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E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online Edition:
www.dailyemerald.com
Ttiesday, May 28,2002
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Lang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Editorial
Americans deserve
to know the truth
behind warnings
of terrorist acts
With charges flying against the way the Fed
eral Bureau of Investigation treated pre
Sept. 11 threats, Americans are concerned
about our government’s role in the terrorist attacks,
and rightly so. While we don’t believe any govern
ment official would deliberately and consciously
withhold information about a homeland terrorist
attack, we don’t understand why certain terrorism
warnings were ignored.
Congressional lawmakers are demanding addi
tional answers to what happened to FBI correspon
dence from agents in Phoenix and Minneapolis pri
or to Sept. 11. Minnesota FBI Agent Colleen
Rowley wrote a whistle-blower letter to the head of
the FBI, charging her own agency with obstruction
of justice. And it was recently revealed that Attor
ney General John Ashcroft thought hijacking warn
ings were valid enough for him to switch to flying
on private chartered jets instead of commercial
planes during the three months prior to Sept. 11. It
is instances such as these that provide evidence
that the government should have been anticipating
a terrorist attack.
Rowley wrote a 13-page memo accusing the FBI
of hindering the Zacarias Moussaoui investigation,
among other obstruction charges. A congressional
inquiry is now reviewing Rowley’s allegations
against the FBI’s handling of the Moussaoui case
and why Minnesota field officers were denied a
warrant to check the so-called 20th hijacker’s com
puter records. FBI Director Robert Mueller defend
ed the denial to Congress, citing insufficient proba
ble cause to grant the warrant.
Americans may want to take Rowley’s comments
with a grain of salt. But the FBI needs to give us an
explanation nevertheless — we need to find out
why certain information was ignored, to prevent
the same mistakes from happening in the future.
We also need an explanation of why Attorney
General John Ashcroft began flying on a chartered
government jet in July 2001 because of an undis
closed “threat assessment” by the FBI. Normally all
Bush Cabinet appointees fly on commercial air
lines, with the exception of Interior and Energy
nominees. And Ashcroft’s predecessor, Janet Reno,
routinely flew on commercial airlines.
If Ashcroft’s FBI security detail knew something
was brewing in the skies, they should have warned
the American people, not just the attorney general.
Although we don’t know all of the special circum
stances surrounding Ashcroft’s situation, the FBI
needs to define what it saw as a “threat assess
ment.”
The FBI and the Justice Department need to be as
forthcoming as possible with information about the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. To squelch rumors and
conspiracy theories, the government should hon
estly tell the Americans why field reports from FBI
agents were ignored, why the warrant to search
Moussaoui’s computer was denied and why
Ashcroft chose to fly on a chartered jet.
After so much heartache in the wake of Sept. 11,
Americans deserve to know the truth.
Editorial Board Members
editor in chief
Jeremy Lang
managing editor
Juiie Lauderbaugh
editorial editor
Jacquelyn Lewis
assistant editorial editor
Peter Hockaday
newsroom representative
Jerad Nicholson
community representative
So much for
Lately I’ve been thinking: If I had
a nickel for all the bonehead
things done out of good inten
tions at public schools across the na
tion, I’d be a millionaire. A female
vice principal at one high school in
Payne
Columnist
Foway, Cant., or
ders all women go
ing to the prom to
raise their skirts in
front of her to
make sure they’re
not wearing
thongs. Nine-year
olds across the na
tion are being re
moved from
school when they,
in the same spirit
of children since
time immemorial,
play “cowboys” or
“cops and robbers”
on the playground and point at anoth
er student as if they had a gun. A high
school junior in Fort Worth, Texas, is
nearly expelled because he forgot to
remove a bread knife from his truck
after helping take some of his grand
mother’s belongings to Goodwill.
Now there is yet another addition to
my “nickels from numbnuts” account.
District C, a sub-school district of the
Los Angeles Unified, has enacted a
new policy, which again was made
with the best of intentions. They have
said that from now on, if students in
high schools in Van Nuys, Woodland
Hills and parts of the San Fernando
intentions
Valley want to participate in their gradua
tion ceremony, they must declare that
they’re going on to college, trade
school or the military.
