Page 2 Wednesday, November 18, 2009
News
Shaina Zucker & Courtney Roberts
News Editors ntdailynews@gmail.com
Students discuss importance of freedom BY MORGAN WALKER & JESSICA PAUL Staff Writer & Intern
The UNT student chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union held a discussion Tuesday in the University Union on the importance of privacy and freedom. T h e e v e n t , “ P r i v a c y, Government Surveillance and the Patriot Act,” kicked off with the introduction at 4 p.m. by student chapter chairman Stephen Benavides, a political science senior. “If the government has the ability to access your information then you’ll have limited pr ivac y,” Benav ides sa id. “Since the university’s public, the government’s going to have pretty in-depth abilities to access your information like purchases and Internet searches.” The Patriot Act was put into place in 2001 to deter and punish terrorist acts in the U.S. and around the world and to enhance law enforcement investigation tools, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Benavides said the discussion is meant to be informative and wants audience members to leave with the knowledge that their rights are essentially suspended. “This is setting the stage for
future legislation where the government has the ability to suspend constitutional rights,” Benavides said. “What are they going to do next?” Benavides introduced two speakers at the discussion including John Booth, a political science professor and author of the book, “Legitimacy Puzzle in Latin America: Political Support and Democracy in Eight Nations.” Booth, who teaches comparative politics, reflected on the importance of civil liberties and said he wanted to provide a comparative point of view from a society where these rights are not respected. “I’ve studied a lot of countries that weren’t democracies,” Booth said. “We live inside the United States and our framework is pretty good, and it makes us inattentive to how valuable it is.” Booth added that he thinks it is important for all citizens of the U.S. to be aware of the risk of losing of their civil liberties. “Anybody that’s involved in ACLU thinks that there’s a laundry list of problems in terms of restrictions on freedoms,” said Martin Smith, a student chapter member and a speech language pathology senior. J. Aaron Barnes, a political science senior, said he was
PHOTO BY CLINTON LYNCH / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Lee Henderson, a board member of the Texas ACLU and Chair of the Fort Worth chapter, speaks to Brian Hersey, a political science senior, after the end of a discussion on the Patriot Act on Tuesday in the University Union. with the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] courts for wire-tapping was more than sufficient. If the justification is the War on Terror, we’ve been being attacked by terrorists for decades and decades. It’s an excuse to grab more power.”
opposed to the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. “I think it was a terrible idea when they passed it the first time because it erodes our system of checks and balances and places too much power in the executive that can be easily
abused,” Barnes said. “The Obama administration hasn’t rolled back any of the conditions that the Bush administration put into place and has actually, in some cases, expanded them, like state secrecy.” Barnes said the system that
was in place before the Bush administration was much more effective. “Personally, I think they should roll back pretty much t he whole t hing,” Ba rnes said. “I mean, the system that we already had in place
“T hey ’re not look i ng at what you have. They’re telling you what they work with on a daily basis,” Edmun said. Edmun said she plans to follow up with the contacts she m ade at G e og r aph ic I n for mat ion Sy stem s Day in hopes to get a job in the future and do research on the
people knew about it.” Paul Hudak, the geography department chair, said the turnout for 2009 was good. He said he estimated about 500 people stopped by the event. Hudak also said Geographic Information Systems Day is good for the whole university. “It g ives us a cha nce to showcase our capabilities to the community and for the communit y to learn about GIS,” Hudak said. Wachal said visitors to the event voted on three finalists in the poster competition. The posters entered in the competition were of projects and research done by geography students. The subjects of the posters ranged from election redistricting to reducing driving t i me for f i ref ig hters i n a city. For more information on G e o g r a p h i c I n f or m a t i on Systems Day, go to w w w. gisday.com.
Mark Valentino, a Geographic Information System Coordinator for Freese and Nichols, Inc., shows geography graduate student Anjeev Nepali how field data is used for electric utility systems.
GIS Day gives students networking opportunities System provides visual aspect for global data BY K ELSEY K RUZICH Contributing Writer
U N T ho s t e d t he 2 2 nd annual North Central Texas G e o g r a p h i c I n f or m a t i on Systems Day and job fair on Tuesday in the Environmental Science Building. GIS Day i s a n i nter nat ion a l l y r e c o g n i z e d d a y sponsored by the Nationa l Geographic Society as part of G eog raph ic Aw a reness Week. Robert Wacha l, a G e o g r a p h i c I n f or m a t i on Systems ad m in ist rator for the city of Highland Village, said a system takes data and gives it a spatial aspect with a photo as opposed to only using numbers. “People use GIS ever y day and don’t realize it,” Wachal sa id. “T h is ma kes people aware of how it is used.”
The data is used in com mon dev ices l i ke GPS and cell phones. Students and Denton residents attending the event had the opportunity to network for internships and potential jobs and to win prizes. Wachal also said the event was an opportunity for local
“GIS is very technical, very enlightening and I wish more people knew about it.”
—LaPorsha Edmun Geography junior
area cities and businesses to demonstrate what they do. The companies can a lso advertise for job positions and internships that students may be interested in. LaPorsha Edmun, a geography junior, said she found the event informative. She sa id she enjoyed networking with the companies at the job fair.
software she learned about. E d mu n e x p l a i n e d t h e system as a combination of four different things: data, ha rdw a re, per son nel a nd sof t wa re t hat show where things are. “It’s not just maps. It’s not just coloring. It takes skills and knowledge,” Edmun said. “GIS is ver y technical, ver y enlightening, and I wish more
PHOTO BY KELSEY KRUZICH / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER