The Northern Light

Issue date: 7/25/06 Section: News

Government monitored anti-war group e-mails

University of California-Berkeley

Newly surfaced government surveillance reports reveal that the U.S. Department of Defense monitored anti-war and anti-military e-mails sent by University of California-Berkeley students in April.

The students' e-mails contained plans to host a campus protest against the war in Iraq and against the presence of military recruiters on campus.

The reports, released on June 15 following a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network in January, contained information copied from an e-mail circulated by student group UC Berkeley Stop the War Coalition regarding a protest planned for April 21, 2005.

Multiple protest e-mails were submitted to the department's Talon database, which stores information about potential terrorist threats, and were subsequently processed, reviewed and stored, according to the report.

The UC Berkeley coalition planned to protest the presence of campus military recruiters at the annual campus career fair. In March 2005, the ASUC passed a resolution charging recruiters' presence violates the campus anti-discrimination policy because of the military's opposition to recruitment of gays and lesbians.

Nothing in the e-mail specifically referenced terrorism or outlined specific plans of the protesters, but the surveillance report stated that there was "a strong potential for a confrontation at this protest given the strong support for anti-war protests and movements in the past."

The reports, which also included detailed information about anti-war protests copied from student e-mails at UC Santa Cruz, New York University, William Paterson University and Southern Connecticut State University, came from the department's Talon reporting system.

The Talon reporting system compiles and analyzes information reported as suspicious to help the department avert potential terrorist attacks.

Pentagon spokesperson Cmdr. Greg Hicks said because the e-mails did not contain a foreign terrorist threat nexus, the e-mails were stored in error and have since been removed.

-Courtesy of the Daily Californian

 

 

Survey raises concerns about college preparation

Brigham Young University

A survey published in 2005 by Achieve, Inc., an organization designed to help improve academic standards and prepare young people for the future, reported the dissatisfaction of college professors with the preparedness of incoming students. Seventy percent of the instructors surveyed said they felt public schools inadequately prepared students to "read and comprehend complex materials;" 66 percent felt students were inadequately taught to "think analytically" and 59 percent thought they didn't know how to "do research."

Statistics provided by the Utah System of Higher Education revealed only 24 percent of Utah students who took the ACT in 2004 "tested ready for college-level coursework in biology, algebra and English composition together."

Both local and national programs, such as No Child Left Behind, have increased an emphasis on testing and improvement based on those tests within public schools. Some experts may say the cause of students not being prepared points to high stakes tests, or tests that have some level of accountability connected to the results.

-Courtesy of The Daily Universe

 

 

Welfare eligibility to change

University of Oregon

New welfare regulations announced June 28 by the Bush administration will make it more difficult for students to qualify for welfare.

The updated rules, set to take effect in October, will no longer allow students to use their education process as credit toward eligibility for aid, unless it is directly related to specific job training. Previously, an applicant could list 'student' as an occupation and still qualify for benefits under a degree completion program. Now an employer is necessary, and the changes are designed to demand more accountability for people receiving federal benefits.

John Radich, director of Adult and Family Services, an organization that offers welfare in Eugene, said all recipients must now participate in 30 hours of activity each week, 20 of which must be work or employment.

"They used to allow students who are pursuing degrees," Radich said. "Now it's not even an option."

-Courtesy of the Oregon Daily Emerald

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools