May ć Opinions
2age
CISPA is a proposed bill that allows government agencies, i.e. the National Security Agency, military, the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and the CIA open access to previously private personal records and information about domestic web users like you and me, stored in the databases of any website which might contain such information, like Facebook or Google. The government can solicit this information only in the event of a cyber-threat or other related affairs threatening the national security of citizens. However, this is only the bold-printed surface of CISPA, and the details are made very vague. To analyze the potential effects of this bill, picture yourself as a common user of the internet. When you sign up to use a service on a website that requires an exchange of personal information, the service will likely present you with terms of use policy––that long passage containing paragraph after paragraph of alternating capitalized and uncapitalized sentences––that most of us will simply choose to “agree” with. This policy is the service outlining what they will do with your data; more often than not, agreeing to protect your data. Essentially, CISPA will nullify those protections, because the sanctity of your information’s privacy is ruined if the government sees it. Also, under CISPA, private companies are not required to maintain anonymity, nor are they required to notify you if your information is shared. So companies could be revealing your name, address and phone number to the federal government, and you would have no knowledge of it. What they lead you to believe is that the spreading of personal information will likely not happen to you, because they are only able to lawfully collect personal data under the circumstances of cyber-threats. However, this is a caveat again: the terms “cyber-threat” and “threatening national security” are very broadly de¿ned, which means that any government of¿cial with the intention of collecting private information could very easily link any type of investigation to the jeopardy of national security. It was only last year in 2012 that the House of Representatives proposed SOPA and PIPA, two bills designed to curb internet piracy, allowing the government more room to intervene with such affairs. The bills were ultimately destroyed at the hands of over seven million signatures––amongst other widely publicized social protests––gathered in a petition lobbied by Google. If the two bills had passed, there would have been restrictions regarding what we
could use the internet for, which would directly affect internet users and large companies. CISPA, however, is supported by many large internet giants, such as Google and Facebook, because they are interested in the monitoring of online activity for the greater protection of the nation, and the trespasses upon user’s privacy do By Eric Whitehead not critiStaff Writer cally affect them—only their users. In the last two decades the internet has grown from a technological breakthrough to an essential tool used in our daily lives. As technology improves and use of the internet expands globally, rules need to be made to protect and reassure the interests of its users. I believe that legislation like CISPA will be needed in the future, because the internet helps to facilitate threats to our national security, but the legislation to combat threats needs to be reformed and presented in a way that will continue to uphold our rights already in place as citizens.
FACTORY FARM HORRORS
By Maya Guhan Staff Writer Every year, 50 million Americans get sick from eating unsafe food: 100,000 receive hospitalization and 3,000 face death. During a year, there is a 1 in 6 chance that you will suffer from a food-borne illness. Food surrounds us 24/7, shaping the way we think about ourselves and the way society views us. An essential part of an American’s diet is meat, especially chicken. To ultimately protect ourselves, we must understand the injustices that happen in the chicken industry and how these can come back to haunt us. Fifty billion chickens are slaughtered worldwide every year. Raising and slaughtering chickens in a factory setting where producers want to slaughter chickens to make maximum pro¿ts with maximum ef¿ciency, however, is problematic. With such goals, the chickens are usually left behind to deal with genetic manipulation, overcrowding, and disease, before being slaughtered. To make maximum pro¿ts, chickens are genetically manipulated and regularly dosed with drugs to make them grow faster and larger. The average breast of an 8-week-old chicken is seven times heavier today than it was 25 years ago. In addition, a bird that would normally weigh more than a pound at six weeks has now grown into a bird weighing four or ¿ve pounds—this would resemble a human baby being born at 24 pounds! The overgrown muscle tissue causes them to be unable to stand up; and they develop gastrointestinal and blood diseases, compounded by chronic respiratory diseases. This creates a mortality rate before being slaughtered that is 7 times higher than from laying hens in the wild. The sad part is that when chickens are given access to healthy, organic food and chemical-infested antibiotics, chickens immediately choose the antibiotics as a way to ease their pain. Also, the chickens are raised in massive, windowless sheds that hold as many as 40,000 birds each. This would be similar to having the whole Archbishop Mitty student body living in the gym! In these sheds, feces crowd the Àoors and, with thousands of chickens, sur-
vival of the ¿ttest truly comes into the play. The chickens ¿ght to have access to food and water—while some just collapse from the extra weight and disease caused by the genetic modi¿cation. Michael Specter, a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker visited a chicken shed and wrote, “I was almost knocked to the ground by the overpowering smell of feces and ammonia. The 30,000 chickens sitting in front of me were almost like statues of chickens, living in total darkness.” These chickens are crowded into ¿lthy, closed sheds contaminated with Salmonella and Camplylobacter bacteria. A USDA study found that more than 99 percent of chicken carcasses had levels of E. coli, showing fecal contamination—which ends up in our food. The overcrowding in the chicken hens, thus, not only pains the chickens but comes back to hurt our health. Because they are pushed to live in such horrible situations, their dosages of antibiotics, filled with deadly carcinogens, increase. One especially harmful material is arsenic which is used to increase chicken weight and meat pigmentation. It is also a toxic chemical that causes cancer, death in high doses, dementia, and neurological problems in humans who consume the meat. Unfortunately, more than 70 percent of all U.S. chickens raised for meat are treated with arsenic. Chickens are given nearly four times the number of antibiotics as human beings or cattle in the United States. These chemicals are found in high concentrations in their feces, which lead to fecal pollution that is disastrous to the environment. Making sure that the chicken is grown and produced safely is essential to our health and well-being. Obviously, stopping the consumption of chicken in the United States is unrealistic. Consequently, be aware of the different ways chickens are treated and take a stand to stop this injustice. At the supermarket, avoid the label: “ Free-Range” which brings images of chickens being able to roam around free in the wild, without overcrowding and disease. This label only means that the chickens are given access to this land long after they have imprinted, which basically renders the land as unsafe and useless to the chickens. Opt for labels such as “Organic” which limit the use of arti¿cial chemicals, pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics while prohibiting genetic manipulation. Also, ¿nd local food branches such as Chipotle that make sure that their meat is antibiotic-free. Be aware of the grave situations chickens face and act on your newfound knowledge to make a greater impact on the world.
SENIORITIS