Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 10, 2003)
m i he battaliI ijui'C. libaii cks kill five an soldiers attacks from sui insurgents pouring i stan from Pakisi Aggielife: Mis-taken identity • Page 3A Opinion: Punishing Internet hackers • Page 5B THF RATTAT TflTVJ i. OH Dx\.l i/mi vJIN blume 110 • Issue 9 • 14 pages A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893 wvvvv.thebattalion.net Wednesday, September 10, 2003 tod th# tea's other war idahar - tnsur hkI Afghan soldien vo (in - U S sotawsA iot wound to the lee i firefight with five nts near a coaktwisj; i Kowt — US. sokj, I in the forearm n& i base SC misplaced $6IK in 2002 T-shirt funds By Sarah Walch THE BATTALION Kabul H; r\ V I The Memorial Student Center Hisplaced $61,212 in 2002 Maroon Hut T-shirt sales and an additional R.200 worth of T-shirts in a puz- zl ng case that leaves no trail to the Hissing money. I No criminal investigation has iamstan ’ ®en launched, and officials respon- ShKm^ for overseeing the activity don’t * 0 who might be responsible for Be money’s disappearance. I The Maroon Out fund-raising el ort, intended to show support for Hxas A&M’s football team, is oxerseen by MSC Class Councils, |udent-led committees composed annually elected representatives O >ons ased pport of a loa lay Hill — sai. co-member p it never hated i. time of the at. and has change: earning assoct. ^ and accounting : in psycholog) Paul?" cour i an honor studei was going back' 1 know my son r He will livehise he did that night tis will he at lea> she has attended. :ted in the case. - rites letters andr. s of preventing otf t being released, icnts produced k’ i/at ions asking lice’s parole digit' ‘1 know all of tt the 10 convicts: genuine remorse ccommended Buia on Show, which t Jio. The show g forum to send r- on news about i endants, Jaime • serving 15-yM r ' ! eligible lor pan'h from each class year. Two internal A&M system audi tors, Robert W. Smith and Robin Woods, have been unable to track any of the funds, which disappeared last fall, according to a memorandum sent to A&M President Robert M. Gates on July I, 2003. The memo to Gates, authored by chief auditor of the Texas A&M University System Catherine A. Smock, states that an “inadequate University oversight of the student activity” created “an environment (that made possible) misappropria tion of University resources.” Executive Director of University Relations Cynthia Lawson said she applauds students’ efforts to uncov er the problem and request an audit. MSC members have listened to the recommendations from the audit and implemented changes, she said. “From what 1 understand, the system they’ve put in place seems to be working quite well this year,” Lawson said. Anyone had access Matt Fuxan, the 2002-2003 Maroon Out director, said anyone on Class Councils would have had access to the money. “There are about 120 people in Class Councils,” he said. “Obviously, on game days our cash flow was pretty high.” Fuxan said the missing money was discovered in January when Katie Hanselka, the Class Councils’ adviser at the time, discovered errors in the financial report when she was com puting tax information. Tax forms for student organizations are due Jan 20, according to the Student Organization Finance Center Web site. Fuxan, a senior international studies major, said he was the sec ond or third person notified that funds were missing. “It wasn’t ever any sort of scan dal,” Fuxan said, “It’s like Bonfire, you don’t really fix (a broken sys tem) until something goes wrong.” An underestimate The total Hanselka discovered gone and the total amount missing reported to the auditors on Feb 24 was $43,000. Auditor Smith later found this amount to be an underestimate. In a memorandum to James See MSC on page 2A MISSING MONEY MSC Class Councils' funds disappeared last fall. $ 43,000 initially reported missing to auditors $ 61,212 in profits from the sale of 12,026 T-shirts later discovered missing by auditors 1,362 T-shirts costing $ 6,199.88 never arrived RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION SOURCE: TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY SYSTEM Measuring success . / / v x yx ’XXXXXXX //vwvVVV' ~ 1 ,...x JR BEATO III • THE BATTALION Texas A&M club baseball adviser Kyle Greeley checks the speed of during the fall semester with the regular season starting in February, pitches with a radar gun on the first day of tryouts at the Southwood The club baseball team was the 2003 national runner-up and was Athletic Complex on Tuesday afternoon. The team's preseason runs National Champion the year before. Perry calls third special session By Natalie Gott THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry has called a third special legislative ses sion on congressional redistricting, revealing his plans Tuesday shortly after 10 Senate Democrats said they would return from New Mexico and end their boycott. Perry’s announcement follows two spe cial sessions this summer that failed to produce a new redistrict ing plan after Democrats in the Texas Senate blocked a vote on a proposal. Perry, a Republican, said the ses sion would begin on Monday. His announcement comes a day before 10 Senate Democrats who have been in New Mexico boycotting the Legislature were planning to return to Texas. They left the state July 28 to break a Senate quorum and halt business in the chamber. The Democrats said they decid ed to come home after one of their fellow Democrats, Sen. John Whitmire of Houston, defected from the holdout in Albuquerque, N.M., and said he planned to attend an expected third special session. That left the 10 remaining Democrats without the numbers to block a quorum. Twenty-one of the Senate’s 31 members must be present for busi ness to be