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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 11, 2004)
4 • T he C lackamas P rint COMMENTARY F ebruary II, 2004 America under paranoia Gadget craze is here to Fear of terrorism driving country to near witch-hunt stay: Resistance is futile O pinion E ditor Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a tit tle temporary safety deserve nei ther liberty nor safety.” With the advent of the USA Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security, Franklin’s worst fears have come true. A few weeks back, a Massachusetts woman named Julie Olearcek became painfully aware of this when a Christmas • shopping excursion prompted visits from a state trooper. About a week before Christmas, Olearcek’s 10-year-old son had put a flight simulation computer program on his wish list. Olearcek, a U.S. Air Force reserve pilot, was glad to see her son taking interest in flight and took her son to the local Staples outlet so he could pick out which game he wanted. Upon arrival, her son was dis appointed to learn that /all the software involved fighting, not actual flying of the plane. When Olearcek asked thp^t:lerk about this, he angrily informed her that . what she was doing was against the law. Shocked, Olearcek decided to leave the edgy clerk to himself. That evening, she heard a tap on her sliding-glass door and saw a flashlight beaming through. Standing outside Olearcek’s door was a state trooper wanting to question her about her inquiry into buying a flight simulator. She showed the officer her mili tary ID and he left after explain ing that the clerk had called quite concerned, although flight simu lators are quite common. What remains to be seen in this matter is how the Staples clerk knew where to send the officer. It is not just the American people who have been gripped by this state of tension; the govern ing bodies in Washington seem to have been equally effected. In the past months, multiple members of the Green party have reported that they have been barred from flights. Art dealer Doug Stuber, who ran Ralph Nader’s Green Party presi dential campaign in North Carolina in 2000, wrote that he was pulled out of a boarding line and grounded after getting into a friendly political discussion, in which he loudly voiced his politi cal views, with two other passen gers. He was never able to make his work-related flight to Europe. Possibly even more absurd is the singling out of Virgine Lawinger, a nun in Milwaukee and an activist with Peace Action. She and 20 other members of the Catholic organization were head ed to Washington to lobby the Wisconsin congressional delega tion against U.S. military aid to the Colombian government. Her group was pulled aside and told their names were “on a list, and that the Transportation Security Administration in Washington had ordered them to be kept grounded. It is not just leftists who have been victims to this scenario; a conservative group called “Eagle Forum”, led by anti-feminist icon Phyllis Schlafly, said that several of the group’s members have been delayed by security to the point of missing their flights. In addition, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said it has documented over 80 cases, involving some 200 people, in which people with Arabic names have been at the least delayed, and some were even grounded from flying. While the aviation industry is by far not the only victim of this kind of paranoia, it seems to be one of the hardest hit, albeit understandably. The events of Sept. 11 brought attention to problems with the airline industry that had been known about for years. While the events of 9/11 were a wakeup call, we must also be wary. There is a fine line between being safe from terror ists and letting the fear control our fives and therefore letting them win. Obviously, the American peo ple must be sure that we are never again victims to such a tragedy, but we must also insure that we do not submit ourselves to Big Brother in an attempt to be safe. -------- Letters to the Editor — Campus tobacco issues stimulate students' response I attended the “Ask the President” forum today (2/4/04). I won’t address all the very legitimate gripes of the stu dents and staff in this letter; however, I will address this one. Most everyone is very aware of the problems caused by the many tobacco addicts here on campus (both students and staff). For example: 1) the second hand smoke cloud you must pass through in order to get into build ings, 2) cigarette butts every where, even on the ground around the new $79.90 (I looked it up) lighthouse butt urns, 3) and, even though smoking is prohibit ed inside the buildings, the air- conditioning still picks up their smoke through the outside air intakes and blows it inside anyway. One solution presented by Bill Leach, our associate dean of cam pus services was to build shelter kiosks so the smokers will have a place to stand out of the rain. These would be placed away from building entrances. He believes the students could design and build these to keep costs down. A good idea, but why spend more money to pacify the tobacco addicts? Let’s see, $80 or so for each butt urn, multiplied by 50? 100? And now a custom wind and rain protected kiosk for every building? Next, it will need air condition ing and heating because the smok ers will still not use them because it’s too cold or hot or they won’t want to walk over to them. How about some futuristic thinking and not spend any more money? Follow Nike Campus’ lead and make nur campus a smoke-free one! I’m sure this will be met with opposition at first, as is understandable when you limit an addicts preferred drug, but after the initial fussing, a healthier and cleaner environment will be had by all, including the smokers. Building and grounds will save money, too, because they won’t have the several million butts to pick up, urns to empty, eta Not to mention the cleaner air all of us can now share. The president’s response was something to the effect of “Do you realize how much money is related to the tobacco industry?” My response to that is, “Do you realize how much money is related to a class action suit?” What’s your response? Craig Lamond, CCC Student Parent concerned for future of higher education I am a concerned taxpayer who also happened to be working at Clackamas Community College during the month of Feb. 2004. While I was working in a class room I overheard a meeting of some of the faculty. The vast majority of the meeting was devoted to the use of profanity in the educational class setting. These professors rattled on about their rights and freedom of speech. But what I heard was eight or nine little kids so happy that they got to say dirty words. These educators listed other schools and universities as their justification, but I simply saw people seeing how naughty they could be They grinned as they peppered their comments with denigrating words. All were proud of their self-right eousness and over-the-top swear ing. One even “wondered if I had a tape recorder.” Thus proving to me of his own embarrassment or hint of conscience that what he was advocating was poor judg ment and wrong. High education should not be the lowest common denominator of society, but the expansion of vocabulary and higher thought. I work in the construction trade and do hear foul language on a daily basis, yet is this what the college strives for? Do we really want gutter speech to be the goal we aim for? One of the professors even mentioned that the “f-word” could be used as one of the eight parts of speech (noun, verb, adjec tive ... ). However, doesn’t this dilute and provide little to no use ful value to speech? I would expect much more from the educators of our youth. Lastly, I am a taxpayer, commu nity member, and father of three wonderful boys. I am now in doubt whether or not my children or my money will ever attend such ^“fine” school. Mark A. Douglas, Concerned Parent The following ¿r an editorial with the intent to best represent the opinion of the the Print staff editors. With the advent of every new piece of technology also comes the invention of a new. way to misuse it, and the camera phone is no exception. It began with digital camera attachments that could be plugged into a cell phone made for such, and small, grainy pictures could be produced. It has now evolved into the cameras being built right into the phone, making it even more inconspicuous for stalkers all over America. Now all it takes to capture any image is a quick and discrete push of a button on the phone, and presto—no one is the wiser. While some have hailed this innovation as the next cool gadg et, others have not greeted it with open arms, worrying instead about the possibility of exploita tion. Imagine the horror of a stu dent who finds out that the guy in the comer talking on his phone was actually taking an embarrass ing picture of them scratching their posterior, picking their nose, or some equally degrading task. Another scenario: a peeping Tom (male or female) sneaks a camera phone into the locker room, and takes pictures of the team showering, and can instantly send them via e-mail or multime dia message to friends for even further distribution. This is the reason campuses have been con sidering banning camera phones. What possible good can come from devices that seemed almost designed to invade privacy? * One possible circumstance that has been brought up by many is that, armed with a camera phone, an unprepared civilian can discreetly capture a crime in progress, which could later be used as evidence. Be it an armed gunman holding up a 7-Eleven or a corrupt cop macing a peace ful protestor, one could generally agree that camera phones could help ensure justice in these cases. One concern many students seem to have is that the cameras on the phones are of nearly primitive quality. The majority of camera phones take pictures con siderably smaller than one megapixel. A megapixel is the unit of measurement used in dig ital imagery of this sort. One megapixel has an approximate resolution of 1,280 x 960, and can be optimally blown up no more than 5” x 7” while still retaining any clarity. Most digital cameras on the market today are at least two megapixels, more commonly three’ or four. It can be concluded that the pictures’ taken by these camera phones leave something to be desired. Maybe in a few years the technology will evolve to the point of a useable camera, but now it just seems to be more a way for tech nerds all over the U.S. to entertain their inner James Bond. Are these cameras really worth all the fuss? At this point, it does not matter. Pandora’s Box has been opened; just as it was with home recording and file sharing—and stuffing the genie back in the bottle will not silence it. The technology has been around for years; tiny cameras will soon become a common toy. It is just a matter of society learn ing to work with it, not against it. Have an idea you want to share with your fellow students? E-mail letters to chiefed@clackamas.edu or bring them on a floppy disk to RR135 by this Friday at 1 p.m. Please include your name and limit all letters to no more than 200 words. Submissions become property of The Clackamas Print and are subject to editing on the grounds of length, clarity, content and grammar.
