Sports
Read through some of the sports new that happened during break.
Issue no.
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Volume 23
First Issue
FREE
January 18, 2011
Privacy advocates, Boise State expert say no thanks to federal government ID
Culture {STUDENT
VOICES}
Andrew Ford News Editor
Do you support a national online ID?
“If implemented right, it’d be a good thing. But there’s always a downside.” Nicolaus Foy, junior, criminal justice, 20, Boise
You know you want to meet this guy. Trust us, you want to meet him. page
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on
ARBITERONLINE.COM
Opinion Editor
letters@stumedia.boisestate.edu
Opinion Producer
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January 18, 2011 watched. Like they’re “It feels like you’re being taking care of what your doing, trying to see what you’re trying to access through the internet.” Adriana Ortivez, junior, bi-lingual EducaQuota systems perpetuate tion, 29, Caldwellrac-
Opinion
jessicaswider@stumedia.boisestate.edu
irmative Action
y programs rstanding
Megan Bronder
Copy Editor the on and y groups tive action e direction
011. We no arate drink, submisthe era black being Os, and of womrnment such as Speake and Secretary of State. sed on race, nationality or ffirmative action has brought ality and empowerment. ncourages people to attempt minority job applicant who majority competitor would or job. Without that hope, it o continued failures and fuinorities can try things with eiling. s with equality. access to the same quality of ction,” Long said. would rule our society. Men ny field and it allows the miy the majority is offered. It African American kid from blonde from Orange County breaks barriers and instead,
few minorities the resources to move from a place of inopportunity to one of greater possibility. It’s also apparent that not everyone who falls into this category benefits from affirmative action. Only those who apply can reap the benefits; those without knowledge or access are left living in poverty. There’s the issue of racism. Affirmative action is in place to eliminate discrimination, yet the hypocrisy of the policy is obvious. People of minorities shouldn’t be chosen over equally qualified white people simply because of their race or sex to meet a quota. Junior Andrew Hildebrand, a communication major with a certificate in Public Relations thinks affirmative action promotes discrimination. “To me it doesn’t seem right, if a black person and a white p e r s o n apply to
“I don’t think that will make it more secure. Identity theft and things like that will be far easier, having it all electronic and on the computer.” Jacy Skeen, communications and public relations, 24, Evanston, Wyo.
Christine ritChie
Affirmative Action
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Affirmative Journalist action has been a subject of great controversy since 1972. However, regardless of the stances people take, it’s clear there are deeper and more pressing problems that must be addressed. This policy has been enforced for too long, and it’s evident that it’s not the proper solution to our nation’s inequality problems. Inequality stems not from current outright racism, but from the poor socioeconomic situations in which many minorities find themselves. It is the desolate poverty that contributes to the lack of equal representation of minorities in the workplace or universities. Affirmative action fails to “fix” these problems because it cannot change the living conditions of the poor. It simply gives a few minorities the resources to move from a place of inopportunity to one of greater possibility. It’s also apparent that not everyone who falls into this category benefits from affirmative action. Only those who apply can reap the benefits; those without knowledge or access are left living in poverty. There’s the issue of racism. Affirmative action is in place to eliminate discrimination, yet the hypocrisy of the policy is obvious. People of minorities shouldn’t be chosen over equally qualified white people simply because of their race or sex to meet a quota. Junior Andrew Hildebrand, a communication major with a certificate in Public Relations thinks affirmative action promotes discrimination. “To me it doesn’t seem right, if a black person and a white person apply to the same school, and they have the exact same GPA and the same credentials,” Hildebrand said, “I don’t feel that it is right that the black person would get in just because of the color of skin.” Minorities may not be properly represented, but that does not mean that racism should be the tool used to fix the disparity. “They want racism to be extinct, well in certain ways this is promoting racism,” Hildebrand added. Christopher Larson, a junior communication, accountancy and finance triple major also disagrees with affirmative action. “(It is) an unfair, unjustifiable, and racist product of the far-left liberals,” Larson said. “Brought about by their gross misuse of political and so- cial rhetoric in an attempt to rally up the public’s sentiments for their causes.” Financial aid and job opportunities have been offered to those of minorities because of the Secretary of Labor’s Order No. 4, which called for “proportional representation.” But hard work, given available resources, should take a greater role in determining the recipients of jobs or scholarships. Accepting benefits simply because of minority status diminishes the reward, and eliminates the drive to work hard. The fact is that affirmative action is a poor, unjust attempt to rectify the oppression of minorities in the past through preferential treatment. Think of the lesson this teaches people. Because of wrongs made in the past, people today believe life should be handed to them. In reality, life isn’t so easy. And until the nation finds a less racist way to overcome the gap between economic classes, it never will be so simple.