This is social engineering, pure and
simple. In effect, District C is saying:
“If you’re not going to college, you are
less of a person than those who are,
and even if you are the valedictorian
of your class, you’re not worthy to par
ticipate in commencement.”
This is not subtle, nor is it encour
agement. This is punishing students
because they’re not acceding to the
wishes of the administrators who
wrote up this policy. I find this sort of
manipulation, even for such a worthy
cause, unacceptable. Telling students
that they won’t be able to celebrate
one of the seminal moments of their
lives with friends and family if they
don’t “play ball” is horrendous.
Look at it this way: Let’s say the vol
untary eco-responsibility pledge here
at the University goes ahead. So far,
everything’s kosher. But let’s say a few
years down the road, the college says
either students sign the pledge, or
they don’t participate in commence
ment. If you don’t care too much
about the pledge, wouldn’t you feel
angry about being denied your day
just because you exercised your free
dom of choice?
District C would like to point to the
results: Before the policy, only about
half the students in the district were
going to college. Now, they brag that
95 percent have decided to go. My, the
way they advertise this you’d almost
think they were gunning for some sort
of special bonus for having large
amounts of students go to college. All
this shows is that the administrators
manipulate well, and doesn’t show
how many students actually wanted
to go to college instead of being goad
ed into it.
I think this bespeaks to a problem
in education more than any triumph.
Students don’t care about education
in this country, and nobody is show
ing them why they should care. Jocks
are routinely “waved through” class
es with good grades at the insistence
of coaches who want to win the sea
son. Parents are often MIA, either too
busy or indifferent to help their
children succeed.
If District C really wanted to make
an impact, maybe it, and every other
school across the nation, ought to
make sure that all high school gradu
ates can read before trying to ramrod
them all into college.
E-mail columnist Pat Payne
at patpayne@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily
reflect those of the Emerald.
Letter to the editor
Environmental issues
need to be prioritized
Most Oregonians might agree that water is one of our most
precious natural resources. We need water to irrigate crops,
to wash our dishes, to drink — and we enjoy water sports as
recreation. Our fresh water provides habitat for countless na
tive species of fish, birds and other animals.
The Willamette River — where 70 percent of Oregonians
live and upon which tens of thousands of Oregonians rely
as a source of drinking water — is unfortunately the most
polluted river west of the Mississippi.
In December 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency
declared Portland Harbor — where the Willamette meets
Oregon’s other mighty river, the Columbia, in the midst of
our state’s largest city — a Superfund site, identifying it as
one of the country’s most dangerous and polluted areas.
Fish found in this area and up and down the Willamette
have been shown to contain toxins such as mercury, arsenic
and cadmium.
It’s time Oregon took these threats to public health and
safety and these insults to the natural wonders and re
sources in our backyards seriously.
Oregon, led by Gov. McCall, restored the Willamette from
a similar state 30 years ago, and we can do it again — I urge
the next governor of Oregon to make cleaning up the
Willamette a top priority, to set an example for other parts of
this nation dealing with similar issues and to acknowledge
that it is unacceptable in every way to treat our homes in
this way.
Lea Goodrich
junior
environmental science
Poll Results:
Every week, the Emerald prints the results of our
online poll and the poll question for next week.
The poll can be accessed from the main page
of our Web site, www.dailyemeraid.com.
We encourage you to send us feedback about
the poll questions and results.
This week’s poll question: How will alcohol-free
greek houses affectthe University?
Total votes: 108 -
Mo effect—8.3 percent, or 9 votes
Eventual alcohol-free campus—7.4 percent, or 8 votes
Parties will move furtheroff campus—59,3 percent, or 64 votes
Decrease in binge/underage drinking — 10.2 percent, or 11 votes
Don't know—4,8 percent or 5 votes
Don't care — 10.2 percent, or 11 votes
Next week's poit question: What is your favorite song
by Erik Brashers, the campus "banjo mao'?
The choices:
“Stairway to Heaven"
“Year of the Witch”
“Desperado"
“Layla”
“-Freebird”
Don’t know/Don’t care
i