Lane County soon to vote on PATRIOT Act resolution Also, Commentator staff were found guilty of charges the \/bice editor pressed for taking and spoofing her articles Year in review Jennifer Bear Campus/Federal Politics Reporter Rumors and whispers of executive excess, loss of liberty and nefarious pranks between publishers all found their way to the front page of the Emerald this year. Students who have been taken over by the summer spirit may already be on vacation in their own minds. But for readers who stay tuned until the ending credits roll and the school year fades to black, the ma jor stories from 2002-03 need one fi nal close-up. One issue that has continued to gal vanize the citizenry and spark numer ous protests is the constraints placed on civil liberties, especially with re gards to the USA PATRIOT Act. Locally, the Lane County Bill of Rights Defense Committee has been the biggest organized opposition to this controversial piece of legislation. Hope Marston, a coordinator for the com mittee, said the group hasn’t ceased its efforts to oppose the PATRIOT Act. The committee’s most recent ef forts included an appearance before the Lane County Board of Commis sioners on May 14 to urge the com mission to pass a resolution chal lenging the act. Representatives from the group brought a petition to the board meeting with about 4,000 signatures, and Marston said they hope the commission will pass the group’s resolution in June. Marston added that similar commit tees from all across the country are planning to move their fight from the local level and bring national scope to their cause by holding a conference in Washington, D.C., in October, tenta tively titled “Grassroots America De fends the Constitution.” “Committees from all across the nation will converge on Washington, D.C., to strategize and lobby our con gressional representatives to repeal the UPA and other violations of our freedoms,” Marston said. A long-time rivalry between two campus publications heated to the boiling point this year. The Oregon Commentator was accused of break ing into the personal Web site of Raechel Sims, the Oregon Voice’s ed itor in chief, and spoofing articles the Voice was working on in an edition of Caleb Fung for the Emerald Lane County Bill of Rights committee encourages passage of a PATRIOT Act resolution. the Commentator. Because the Com mentator hadn’t actually plagiarized the Voice’s work, Sims said she had to find alternative means for making the Commentator accountable for sullying the hard work her staff had undertaken. Sims said she pressed a total of three charges against die Commentator, but they were only found guilty of two. She added that they were just basic infrac tions of the student conduct code. For example, one of the offenses the Com mentator was found guilty of was “in tentional disruption, obstruction or in terference with the process of instruction, research, administration, student discipline or any other service or activity provided or sponsored by the University.” Sims said she was pleased with the process overall. She added she harbors no hard feelings for the Commentator. “I actually feel kind of bad for the Commentator,” Sims said. “Had I known they were so hard-up for content, I would have offered to write something — it would have saved them the trouble of ripping us off, as well as spared the masses of Bret Jacobson’s vague, watery, anti liberal rants.” As of press time, Jacobson had not responded to a request for comment. Ben Buzbee, 2002-03 ASUO vice president, is almost finished ironing out the wrinkles in his reputation af ter being cited for furnishing alcohol Turn to Wrap-up, page 6 Today's crossword solution ■i i OFF Any Yogurt * (♦Except small cones and tinies Expires 6/15/03) Campus SUBSHOP Mon.-Sat. 11 am-8pm Sun. 1 l:30am-8pm 1225 Alder 345-2434 Not valid with any other discounts or coupons. One coupon per customer. 1 HOMEY HILL FARMS® 100 • 'E0 • '2E 00 (MlMB to OnUie9nten*i&t