Is affirmative action Definition no longer necessary? Employment Check out The proArbigrams required by federal statutes and regulations ter’s debate! designed to remedy dis-
norities who had not attained es,” Long adds. “It was about admitting those other than
page
“I think it’d be convenient to be able to access everything from the same account, but at the same time we’d be giving up a lot of privacy.” Nick Hottinger, freshman, mechanical engineering, 18, Boise
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criminatory practices in hiring minority group members; i.e., positive steps designed to eliminate existing and continuing discrimination, to remedy lingering effects of past discrimination, and to create systems and procedures to prevent future discrimination; commonly based on population percentages of minority groups in a particular area. Factors considered are race, Editor-in-Chief color, sex, creed, and age.
“It’d be like big brother watching: know exactly what you’re doing and what’s going on. It makes me nervous.” Jose Loya, junior, graphic design, 24, Hayburn
CWI transfer students ‘a good problem to have’ Transfer students have to meet the same requirements to be accepted into the Teacher Education program. Students must have a cumulative GPA of at least 2.5 and an education GPA of at least 2.75. “We’ll take them (transfer students) on. Training teachers is a priority.” He said there are high need areas such as math and science teaching, special education and bi-lingual education. The registrar makes accommodations so transfer students are not last to enroll. Transfer students receive an enrollment date o on their class standing, not how long based they have been attending Boise State. Now the program begins to develop a
Bob Beers
larger staff to teach more students “Maybe we teach classes with a larger student enrollment than we think is ideal,” Coll suggested as a way to handle to additional students. Ideally the growth of the students in the Teacher Education program would be matched by the growth of the staff. There are about 65 faculty members in the COE. He said the COE likes to “have everyone dip their toes into the Teacher Ed. program,” which is the largest in the college. Coll said having the increased number of transfer students is a good problem to have. “We’re not having decreasing enrollment. We’re viable and desirable.”
Students enrolled in the Teacher EducaAsian/Pacific Islander tion program at Boise State may notice a little less wiggle room when in class. The Caucasian program finds its growth in enrollment accelerated by new transfer students from the African American College of Western Idaho (CWI). About 50 students will transfer to the program in 2011 from CWI, according to Hispanic the College of Education’s (COE) Associate Dean Kenneth Coll. The program is accusNative American tomed to receiving transfer students, but the figure used to be around 20 students who came primarily from the College ofOther Southern Idaho. Many students who began when CWI first opened in 2008 are now ready to d eSign e diTorial S Taff make the jump up to Boise State. b uSineSS g M inP T n To Andrew grow,FordtheJ program will need to Brad Arendt Bree Jones e Christine Ritchie, Daniel P creaseMitch Glenn Rummler itsEsplin income Priddy,too Edina Macic, Eva Brendan Healy Hart, Gabbi Brandini, b /a M S According Coll,Iacoboni, the faculty in theSummers COE Matthew Jana Trent Lootens toGabriel e Hoffman, Jessica CopeP Joey McCullough will have to get land, creative how they usedand Joe Sook,in Justin M o Dalme, Lance Moore, Jennifer Orr resources Haley Robinsoncurrent e administrate Lauren Hooker, Marshell to accommoo nline P Jessica Swider Nikki Hanson, b date the growth.Martinez, Sam Royce, Sherika Maro C C Shae Hanah tinez, Stephanie Sheibe, Iko Vannoy Rebecca De León e The growing Tony transfer population Madonna, student Tony P Glenn Landberg C M e Wyatt Martin C also e means an Rogers, increase in the aJames amount of Megan Lloyd Orr Megan Bronder Jennifer Orr Edentuition Enberg dollars flowing into theMiguel university, o S e Varela Laura Rogers Britney Johnson Nicole Bell which Tcould be a potential source of income o C onTaCT T he a rbiTer Distributed Mondays & Thursdays during the academic school year. The Arbiter Thethe Arbiter COE. cannot verify the accuracy of statements made 500 word limit) for is the official independent student newspaper of Boise State University and a in guest submissions. Opinions expressed by guest and staff e Editor (300 designated forum, where student editors make