The Daily Free Press [
Year xliii. Volume lxxxiv. Issue XLVI
MO MONEY BU hockey teams join Movember movement, page 3.
Thursday, November 21, 2013 The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University
PATTEN-TED
Multi-talented actor Dave Patten talks music, Hollywood, page 5
]
www.dailyfreepress.com
ON THE ROAD
Women’s hockey travels to face Harvard, UNH, page 8.
WEATHER
Today: Partly cloudy/High 48 Tonight: Cloudy/Low 35 Tomorrow: 50/35 Data Courtesy of weather.com
BUFSA holds benefit show to support typhoon victims Mass. neglects
to send mental health records
By Olivia Deng Daily Free Press Staff
Boston University’s Filipino Student Association hosted the Typhoon Haiyan Benefit Show Wednesday night at the George Sherman Union Conference Auditorium. BUFSA will be donating proceeds from the event to the American Red Cross Typhoon Haiyan relief effort. The show was named “Siklab Ng Pag-asa,” Tagalog for “spark of hope.” Over 60 students attended the event. “We’re hosting this event because of the recent typhoon in the Philippines that affected many of our members on a very personal level,” said Grace Wang, president of the BUFSA. “We had family in the Philippines, and it really hit close to home.” Though the show was free, BUFSA suggested a donation of $5. Proceeds will be added to a university-managed fund for all typhoon relief efforts on campus, Wang said. “It [the name of the event] reflects the resilience and strength of Filipinos,” Wang, a College of Engineering senior, said. “We encounter storms like [Haiyan] all the time and we have always risen up and come out of it stronger, prouder and more resilient than ever … Putting on a show and raising funds for them [Haiyan victims] will send a message of hope.” Michael Kolb, a School of Hospitality Administration freshman, said organizers
By Felicia Gans Daily Free Press Staff
MIKE DESOCIO/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
School of Management senior Simon You performs vocals and guitar at the Typhoon Haiyan Benefit Show hosted by the Boston University Filipino Student Association.
set up the benefit show to encourage to those affected by Haiyan. “I was so glad to see everybody come out and support the Philippines,” Kolb said. “It has been a really tough time, especially for me because I have family over there, so it’s really great to see support.” The show featured 14 acts including dance groups, a cappella groups and solo artists. BUFSA’s a cappella group Kumanta sang the Filipino national anthem, and the Christian a cappella group performed Mus-
tard Seed. Students from neighboring colleges performed as well, including a Berkelee College of Music vocal duo and a dancer from Northeastern University. The benefit show also featured a choreographed routine by the Kung Fu Club and a yo-yo exhibition from Derek Hsu, this year’s grand finalist of Kollaboration Boston, a non-profit arts and entertainment
Typhoon, see page 2
Commonwealth receives $357,000 from Google in settlement By Steven Dufour Daily Free Press Staff
As a result of a multistate lawsuit settlement, Massachusetts will receive more than $357,000 from Google Incorporated, Mass. Attorney Gen. Martha Coakley announced Monday. The suit, led by Maryland Attorney Gen. Douglas Gansler along with the attorney generals of 36 other states and the District of Columbia, accused Google of illegally circumventing data collection policies for the Safari web browser, which is operated by Apple Incorporated, without user consent. In total, Google agreed to pay $17 million to the accusing states as a part of the settlement. Lawrence Friedman, professor at the New England School of Law, said regardless of whether or not Google was at fault, the settlement could have long-standing effects on internet-based businesses similar to Google. “As far as the amount of the fine for something the size of Google, it’s really just a slap
on the wrist,” he said. “On the other hand, it’s not nothing. It’s still $17 million. Additionally, the fine does stand as a deterrent to other companies that might be accused of doing the same thing.” Allegations from the suit regard Google’s policy changes for placing third-party cookies in the browsers of Safari users. Cookies are small files that track and collect user’s browsing habits so advertising can be tailored to individuals. It was alleged that from June 2011 to February 2012 Google went around Safari’s default settings that would have blocked cookies and placed them anyway without alerting users. Coakley joined the case in an effort to guarantee the right to consent for Internet users. “Consumers have the right to make informed decisions with respect to their privacy online, and those choices should be respected,” she said in a Monday release. “As a result of this settlement, consumers will be able to exer-
