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Opinion
The Battalion
Page 11 • Wednesday, February 5, 2003
Freeze necessary
Hiring and travel freeze good move amid fiscal emergency
T he hiring and travel freeze
put into effect Monday, Jan.
27 by Texas A&M President
Robert M. Gates could not be
avoided.
At this moment, Texas is coping
with a fiscal emergency. The state
is in danger of overspending its
budget, and in realizing this, our
state government wants to do bet
ter. Gov. Rick Perry, in an attempt
to lighten the budget shortfall, has asked
that all state-funded agencies impose a 7
percent budget cut, as reported in last
week’s Battalion.
A&M, as a state-funded agency,
receives almost a third of its budget from
state funds. From the look of things, the
state will not be able to make its full con
tribution this fiscal year, leaving A&M to
take responsibility for effectively cutting
costs without affecting most A&M stu
dents.
Some may argue that the hiring and
travel freeze is an act of publicity that will
do more harm than good in the long run.
It is a valid argument that while Gates has
frozen 240 staff positions to save $5 mil
lion in costs, he has also taken away 240
jobs from members of this community
and, if we wish to be dramatic about it, is
an accessory to unemployment.
But in reality, it is his hiring freeze that
makes the most sense in his efforts to save
money.
Gates has not put our education at
stake. He realizes that for A&M to remain
a competitive University, we must contin
ue to strive to bring the best fac
ulty to our campus.
The freeze only pertains to
staff and not faculty hiring.
Recruiting new professors takes
up to a year, and a moratorium
would hurt the faculty if the hir
ing process was disrupted, Gates
said in an interview with The
Battalion. In the meantime, we
have to finish off the school year
without hiring any additional administra
tive assistants, teaching assistants or cus
todians. Yes, they make our lives easier,
but we can get along without them.
u
...in reality it is
(Gates’) hiring freeze
that makes the most
sense in his efforts to
save money. Gates has
notput our
education at stake.
We do not have to worry about pro
gram or departmental cuts. With the tight
ened budget, money and resources will
have to be better allocated so each pro
gram can continue to serve its students,
possibly placing larger programs under
financial strain. But it would be a shame
to see smaller programs fold simply
because they could no longer support
themselves financially. With the $5 mil
lion saved through the hiring freeze, more
money can be distributed to all programs
and departments on campus so that they
can update and enrich their curriculum in
the future.
To contest the argument about leaving
the unemployed unemployed, at least
Gates has not considered layoffs as a way
to cut costs. A Battalion article listed that
A&M has about 6,000 staff and more than
2,000 faculty on the payroll, and this
would have been the easiest method of
saving money. We should be glad that in a
time of economic recession, our
University president is not about to turn
anybody out onto the streets. At least, not
just yet.
As for the travel freeze, that is also not
as drastic as it sounds. Gates has not for
bidden all University-related travel. If
travel is funded by certain research grants
or other funds, it will not be affected.
However, if a professor wants to attend a
conference in Detroit, the bill is on him.
The hiring and travel freeze is a neces
sary evil. It saves the University from cut
ting corners in places we really do not
want them to, and if all this really brings
you down, keep in mind that Gates told
The Battalion that the freeze could possi
bly end at the same time as the state leg
islative session in May.
Melissa Fried is a sophomore
international studies major.
LEIGH RICHARDSON • THE BATTALION
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Copyright Act violates
right to free speech
Legislation for companies that can’t adapt
).m.
ball
ued from page 7
big blows coming off-'
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tied the game at three
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But) we talked aW
md not trying to nil
happen.”
;ame spiraled toward
mgs. During the ne,' 1
ings, the Aggies f
Ladyjacks with lilt
giving up only a sing!
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inning care of senift
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over the fence d
reliever Autry, wltf
; first game. The soft
the Aggies the win
it the game 4-3, and
itry home with thediv
it of having as man)
ie gave up hits.
D o you like to sing in
the shower? Have you
ever hummed a song
that you heard on one of your
CDs when someone else was
listening? Did you ever stop
and think that what you were
doing might be illegal? After
all, what you essentially did
was take a piece of copyright
ed material, recorded it (with
your mind), and then played it back,
however inaccurately, possibly in an
environment where others could have
heard and “recorded it,” thereby
obtaining their own copy. And you did
all this without the written consent of
the copyright holder or the corporation
the band is represented by. Did you see
anywhere in the licensing agreement
where it said it was OK for you to sing
in the shower? It is hard to imagine
scenarios like these ever being taken
seriously as copyright violations in a
country that values freedom, but
thanks to a set of laws called the
Digital Millenium Copyright Act
(DMCA), the idea is not far-fetched.
In October 1998, under the radar
screen of the American public, the
DMCA was passed with the intention
of providing protection for copyright
holders. However, pressure from com
panies hoping to restrict the ways peo
ple could access information resulted
in lawmakers passing a dangerous law
that threatens free speech. The DMCA
is a copout for companies that can't
adapt to changing business conditions
and are panicking because of projec
tions of lost sales.
Controversial cases are a hallmark
of the DMCA. The most recent case
involved a ruling in a lawsuit between
the infamous music industry trade
group, the Recording Industry.
Association of America (RIAA) and
Verizon, an Internet service provider.
