Crazy for craft beer WEEKEND | 16 JUNE 14, 2013 VOLUME 21, NO. 20
www.MountainViewOnline.com
650.964.6300
MOVIES | 19
Council backtracks after cat owners pounce on licensing law By Daniel DeBolt
A
MICHELLE LE
HAPPY HOMECOMING Air National Guard Lt. Col. Fred Foote gets an enthusiastic embrace from his daughter Riley, 4, when he returned to Moffett Federal Airfield after a four-month deployment. Families and friends of the 129th Rescue Guard gathered to welcome home their heroes on Monday, June 10. Almost 150 men and women from the unit were scheduled to arrive throughout the week, returning from missions in Afghanistan and Cape Horn in Africa. Besides its wartime role of combat search-and-rescue missions, the 129th works closely with the U.S. Coast Guard and others to rescue civilians.
Google denies giving NSA ‘direct access’ to user data By Daniel DeBolt
N
ational Security Agency documents leaked to the press say Mountain View’s Google has been cooperating with the United States government to spy on citizens on an unprecedented scale, allowing direct access to the company’s servers. Google executives deny that to be the case. According to bombshell reports in the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers, an NSA program called PRISM allows the U.S. government to collect data directly from the servers of Google and others, including Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. The revelation that the NSA apparently has such unchecked
INSIDE
ability to spy on the American public’s internet activities came from a slide show presentation about PRISM, leaked by whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. He has fled to Hong Kong, leaving behind a $200,000-a-year job and a home in Hawaii with his girlfriend. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building,” Snowden said in a video interview. A slide in the leaked NSA presentation about data gathering described PRISM as “Collection
directly from the servers of these US service providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.” The report was met with strongly worded denial from Google executives in a June 7 blog post titled “What the...?” by CEO Larry Page and chief legal officer David Drummond. “The U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers,” the executives write. “We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.” The Google executives say they do provide the U.S. government with specific Google user data, but only when required by law, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. “Our legal team reviews each See GOOGLE NSA, page 9
VIEWPOINT 12 | GOINGS ON 20 | MARKETPLACE 22 | REAL ESTATE 24
fter public outcry, on Tuesday City Council members were persuaded to scratch new regulations for pet owners in Mountain View, including controversial licensing and rabies shot requirements for cats. The regulations, which the council voted in favor of last week, are going back to the drawing board. The new animal control ordinance, based on a model proposed by the city’s new animal services provider, Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority, required a second vote of approval on June 11 before it could go into effect. It includes a cat license requirement, with a $10 annual fee ($50 if your cat isn’t neutered or spayed) and mandated rabies shots. News of the ordinance’s approval last week drew an angry response online from cat owners who complained that they had not known about it. Dozens of cat owners spoke against the new ordinance Tuesday, and not one person spoke in support.
“This is why I voted the way I did last week,” said Mayor John Inks, who was last week’s lone vote of opposition. Council member Mike Kasperzak conceded, “You were right.” This time, council members voted 5-1, with Inks again opposed, to keep the city’s existing ordinance, and add in the legalization of beehives. Member Jac Siegel was absent. Several residents said the ordinance would require they go against the advice of veterinarians that indoor cats not be vaccinated for rabies. “Two of my cats have had breast cancer, probably because of the rabies shots they had when they were little,” said Alison Stern. “Making all of us put our cats at risk is not OK,” she said in tears. Resident Todd Nagengast said he chooses not to vaccinate his indoor cats and is “concerned that new ordinance would basically make me a law-breaker, make me guilty of a misdemeanor, I’d like to not go to jail for that.” See CAT LICENSE, page 9
Council hesitant to boost library funding By Daniel DeBolt
I
n city budget discussions on Tuesday, the City Council supported adding $50,000 to next year’s library budget for new books, CDs, and DVDs and other materials. Even with the boost, the city’s spending on such items will still be lower than in comparable cities’ libraries. Library board trustee Randall Stock told the council on Tuesday
that the city has been spending less on materials than five other “benchmark” libraries and recommended an increase in funds. “Mountain View has a very good library with similar costs” in most areas, he said. “The red flag is the city’s investment in materials, books, and CDs. Mountain View spends 17 percent less per capita” than comSee BUDGET, page 11