER • DARRELL LEVI DIXON • GARY WAYNE RUSSELL
CLASSIFIEDS ..........D1 COMICS .................C5 ENTERTAINMENT .....A8 FEATURE ................C3
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGE A7
that ultimately changed her life. At 16, Manning wrote her first song: “Perversion of Nature.” At the time, her mom was going through a lot of health issues, so her sister, who is four years older, became her legal guardian. It was only a temporary situation, but it was a difficult transition for Manning. That first song was just lyrics at first, but she See MANNING, Page A3
INDEX GENERAL ...............A2
HOROSCOPES .........A8 LOTTERIES .............A2
OPINION .................A4
SPORTS .................B1
WEATHER ..............A8