cise more meaningful control over how Google sends advertisements to them while online.” In addition to the financial settlement, which will be managed by Coakley’s office in Massachusetts, Google agreed to be legally required to change its cookie policies in several ways. It must ensure the deletion of cookies gathered illegally through Safari, better represent what data it collects and refrain from circumventing a browser’s default cookie-blocking settings except when addressing security problems. “We work hard to get privacy right at Google and have taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple’s browsers,” said Nadja Blagjevic, a Google spokeswoman, in an email Wednesday. “We’re pleased to have worked with the state attorneys general to reach this agreement.” Even with the promises from Google, Friedman stressed that the fault in Internet data availability lies with the user, not necessarily with
Google, see page 2
The Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition, a national advocacy group co-chaired by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, released new information Wednesday that faults the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for its failure to send mental health records to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The data updates the group’s 2011 “Fatal Gaps” report and comes with the 20th anniversary of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, the legislation that created NICS. According to the update, Massachusetts has only submitted one health record to the federal database since its creation. “Massachusetts is one of 15 states with fewer than 100 records in the system,” said Jake Sullivan, federal relations liaison for Menino. “Mayor Menino and Mayor Bloomberg and the thousands of mayors across the country who belong to Mayors Against Illegal Guns believe we need to make sure that for people who shouldn’t have a gun, [we] have a system in check that prevents them from getting weapons.” Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick and Menino have both taken steps towards making Massachusetts compliant with the NICS, but the decision to submit mental records goes beyond their own actions, Sullivan said. “It’s certainly not something that the city controls,” he said. “It’s a conversation that Patrick has been trying to lead, and by introducing legislation in the state house, has tried to bring to the forefront. It involves multiple state agencies that have different jurisdictions and leaderships and so you’d have to be very thorough about making sure that you have all those agencies on board to submit the records.” In the United States, 40 percent of guns are sold without background checks. Last year, this amounted to 6.6 million guns, Sullivan said. “There are far too many stories, anecdotal and data-driven, that will show you the tragic consequences of what happens when those loopholes [in federal background checks] allow prohibited purchasers to get a firearm,” he said. Sharon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, is concerned with the danger that these numbers pose for the country. “It endangers citizens and constituents,” she
Gun Control, see page 2
BU professors team up with NASA scientists to launch satellite to Mars By Taryn Ottaunick Daily Free Press Staff
PHOTO COURTESY OF NASA
Boston University astronomy professors John Clarke, Paul Withers and Michael Mendillo collaborated with NASA on MAVEN, a small satellite launched on Monday that will orbit Mars.
Three Boston University professors joined scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to launch a satellite on Monday that will explore the atmosphere of the planet Mars. The satellite, Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, is a Mars scout mission funded by NASA that will orbit around the planet in order to study its atmosphere, said College of Arts and Sciences professor of astronomy John Clarke. The satellite will investigate erosion channels on Mars that indicate liquid water may have existed on the surface at some time. “The main scientific goal is to understand the history of the Martian atmosphere,” Clarke said. “We think that when Mars was young, there was a thicker atmosphere than there is today … If we can understand the details, maybe we can go back in time and determine what the conditions may have been like in the past.” Although many satellites have been
launched to Mars, MAVEN is unique in that it will explore the planet’s atmosphere rather than its surface, said Dwayne Brown, a spokesperson for NASA. “It’s the first mission dedicated to exploring the upper atmosphere of Mars,” Brown said “… To put it in simple terms, it’s going to try to find out the dramatic and catastrophic global climate change that happened to Mars, and we hope maybe this can help us understand what really happened to the planet.” The significance of the project, Brown said, is researchers at NASA believe the atmosphere of Mars was once very similar to Earth’s atmosphere. MAVEN will strive to discover the nature of the climate change that transformed Mars from a planet capable of supporting microorganism life into a barren desert world. “Mars was once, in many ways, just like Earth, and something catastrophic happened to Mars,” Brown said. “Could that same thing happen to Earth that happened to Mars? MAVEN will help us find out.”
Astronomy, see page 2