conducted. “If, indeed. Senator Whitmire makes a'quorum, we must return to the Senate to defend rural and minority Texans as best we can,” the Democratic senators said in a statement Tuesday. “Despite his rhetoric, his move amounts to trading away the electoral voices of the millions of rural and minority Texans we are in Albuquerque to defend.” Republicans maintain that recent voting trends show Texas should have more GOP See Session on page 2A racketeer device controls n-campus file-sharing Eli A/ith a blanket tairto claim the green spa^ ? Hagler Center Field's new ?nd zone. tion^tamu- 1 By Jacquelyn Spruce THE BATTALION The Recording Industry Association of America announced Tuesday its member compa nies’ decisions to sue users who participate in the Swapping of illegal music and video files among eer-to-peer networks. They are targeting those sers with more than 1,000 copyrighted files. Texas A&M is well aware of the conse quences of having illegal files on the campus net work, said Willis Marti, associate director for Computing and Information Services. However, he said, it isn’t a major problem on campus. “We used to have a gigabyte limit, but it was not effective in limiting traffic,” he said. “We just b y to be aware of the mention of Texas A&M and make sure that we don’t have any highly visible downloaded.” Despite this, Marti said, it is extremely Important for students to realize the legalities of the issue. The University is warning students of THE BATTALION The Battalion invites you to submit personal remembrances and thoughts as the nation approaches the second anniversary of the Sept. I I terrorist attacks. Please submit your 250-word letters to mailcall@lhebattalion.net or stop by 014 Reed McDonald. September 11, 2003 the consequences. Marti said peer-to-peer traffic has slowed down, and in turn, the number of illegeal files students are downloading has also decreased. “There is a Racketeer device between the res idence halls and the rest of the world that restricts the amount of traffic allowed to pass,” he said. “It reduces file-swapping by slowing it down, and discouraged people go elsewhere.” Sophomore molecular and cell biology major and A&M campus resident Megan Arnold said she will continue to download music. She said she’s not worried about getting in trouble. “It seems to me that they are targeting people with a whole lot of music,” she said. “Sometimes I get discouraged because it takes a while, but I don’t download a whole lot of files.” The University of North Texas is taking pre cautions as well, to avoid any possible lawsuits, said Maurice Leatherbury, executive director of information technology and academic computing at the North Texas. Punishments For Pirating File-sharing nouu yields serious legal consequences. -o Rlflfl-m0mb6r componi0s fil0d copyright infring0ment claims against 261 fila sharers. -<5 Online infringement of copyrighted music can be punished by up to three years in prison and $250,000 in fines. •o Copyright holders con sue for statutory damages ranging from $750 to $150,000 for each work illegally copied. Interim director to help clean up environment By Pammy Ramji THE BATTALION SETH FREEMAN • THE BATTALION SOURCE: RIAA.COM “We restrict the amount of space so it tends to restrict the file-swapping because it’s so slow,” he said. “We can tell who is using the bulk of the See File-sharing on page 7A Baylor president faces vote WHITSON By Bobby Ross Jr. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WACO — As the Baylor Faculty Senate convened in a closed meeting Tuesday to con sider a no-confidence vote on university President Robert Sloan, a group calling itself “Friends of Baylor” said it has raised $300,000 to defend Sloan and the scandal-rid den university. U.S. Rep. Max Sandlin, D-Texas, a Friends of Baylor steering committee mem ber, said the group founded two weeks ago “is not just a pep squad — we are a group of highly-active, highly-anotivated Baylor alumni and students who are committed to support ing Baylor and its current leadership.” Clifton Robinson, the group’s president and chair man and CEO of National Lloyds Insurance Co., said the money would be used to help educate people about the university’s history, future and “what our university can accomplish under the leadership of President Sloan.” SLOAN Recently appointed interim deputy director of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Robert E. Whitson is heading up projects that will have an impact on the state, such as the development of more efficient cropping and irrigation systems. Whitson was appointed interim deputy director of TAES, a research agency that conducts research to ensure the highest quality food and fiber products and a sustainable environment, on Aug. 15. “He is a representative who has led the department in an excellent manner and he is an outstanding choice (for interim deputy direc tor),” said Fuller W. Bazer, associ ate vice chancellor and executive associate dean. TAES is working on a Service Management Road Map, which develops new directions and makes a plan of action that will result in solutions to issues facing the agri cultural industry. “We have 450 to 460 scientists with Ph.D.s and creative minds who we depend on to provide ideas,” Whitson said. High priorities for the project include Water for a Future Texas, Plant and Animal Genomic, Strengthening the Beef Industry in Texas and Improving Regional Research and Extension Center Facilities. Specifically, Water for a Future Texas will improve recycling of degraded water and identify implications for water conservation. “We try to match the problem with a solution as efficiently as possible,” Whitson said. Whitson received his undergraduate and master’s See Vote on page 7A See Interim on page 2A