The Hightower Report

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LIBRARIANS BATTLE FOR FREEDOM

Let's hear it for a rugged bunch of two-fisted, tough-as-nails freedom fighters: America's librarians.

Yes! Throw out your stereotype of the meek librarian and see these gutsy people for what they are – frontline battlers for your and my personal liberties. Librarians have long been leaders in the ongoing free-speech fight against censorship, but lately they've also been forced into leading the battle against the privacy-invading provisions of the infamous USA PATRIOT Act.

This law allows federal agents to go to any public library and rifle through our personal records to see what books we've checked out or what e-mails we've sent. It also slaps a gag order on America's librarians, making it a crime for them to reveal that their records have been seized.

Librarians revolted. One group of them that had been subjected to these secret FBI searches filed a landmark lawsuit last year, asserting that the gag provision is a violation of free speech. The Library Connection of Windsor, Conn., a co-op of 26 libraries that share an automated records system, demanded that it be free simply to identify itself as having endured the secret raid.

But George W.'s federal prosecutors claimed that the government would suffer irreparable harm if this information were made public. Last year, a federal judge ruled for the co-op, but the Bushites appealed. Then – oops! – in a court filing, the prosecutors themselves mistakenly disclosed the very name of the group they were trying to keep secret. This boo-boo, plus a recent change in the PATRIOT Act loosening up the gag provision, finally led the feds to surrender to the librarians, saying, "Continuing to pursue this appeal does not make sense."

Nothing about such open-ended raids on our library records makes sense! To help the librarians battle, call the American Library Association: 800/545-2433.

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A GUSHER FROM EXXONMOBIL

Did you make $144,000 last year?

Only 2% of Americans are paid that amount of money for a year's work, but Lee Raymond is one of the lucky ones. Until he retired last December, Lee was CEO of ExxonMobil for 13 years. Oh, mind you, he wasn't paid $144,000 a year ... or even a month ... or for a week's worth of work. Lee took $144,000 in pay each and every day of his 13 years at the helm. He drew this daily pay even on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. His total haul during his 13-year tenure was $686 million.

And now we learn that Lee has been given another sweet dollop of largesse by ExxonMobil. Instead of a gold watch and a pat on the back, Lee was given a pension package worth $400 million. Factor in this wad, and Raymond walked away with the equivalent of $229,000 a day for his years as CEO. Assuming he worked eight hours every day, that's $28,000 an hour!

An official Exxon statement said simply that this kingly sum was a fair reward for Lee's "outstanding leadership of the business." Well, yes, ExxonMobil flourished during the Raymond years, especially at the end of his term – and the executive suite at corporate headquarters was even dubbed "The God Pod." But corporate governance experts note that the company's success was not due to any godlike genius by Raymond but to easy profits generated by the windfall rise in oil and gasoline prices. Exxon's oil wells pump out more crude every day than Kuwait, and it is the world's largest refiner of gasoline – so it's wallowing in profits from both its wells and its gas pumps.

So remember, every gallon of ExxonMobil gasoline you buy will be pumping a little more of your cash right into Lee Raymond's pockets.