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E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online Edition:
www.dailyemerald.com
Tuesday, January 29,2002
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Lang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Editorial
University must
stay out of users’
personal files
University students, staff and faculty
should be aware that the school’s serv
er monitoring is infringing on individ
uals’ rights to privacy. Nothing protects users
from having the personal files they transfer
on University servers examined on suspicion
of illegal activity. The way the University’s
“Acceptable Use Policy” operates now does
not protect students from privacy invasion,
and a new policy is in order that specifically
addresses users’ rights.
A draft policy is currently waiting for ap
proval by University general counsel Melinda
Grier, but Grier has been remarkably tight
lipped about the policy’s progress.
When considering the proposed policy,
Grier should take a cue from the University of
California system. Those schools operate un
der a policy that disallows examination of
campus network users’ files without consent
of the user. Exceptions are made only in
emergency situations when there is a threat
to person or property, or when there is con
crete evidence a law has been violated.
The University of California schools have
shown through the implementation of this
policy that they respect the privacy of their
students instead of restricting what students
can and cannot download. The University of
Oregon should be protecting students from
privacy violations in the same vein. Students
and faculty should be treated as adults and
trusted to use the University’s server respon
sibly. Otherwise, students are forced to cen
sor themselves in order to avoid raising sus
picion among bandwidth monitors.
University of Oregon computer use moni
tors have every right to observe account users
who are using excessive bandwidth, because
those people are detracting from server avail
ability. However, monitoring bandwidth us
age is different from taking the extra step of
checking a user’s hard drive and potentially
invading their privacy — a distinction that
needs to be clarified in the University of Ore
gon’s new privacy policy.
Privacy is an issue that affects everyone on
campus, especially those who have no
choice but to use the University’s server.
Action on the current draft policy needs to
be taken immediately to ensure the privacy
of users. Searching personal files is ethically
unacceptable, and students, staff and faculty
should be protected from University-led
privacy invasions.
Editorial Policy
This editorial represents the opinion ot the
Emerald editorial board. Responses can be sent
to letters@dailyemerald.com. Letters to the
editor and guest commentaries are encouraged.
Letters are limited to 250 words and guest
commentaries to 550 words. Please include
contact information. The Emerald reserves the
right to edit for space, grammar and style.
So YsfoetaY it hurts
I was just reading up on John Walker
Lindh, the “American Taliban,” and
I must say I am morally perplexed.
How does one pass judgment on such
an individual?
Aaron
Rorick
Columnist
The real story of little Johnny Walker
(Lindh is his father’s name; he evidently
prefers his mother’s) began in 1997,
when, at age 16, he sold his hip-hop col
lection and converted to Islam. It’s hard
to fault him here. When I was 16,1 con
verted to agnosticism. A friend of mine
became a Taoist and another a Pente
costal, of all things.
Still another “con
verted” from punk
rock to techno.
My point is this:
16-year-olds are
freaking crazy. We
all went through
drastic changes in
those years. Most of
us were lucky
enough not to have
ex-hippie, so-liberal
it-hurts parents will
ing to support and
_ fund our radical ten
dencies. My mother
sure as heck wasn’t sending me off to
agnostic camp in Sweden, or wherever
agnostics come from.
But Walker’s parents were different.
Only a year after his conversion, they sent
him to Yemen so he could learn the archa
ic form of Arabic spoken there, the form
closest to the original language of the Ko
ran. He came home for a while, then went
back to Yemen and on to Pakistan. In
2000, about six months before his capture,
he made his way to Afghanistan.
One report says he was given the
choice, upon completing his military
training, of either becoming an al-Qaida
fighter or a Taliban warrior. He chose
the Taliban because of that govern
ment’s immersion in Islamic law. An
other report says Walker claimed, dur
ing his imprisonment, that he was
indeed affiliated with al-Qaida. Neither
is verifiable, as far as I can tell. But at
the time of his capture, he was only a
lowly Taliban foot soldier.
Steve Baggs Emerald
Does this
make him a traitor? When he joined the
Taliban, they were not our enemies. He
did not sign on for a war against America.
And when that war came, what was he to
do? Respectfully resign his commission?
“Hey, Ahkmed, I’m afraid this whole
thing with the United States is a bit of a
conflict of interest for me. If I could just
pack up my stuff and be on my way... I’m
sure you understand.”
