AirTalk debates the merits of the country’s public student loan forgiveness program, which could be unavailable for new enrollees under Trump’s 2018 budget proposal. We also give you the latest on the fatal mudslides resulting from this week’s heavy rainstorms; states can now require some Medicaid recipients to work, but what’s the practical impact?; and more.
Heavy rains in SoCal cause mudslides, damage and freeway closures
Hundreds of rescue workers are searching for bodies buried by debris in the Santa Barbara County’s Montecito.
Eight people are missing. Seventeen confirmed dead. Parts of the town are covered in mud, boulders, tree limbs, and splintered lumber. Fifty-nine residences were destroyed, with hundreds damaged. AirTalk has this latest update.
Guests:
Amber Anderson, public information officer for the City of Santa Barbara
Lance Orozco, news director with KCLU, our sister NPR station covering Ventura County; he is in Montecito
Privacy, national security experts debate the future of FISA Section 702 government surveillance
The law allowing the U.S. government to collect emails and other information non-U.S. persons on foreign soil was extended this week in Congress as the House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday morning that continues government surveillance and information collection allowed under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for another six years.
The programs were set to expire on December 31, 2017, but Congress passed a short-term extension as part of a continuing resolution to fund the government before leaving Capitol Hill for the end-of-year holidays. With lawmakers back in Washington, the focus turned to the House Intelligence Committee’s bill, the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017.
Section 702 has been a controversial topic and one that intelligence communities say is crucial to national security and counterterrorism but privacy advocates argue constitutes government overreach and invasion of privacy. Among the concerns, they say, is the fact that the 702 database may contain communications involving Americans who have contacted foreign targets that were acquired by the government without first getting an individualized warrant. The House Intelligence Committee’s bill would have required that the government obtain a warrant to search the 702 database, but only if it plans to use the information in prosecuting a criminal case. Privacy advocates say this doesn’t go far enough. They wanted to see the USA Rights Act, an amendment that privacy advocates and opponents of the House bill are pushing that would require government warrants before it looked in the 702 database for any information at all about Americans in criminal cases, passed in conjunction with the legislation to extend the program, as it would have replaced some of the language in the House’s bill with which privacy advocates disagreed.
What potential effect will this have on the U.S. government’s ability to surveil foreign targets? Do you think the Section 702 programs are necessary for national security or an example of invasion of privacy and government overreach?
Guests:
Robyn Greene, policy counsel and government affairs lead for the Open Technology Institute at New America (formerly New America Foundation), a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington D.C.; she tweets
Asha Rangappa, senior lecturer at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University; she is a former FBI Special Agent specializing in counterintelligence investigations; she tweets
How to preserve nuanced thinking in a culture of knee-jerk groupthink
The year 2017 was one where it seemed like almost every issue you could bring up was a political third rail.
The hyper-partisanship and divisiveness turned up to 11 in the era of #MAGA vs. #NeverTrump, and there are no signs it’s letting up. For some who might otherwise feel comfortable sharing their thoughts on highly-charged issues like #MeToo, white privilege, or immigration, there are those who argue that 2017 may have had a chilling effect on this kind of discourse, and that we live in an age when your opinion on any issue, no matter how nuanced, is often seen as moral-defining.
L.A. Times contributor Meghan Daum is one of them, and she tackles the phenomenon she refers to as ‘back channeling’ in her latest op-ed for the paper. Daum describes back channel conversations as “what we professional opinionators sometimes do after holding forth with righteous certainty: turn to our closest confidants and confess to a level of cognitive dissonance and confusion we fear would alienate our followers and possibly kill our careers if we tried to put it into words.” Daum uses the #MeToo movement as an example. “[It’s] infused with obtuse rhetoric like ‘zero tolerance,’” she writes, “but it has also led to a handful of more nuanced analyses about the slippery nature of sexual consent and the dangers of failing (or refusing) to distinguish male clumsiness from dangerous aggression.”
Do you find yourself having these kinds of whispered political conversations? In other words, have you been less inclined to openly share your personal opinions on divisive issues for fear of how it might appear or how others might react? How often? On which topics in particular?
Guest:
Meghan Daum, book author and contributing columnist for the Los Angeles Times; her latest column for the paper is titled, “Had enough of the visceral response to the Trump era? Try a little nuance instead”
States can now require some Medicaid recipients to work, but what’s the practical impact?
In a major policy shift, the Trump administration said Thursday it is offering a path for states that want to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients.
Ten states -- Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin -- have applied for a federal waiver to add the work requirement.
It is highly unlikely that California would seek such a request.
Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said work and community involvement can make a positive difference in people's lives and in their health. Still, the plan probably will face strong political opposition and even legal challenges over concerns that some low-income beneficiaries will lose coverage.
With files from the Associated Press
Guest:
Phil Galewitz, senior correspondent covering medicaid and medicare and healthcare issues for Kaiser Health News; he’s been following the story; he tweets
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program may soon lose funding. Should it?
If you’re a student who’s racked up debt, since 2007 you’ve had the option of working in the public sector or for a non-profit for ten years to have your debt erased under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF).
If you’re in the program already, you’ll still be on track for loan forgiveness, but under Trump’s 2018 budget proposal, the program would be nixed for new borrowers.
Proponents of PSLF say the program incentivize college graduates with hefty loans to take low-paying public service jobs. These students, often with law, medical or business degrees, often over 100k in debt, would otherwise turn to the private sector to pay off loans, rather than serving their communities.
Opponents of the program say it’s an unnecessary government subsidy that actually incentivizes students to borrow beyond their needs and that some schools actually game the system. Another critique is that the range of income provided by public sector jobs varies drastically, and that this program subsidizes high-earners along with those who truly need the help.
If you’re in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, has it been a benefit to you? Have you seen people taking advantage of the system? If you’re a graduate or prospective student, have you considered the program? If the funding is cut, will that affect your schooling and career choices?
To find out more about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, click here.
Guests:
Ben Miller, senior director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning research think tank
Jason Delisle, resident fellow at American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a think tank in Washington D.C.; he specializes in higher education financing with an emphasis on student loan programs
Understanding China’s globalization through a softer lens: a journalist’s family
When tasked with opening the first China bureau for the daily radio program “Marketplace,” reporter and correspondent Scott Tong realized that the changing landscape of the world’s largest populated country could be captured through the stories of five individuals: his family members.
In his new book, “A Village with My Name: A Family History of China’s Opening to the World,” Tong reconnects with extended relatives and traces key events embedded in their lives – from the end of the Qing dynasty, to the Great Leap Forward, to China’s One Child Policy and today’s factory and export boom – to help shape a refreshing, disparate understanding of modern-day China.
Larry sits down with the veteran reporter to talk about the book and his efforts to unearth China’s mounting history at a much more human level.
Guest:
Scott Tong, former China correspondent and founding Shanghai bureau chief for Marketplace; his new book is “A Village with My Name: A Family History of China’s Opening to the World” (The University of Chicago Press, 2017); he is currently a correspondent on Marketplace’s sustainability desk