According to Reuters, the RIAA sued
Verizon after it refused to give out per
sonal information on a user accused of
downloading copyrighted music. A
federal judge ruled in favor of the
RIAA based on the DMCA. This rul
ing is dangerous because now, the
mere allegation of wrongdoing will
enable a copyright holder to access the
TIM
SCHNIEDWIND
personal information of the
accused.
Apparently, copyright
infringement is such a threat
that we can no longer afford to
honor the constitutional prin
ciple of due process.
Reuters also reported that
last Thanksgiving the DMCA
was used to stop people from
posting sale prices on the
Internet. Prices for day-after-
Thanksgiving sales had been posted on
a Web site's message board. Four
stores — Best Buy, Staples, Target and
Wai-mart — threatened legal action
against the site, www.fatwallet.com,
under the DMCA. They alleged that
their Sunday ads are copyrighted
materials and the posting of prices
contained in them (or in this case,
future sales circulars) violated provi
sions of the DMCA that restrict how
copyrighted material can be distrib
uted on the Internet. The Web site ini
tially backed down, but later decided
to counter-sue. The prices continued to
be available to the public as angry
users moved the information to
Canadian servers outside jurisdiction
of the DMCA.
Though little harm was done, this is
an example of how the DMCA can be
used by big corporations to bully
smaller entities and restrict free
speech.
Another infamous example of the
DMCA being used to trample freedom
of speech occurred shortly after the act
was passed. When the movie industry
came out with the DVD standard, it
specified that all DVDs would be
encrypted. What this meant is that if a
DVD player didn't contain a decoding
chip, it wouldn't be able to read the
information on the DVD. This was
one of many technologies that the
movie industry implemented to try and
control how people could use their
DVDs. Their plans came apart,
according to Reuters, when a teenager
in Norway reverse-engineered the
encryption algorithm, and posted a
computer program for reading
encrypted DVDs on the Internet. The
program quickly spread to hundreds of
Web sites, and was published in a
magazine. Instead of accepting that a
teenager had broken its encryption
algorithm through legal means, the
movie industry sued the owner of the
magazine under the DMCA. It also
sued Web sites that had posted the pro
gram to suppress the technology. The
reason it could do so is that the DMCA
contains a provision that anything that
has a purpose which is “mainly” to cir
cumvent copyright protection is ille
gal. They also sued the teenager under
Norwegian law. Norwegian courts
recently ruled in favor of the teenager,
but in America the final outcome of the
lawsuits is still undecided, and could
have far-reaching consequences. Even
thinking about ways in which a copy
right measure might be defeated could
be illegal.
The DMCA is just one of the tools
media entities are using to control
what people can and cannot do with
the electronic devices they purchase.
Things such as better VCRs (tivo's,
replay TV, etc.) that let people skip
commercials are one example of tech
nology that the movie and TV industry
is fighting in court. The attitude of
many media company executives is
that they are legally entitled to total
and absolute control of every aspect of
how a consumer uses their product.
The Napster situation raised the
country’s awareness of the emerging
problem of protecting copyrighted
works. The music and entertainment
we enjoy sets our country apart. We
need to make sure that artists are
given proper compensation if we
want to continue to enjoy their work.
This is certainly a difficult problem,
and at some point, action will need to
be taken. However, what we need are
creative ideas, not inept corporations
exploiting our system of government
to trample over our Constitution
before we can get a reasonable solu
tion in place. Doing nothing at all
would be preferable to the DMCA.
Hopefully, as more and more people
become aware of the DCMA, it will
be quickly overturned.
Tim Schniedwind is a graduate
environmental engineering major.
MAIL CALL
Portales' assertions
deny First Amendment
In response to a Feb. 3 mail call:
Monday's mail call, "Ghetto Party was
unforgivable," by English professor Dr.
Marco Portales is outraging.
While I do not condone the actions of
those few who support "ghetto par
ties," I do, however, believe in the First
Amendment. Students should not be
expelled from a state university for
expressing their minds, and they
should definitely not be afraid to
express their minds.
Dr. Portales claims that "campus racial
incidents continue to misrepresent the
great majority of Aggies to the world." I
realize situations occur, yet they are mild
in nature to racial comments made on
television stations such as Black
Entertainment Television. Pay more
attention to the source of the problem.
Dr. Portales.
Bud Force
Class of 2003
1 agree with Dr. Portales, and I would
also like to disassociate myself from
these "hurtful, juvenile activities." I think
that we should be equal though, let us
not stop at just "Ghetto Parties."
I think that we should track down any
organization that has ever had a racial
stereotype party, for example a "White
Trash Bash." I am heavily offended that
anyone would pick on these people just
because they are sorely under-represent
ed on campus.
I would also like to see people who
hold "Hawaiian Parties" expelled from
A&M immediately. That is nothing but a
negative stereotype; it is also very harm
ful to A&M’s recruitment attempts.
Just look around campus, how many
Pacific Islanders do you see around? It's
probably because they have a negative
view of A&M, especially when the stu
dent body has social gatherings using
their culture as a theme where men
wear grass skirts and coconut bras.
Pacific Islanders don't wear that. You
people make me sick.
I believe that if any organization con
tinues to mock these good people, they
should all be expelled just like Dr.
Portales says. They are standing in the
way of A&M fulfilling its mission state
ment of replacing qualified applicants
with people that don't want to be here
in the first place.
' Bryan Henry
Class of 2004
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for length, style and accuracy. Letters
may be submitted in person at 014
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Letters also may be mailed to: 014 Reed
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