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Show = Y o u r Opinion MONDAY, APRIL 18, 2005 Cherish your rights: protest UVSC and USA PATRIOT(ism) community Pete Walters Academic freedom important but being abused by liberals Contributing Opinion Writer Have you heard? America is up for parole. The USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act is about to expire. But not if your congress has anything to do with it. (Read more and you could win $100.) For some reason, the American purveyors of peace and serenity still insist on their e-mail and phone taps and sneak-and-peak searches without your knowledge or a judge's consent. If they suspect you of "terrorism" for any reason, your rights are gone. Whoosh. Goodbye. These days you can even be arrested and held indefinitely while they turn your house inside out and probe your computer's sensitive netherregions. "Well, what's wrong with that? I have nothing to hide. Why all the fuss? I'm innocent!" One word: Panopticism. You may recall the term from your college ethics classes. Panopticism is a subversive control theory. The name is derived from an old prison design with a system of dark windows which allowed guards to monitor inmates. It was called "the panopticon," meaning "to view or survey a wide space." The inmates never knew who was watching them. There could be fifty guards behind the glass; there could be none. Think: "We inspire fear and let men govern themselves." There are cameras all over Beijing * these days, and most Chinese people believe there's a mean guy in a uniform zeroing in on their faces, collecting images, ready to spring out from behind an invisible door and whisk them off in a portable naughty, naughty no-no van. I have a Chinese friend who is a national security agent for the CCP. He travels around the country in search of insurgents, then he reports them. Panopticism creates a will-weakening environment, in which power is freely abandoned in exchange for obscurity. This tends to give execu- but themselves. I understand how they came to Guest Opinoin Writer that flagrantly flawed conclusion. Indeed there is dismaying precEveryone here is familiar with the words of the 16th century Eng- . edent for it among the faculty of colleges and universities across lish poet John Donne, who said, the land - institutions that long ago "No man is an island, entire unto abandoned the principles of their himself." founders, and today, protected by I quote Donne 433 years after tenure, mock those very principles. his birth because his words are Those who seek to flout the both timeless and true. Moreover, cherished beliefs and values of the they are directly applicable to the members of this community - the discussion we are having here in this community - in Orem, in Utah, people to whom this institution is indebted for its very existence in Utah County. - are perfectly free to do so. They This college was conceived can flout their hearts out, but with by this community, it was and is one stipulation: that they use their nurtured by this community, it was resources and their dollars to do so sustained by this community, it in facilities Ashcroft that they establish tors of panopticism a lot of power, / strongly endorse academic freedom with their and they wield this power publicly them all. Then they beat them and own hands. drove their trucks over them, killing whenever it suits their purposes. and free speech. The problem is that They do An IT contractor working in a handful of women and hospitalizacademic freedom as practiced at many have, howShanghai's Free Trade Zone made ing over 100. Some protestors even ever, other the mistake of googling "Falun had their eyes beaten out with elecinstitutions of higher eduation through- options, Gong" one too many times. The trified ugly sticks. and some out America is a code term - a kind of police showed up at his cubicle one According to a local paper: "[The should conday and cuffed him. Chinese] mainland media had been sider them: cant for license to practice rampant, restricted from Berkeley radical liberalism reporting sensibeckons, tive news about and CoIf we allow domestic policy like the Zhejiang for fear lumbia, and that it would disPatriot Act to go unchecked it could NYU, and Boston College, and the courage foreign exists to serve this community, its University of Colorado at Boulder. investment in clients are overwhelmingly from become a more destructive weapon The opportunities are endless. the coastal prov- this community, it uses the public Let there be no mistake: / strongaainst the American people than the ince, which has services and infrastructure of this ly endorse academic freedom and seen extensive community, it exists on untaxed terrorists it seeks to Intercept and free speech; they are pivotal in investments from land within this community, its the democratic process; they are Obstruct overseas in recent very name denotes this community, its very linchpins. Every thinking and its principal private donors years." American understands that. The reside in this community. The emperors problem, ladies and gentleman, is By every measure that matters, Early this April, some 200 elderly of the post-Mao dynasty sit on their that academic freedom as pracwomen in a quiet farming village in thrones, and any person or group Utah Valley State College is not an ticed at many institutions of higher south China dared to protest the pol- who challenges the purposes of the island unto itself, although a few learning throughout America is lution caused by 13 chemical plants CCP becomes public enemy number would like to make it so. They sug- a code term - a kind of cant - for constructed in 2001. "The turnip's one, be it a "terrorist" with a nucu- gest, flashing the shield of academ- license to practice rampant, radical skin is white," said one protester, larwaypun, a harmless old lady with ic freedom and marching under its liberalism; hence it grants freedom "but it's dark inside." a turnip, or me (so please don't for- "anything goes" banner, that they openly and generously to those on should be accountable to no one Some 1,000 government officials "Patriot Act" cont d on page A5 arrived on the scene and tear-gassed "Academic Freedom" cont'd on page A5 Norman Nielsen Kougar Korner A weekly skewering of our sister-college to the South College Times for ^publishing the weekly column entitled "Kougar Korner." Below are her comments: EDITOR'S NOTE: LAST KOUGAR KORNER OF THE SEMESTER DEDICATED TO REPRESENTATIVE MARGARET DAYTON. Dayton: "Is that academic freedom? I guess you could say that. It's certainly freedom of the press. Should the legislature oppose it? No. Do I think it's a good idea? No. There is Dayton: "I am aware that there is a lot of sharing between UVSC and BYU, of a portion of the student newspaper facilities, of equipment, of faculty." here on campus called Kougar Korner, spelled with a 'k.' And each Not really so much sharing of the faculty as time that I have read this particular much as BYU firing then excommunicating portion of the student newspaper it faculty who advance academic freedom, and seems to me that the total purpose then UVSC hiring them. of this section of the newspaper is spent to attack, criticize, make fun DAYTON: "Wouldn't [talking about those of, and ridicule BYU. No other pur- things] be a great use for the Kougar Korner pose. " and UVSC's newspaper? " Hmmm... It seems like Kougar Korner is devoted to making fun of BYU? What was it that clenched your sneaking suspicion? Was it the column's subtitle that reads: "A weekly skewering of our sister college to the south?" Dayton: "It's kind of a junior On Monday, State Congresswoman Marga- highish attack." ret Dayton (R), along with several of her colleagues from the hill, spoke on UVSC cam-' C'mon, give us a little more credit. It's repus about academic freedom. Among other ally more sophmoric than junior highish. things, she expressed her frustration with The benefit of over 50,000 students here in this valley. For instance, UVSC students regurlarly frequent BYU's bountiful library because you guys up on the hill don't want to fund us one of our own. At the College Times, we just Representative thought a column Margaret Dayton is an like Kougar KoWhat would be funny about that? alumna of BYU But perhaps having a sense of humor has rner might enbeen the wrong way to go about this whole gender a little bit thing. Being an off campus arm of B YU's PR of a healthy school rivalry between UVSC wing might be pretty great. Maybe The Col- and BYU. We certainly can't compete with lege Times should look into changing its for- them in football. The College Times has remat to serve as one giant advertisement for cieved a lot of positive feedback from stuBYU. (We'll take it under advisement.) dents at UVSC commenting on the Kougar In all seriousness, there are many great Korner. As is the nature of all humorous colthings about BYU. They don't need us to umns it's not meant to be taken too seriously. play up their commendable and noteworthy Congresswoman Dayton aside, most people points. realize that. But then again, most people have And there is a degree of sharing between a sense of humor. our two campuses which work to the mutual |