I’m not positive, but I believe our
Army can still shoot deserters on sight if
they like. I doubt the Taliban was any
less stringent.
Then what was John Walker’s crime?
Choosing a way of life fundamentally op
posed to our own? If this is treasonous be
havior, half of Eugene should be behind
bars. Was participating in the prison upris
ing at Mazar-e Sharif a crime worthy of
Q&py American died, and no one
/jjT claims Walker killed him. He
jg/ did what everyone else does
in a riot — go with the flow and
f punishment? Only one
try not to get shot or trampled to
death — and he was shot in the leg.
After careful analysis, I must say
Walker is on trial for his political and
social beliefs, nothing more.
But still, part of me wants to condemn
him. He chose to participate in a govern
ment that routinely brutalized its citizens,
shot women for going to school or work
and beat people for watching television or
listening to music, according to pundits
on the news shows. He made himself into
an oppressor, so it is somewhat poetic jus
tice that his rights as a free-thinking
American are being oppressed.
Walker shunned modem American lib
erties, abandoned them for medieval fun
damentalism, so why should he have
them now? At the same time, tolerance for
differing viewpoints, even those as despi
cable as the ones adopted by Walker, is an
essential part of the American ideal.
E-mail columnist Aaron Rorick
ataaronrorick@dailyemerald.com. His opinions
do not necessarily reflect those of the Emerald.
The multi-tongued have the edge
In an Emerald editorial published Jan.
17 (“No, Non, Nein; In any tongue, ‘no’
to language requirement”), the editori
al board argued that the University’s for
eign language requirement for students
pursuing a bachelor of arts was, for a ma
jority of students, “nothing more than a
bother.” I would like to take the opportu
nity to present the other side of the issue.
While the University has an obligation
to prepare its graduates professionally, it
has an equally important obligation to do
so scholastically. Language is a way of
accomplishing both goals.
The fact of the matter is foreign lan
guages constitute an important part of
most universities’ liberal arts curricula.
The editorial board suggested language
study be required only of students who
felt a genuine need or interest in learning
a foreign language in college, such as
business or journalism majors. These
majors can certainly benefit from foreign
languages, but why stop there?
All students stand to benefit from a
second language. Even if few people
make careers solely out of their abilities
in other languages, this background can
certainly give you an edge in your field
— as well as the job market. Going into
business? Try Japanese or Mandarin
CfijnqsexI^ucation? We desperately
Guest Commentary
Mike
Turay
need bilingual teachers in our public
schools. Psychology? Sigmund Freud
and Carl Jung are better in German. Art?
Appreciate it more with French or Ital
ian. Social work? Everything from
Spanish to Somali would be useful.
Science? Russian was the language of
an incredible amount of scientific re
search done in the last century. When
looking for jobs after college, a second
language can give you an edge over
your equally qualified — but monolin
gual — competition.
No academic discipline can claim to
have its body of knowledge discovered,
researched and categorized solely in Eng
lish, even if the English language and its
literature are avidly studied and written
about in hundreds of other languages.
To deliberately limit yourself to Eng
lish is to practice a form of linguistic iso
lationism, which is out of step with 21st
century realities. It demonstrates poor
scholarship on the part of a serious stu
dent by refusal of access to a larger share
of the world’s common body of knowl
edge, particularly when it comes to
majors and fields of expertise.
English is the world’s most widely
spoken language. It’s easy to fall into
the trap of thinking that this makes
learning other languages nothing more
than a tedious academic exercise. This
is an attitude to be resisted when the
world’s peoples and societies are be
coming more interconnected — and in
terdependent — at a rate unprecedent
ed in human history. Foreign languages
are more than sets of strange vocabu
lary, senseless grammar and frustrating
irregular verbs; they are windows into
the physical and cultural worlds which
their speakers inhabit. Without making
an effort to step into the mindsets of
other peoples, you end up with a limit
ed, distorted view of your own.
By taking the time to acquire even only
a working knowledge of another language
— especially one relevant to your field of
study — you’re able to become a more
well-rounded student, develop a clearer
picture of the people and societies which
use that language, and add to your resume
what can be a very valuable skill in to
day’s tighter job market.
Mike Turay graduated from
Portland State University in 2000.