Readers Write (March 5): Norm Coleman on Donald Trump and President Obama, Howard Root's acquittal and essay, MSP security lines, Apple vs. the FBI

Norm Coleman tells us he won't vote for Donald Trump, and he tells us why. He enumerates Trump's well-known sins of commission and omission and even, halfway through, blames his party leaders, and even himself, for failing to take Trump seriously. But right at the beginning, he tells us who is ultimately responsible for Trump's ascendancy: the "president who deliberately divided us and fanned the flames of racial and socioeconomic strife." He says that President Obama alone divided us — not the Republican leaders in Congress who greeted Obama's election with a vow to make him a one-term president, not the Republicans who promised to take back our country, presumably from that black president (and the substantial majorities of Americans who voted for him — twice), not the Republicans who got into bed with the birthers and those who asserted that Obama was a Muslim and, therefore, "not one of us," not those Republican leaders who shut down the government rather than compromise on a budget — none of those, only Obama. Coleman's analysis is as shallow and myopic as its writer.

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In explaining why he would never vote for Trump, Norm Coleman describes our sitting president as one who "diminished America's standing in the world." By making such a bald and unsubstantiable assertion, Coleman is apparently more in tune with Trump than he realizes.

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Obama, in 2009, was the first sitting president since Woodrow Wilson to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. According to the prize committee, Obama won the award for "efforts to strengthen international diplomacy," his "vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons," and for inspiring hope and creating "a new climate in international politics." I also direct everyone's attention to a Pew Research survey of the world's perception of Barack Obama. Approval ratings include: Canada, 76 percent; the U.K., 76 percent; France, 83 percent; Australia, 81 percent; India, 74 percent; South Africa, 77 percent; the Philippines, 94 percent, and so on. (The U.S. is at an embarrassing 58 percent.) When you think about it, pretty good for our first black president. But the GOP is not looking at that.

Kudos to Howard Root, CEO of Vascular Solutions Inc. in Maple Grove, for his March 4 commentary on the injustice in the criminal-justice system (" 'Not guilty,' yes, but outraged by unjust prosecution"). As I read his article, memories came flooding back. Contrived motives. Witness intimidation. Prosecutors with no accountability for their actions. You see, a decade ago my husband was similarly a victim of overzealous prosecution. At the time, attorneys and tax professionals following his case called it a "railroad job." Clearly, there are many prosecutors who play by the rules, and their work helps to keep our country safe. But, unfortunately, there are also those who will go to any length to advance their careers in a system that rewards "wins" at any cost. This sort of injustice is itself blind. All too frequently, we read of a person who has been exonerated following a conviction that put them in prison for a large part of their life. Star Tribune readers are fortunate that Mr. Root's jury saw through those tactics and found him innocent of promoting illegal sales of a medical device. Had he been convicted and had he then offered this critique of the justice system to your readers, it would have been dismissed as "sour grapes." He and his family would then have had to spend the rest of their lives feeling betrayed by a country that we all love. Sadly, we should not expect our elected officials to take action to correct this failing of our system, lest they be demonized for being "soft on crime." Yet something clearly needs to be done.

It was with great amusement, disgust, anger and resignation that I read the latest article in the saga regarding the new security checkpoint setup at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The $17 million in changes were among other things, supposed to introduce efficiencies in the process by reducing the number of checkpoints from six to two. Seems counterintuitive, but, hey, smart people with the public's best interest at heart are in charge, right? The March 4 article ("Long lines are the new normal") essentially indicates that lines are longer, passengers are more frustrated and we are not to expect changes anytime soon. We are instead being told that it's essentially our fault and that we should bone up on the rules of flying, come earlier, pack lighter and oh, give the Transportation Security Administration $85 to enroll in its PreCheck program.

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To the many complaints about the new TSA security gates at MSP, I'd add another: the silence on the part of our elected officials in the face of this big mistake. Why aren't our representatives in Washington and St. Paul demanding to know how TSA spent $17 million to shorten wait times and instead made them longer for most people, then turned to blaming travelers, the airlines and Congress for the result of its miscalculation?

The Star Tribune Editorial Board should reverse its hasty and ill-considered opinion that Apple should be forced to write computer code as requested by the federal government ("U.S. security at stake as Apple defies order," Feb. 21). Now that every tech company has weighed in on the side of Apple, with a full chorus explaining the dangers of opening this Pandora's box, the folly of this path is evident. The concerns are proving accurate, as France's lower house is considering whether to make it a criminal offense not to provide a government key to encrypted technology. How secure will your data be if countries such as Russia and China follow suit?

As Oliver Wendell Holmes, a great justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, stated: "[H]ard cases make bad law … because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment." And as Ben Franklin warned: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

In this hard case, we must balance what will be gained (perhaps nothing, as items may have been deleted) against what will be lost — the security of all of our data. Many American soldiers have died for our liberties, including the Fourth Amendment's protection of our right to the security of our private effects from unreasonable government searches. We should be vigilant against providing the means for wholesale encroachment of that important liberty and privacy right, just as gun owners are vehemently vigilant against incremental encroachment of the Second Amendment.