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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 27, 2000)
An independent newspaper The heat is on * Oregon football takes to the road fora showdown .with Arizona State. Inside supplement Running to win The men's and women’s cross country teams ready themselves for the Pac-10 championships. PAGE 5A October 27,2000 Volume 102, Issue 43 Weather TODAY MOSTLY CLOUDY high 60, low 45 Since 1 900 University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon Erin Swanson-Davies Emerald An unidenitified law enforcement officer (center) records events at a recent house party that attracted a contingent of cops. EPD catches all on tape The liberal use of police cameras sparks debate about the ethics of videotaping By Darren Freeman Oregon Daily Emerald It’s an image Eugene residents often see: dozens of protesters bicycling through downtown and Eugene police officers carrying video cameras taking it all in. The protest, called Critical Mass, is part of a national movement advocating Earth friendly transportation, and police typi cally issue several traffic violations at the event and videotape protesters. The EPD videotapes other protests and marches as well, and the police “Party Pa trol” regularly uses cameras while break ing up parties in the University area. EPD officers say they use video cameras to collect evidence only in situations ex pected to lead to criminal activity, though some Eugene residents feel the video cam eras are used to intimidate activists and partygoers. “It seems to me that they’re pretty ex cessive in their use of video cameras,” said Trish Binder, co-founder of the Inde pendent Police Review Project. “I’ve had video cameras trained on me while just walking along at a rally. It seems like a pretty big deterrent to exercising your First Amendment rights. ” Many activists fear that the EPD is using video cameras to collect information about protesters, which could be used to identify, harass and suppress them. But EPD Special Operations Capt. Steve Swenson said video cameras don’t consti Turn to Police, page 3A KVAL’s presence may have violated student’s rights ■ A local media crew was unwelcome at recent Party Patrol bust Eric Martin for the Emerald A local television news team on a media “ride-along” may have violated one University student’s right to pri vacy recently when it entered his home with Eugene Police Department officers. The KVAL team, the local CBS affiliate, entered the student’s Alder Street home around midnight Oct. 1 and shot footage as officers from the EPD’s Party Patrol issued 21 minor in possession citations and two tickets for allowing the consumption of alcohol by minors. The resident of the home, Zack Schliefer, said at no time did KVAL reporters or camera personnel ask for permission to enter his home or film on the premises. KVAL’s reporter on the scene, Jodi Unruh, will not re turn to work until early November and was unavailable for comment, a KVAL staff member said. KVAL News Director Deana Reece declined to comment about the incident. Schliefer said the news team entered through the south gate to his back yard and later filmed from his porch. During the filming, he was unaware of his right to ask KVAL to leave. “ [KVAL] put a big flashing light on me,” Schliefer said. “I flat told them that made me uncomfortable. The officer never told me that I had the right to ask them to leave. ” But EPD spokeswoman Jan Powers said Schliefer for feited his right to ask the television news team to leave because he’d already given them permission to be there. The indicator, she said, was a sign in front of Schliefer’s home that read: “Enter through back door.” The sign “issued to anyone—whether it’s media, po lice ... or whoever — permission to enter through the back door,” Powers said. Schliefer said he disputes that claim because the sign could have been written by anyone and was in no way an invitation to police and media personnel to enter. But Powers said Schliefer is responsible for his home, and therefore cannot claim that the sign was not his invitation to enter, even if he did not write it. The sign presents a dilemma for lawmakers, who Turn to Privacy, page 3A Oregon Revised Statute 181.575 states: “No law enforce ment agency... may collect or maintain infor mation about the political, reli gious or social views, associa tions or activities of any individ ual, group, asso ciation, organi zation, corporation, business or part nership unless such informa tion directly re lates to an inves tigation of criminal activi ties, and there are reasonable grounds to sus pect the subject of the informa tion is or may be involved in crim inal conduct.” source: Oregon Revised Statutes WRC must resolve legal issues before University will pay dues The need to validate legal standards within the WRC generated the University’s decision to withhold payment By Andrew Adams Oregon Daily Emerald Following yesterday’s announce ment that the University will not pay its membership dues to the Worker Rights Consortium, a flurry of rumors spread that the University was drop ping out of the sweatshop monitoring organization. University officials are now con firming that the University never had membership in the WRC, so to claim that it is dropping out or has conceded membership is an inaccurate descrip tion of the current situation. “For people to talk about backing out or dropping out is incorrect,” said Duncan McDonald, vice president of public affairs and development. He said the WRC is still behind in taking “formative steps” to become an entity with which the University could feasibly enter into a contractual agreement. In the University’s opin ion, McDonald said, the WRC is still not a membership organization, so it would make little sense to say that the University has dropped its member ship. The decision not to pay the invoice of membership dues the University re ceived from the WRC this month is not a statement of how the University feels about the WRC, but how it views the legal issues concerning member ship in the organization, McDonald said. “[The decision] was not an act of backtracking, but an act of due dili gence,” he said. McDonald said the WRC may have incorporated itself in the state of New York, but also said the organization still needs to have its articles of incor Turnto WRC, page4A Speaker endorses Nader as choice for Oregonians ■ Xander Patterson of the Pacific Green Party tells audience members to vote conscientiously By Emily Gust Oregon Daily Emerald Charging that American society is under the tight grip of powerful corporations, co-chair of the Pacific Green Party Xander Patterson threw his support behind what he sees as the solution: a vote for Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Between 25 and 30 people gathered Thursday afternoon in Room 175 of the Knight Law Center to hear Patterson, who said that Nader’s presidential campaign is more about building the Green Party into a major party than putting Nader in the White House. “You can vote your conscience and change the world,” he said. “Vote for Ralph and may all your votes come true.” Patterson said the Green Party, founded during the 1970s out of a growing “awareness that our planet is facing a myri ad of environmental problems,” focuses on another major is Turn to Nader, page4A (i You can vote your conscience and change the world. Xander Patterson co-chair Pacific Green Party 11