all content decisions and columnists reflect the they’re diversity of opinion in the academic comColl said trying to get morepublic tuition bear responsibility for those decisions. The Arbiter’s budget consists of fees munity and often will be controversial, but they do not represent be e-mailed to paid by the student body and advertising sales. The first copy is free. Additional the institutional opinion of The Arbiter or any organization the nline.com money toaffiliated filter into theasprogram. copies can be purchased for $1 apiece at The Arbiter offices. author may be with unless it is labeled such. “We’re not trying to be greedy, but if we’re arbiteronline.com going to grow, we need to expand our resources.” glenn landberg/THE ARBITER Coll estimates 30 percent of the tuition University nixes parking-permit free spots on Belmont Street provided by students enrolled in the Teacher Education program finds its way back to the COE. The University began requiring general parking permits for vehicles parked on BelAnother option to bolster the budget, mont Street between Lincoln and Michigan avenues and on Michigan Avenue bethough less desirable, is to increase student tween Belmont and Beacon streets. Boise State University assumed control of these fees. Coll said increasing fees is a sensative streets after the Ada County Highway District vacated the streets at the university’s issue. request. “We’re looking at those sorts of things just Contact the Boise State Transportation Department for additional information to keep our heads above water.” about parking permits, regulations and all transportation options at (208) 426-7275 The university treats transfer students or on the Web at transportation.boisestate.edu. like, well, regular students
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Go to page 9, to read resident movie critic Tony Rogers’ Oscar predictions!
The federal government plans to swoop in and save users from remembering multiple accounts and passwords, but not everyone is seeing the benefits of the program. The plan, “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace” (NSTIC) was announced Jan. 7 at the Stanford Institute and would create one online login individuals could use to access websites where trust is pretty important, including buying stuff online, accessing health care records, writing e-mails and sifting through online accounts. Though page one of the draft notes the importance of anonymity for instances such as blogging, page four of the very same document promotes the use of the same, government-facilitated ID for, well, anonymous blog entries. Anonymous to everyone other than the Department of Commerce? Hmm. So far privacy advocates have given the idea a big thumbs down. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a statement on the NSTIC, saying there could potentially be some benefits, but there were too many possibilities for it to go wrong to support it. “Centralizing access to personal information only makes it easier for the bad guys because it means they only need to steal one key to unlock a vast wealth of financial and personal information.” Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that specializes in digital privacy, said the initiative poses a threat to free speech and privacy in an interview with Fox News. “The more you have to authenticate yourself on the Internet, especially when it’s really not important, the more information about you that’s available to law enforcement or government or anyone else,” he said. At Boise State, students have the benefit of using one username and password for everything. BroncoWeb, Google Apps and Blackboard accounts are kept in sync despite being administrated by different companies. Mike Rudyi, a technical support specialist for the Office of Information Technology at Boise State said using a unified login makes sense, “to a point.” Rudyi said because “pretty much everything” makes you use a user name and password, he sees how having one would make it much easier to remember that login. “The downside of that, is if somebody gets that one, they have access to everything they could possibility get to. That’s why they always suggest to not use the same (login) for each thing you use.” Most companies today use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption to send passwords and secure information across the Internet. According to Verisign, a hacker using “brute force” would require “a trillion years” to break into a SSL encryption certificate using standard 128 bit security. Most passwords aren’t broken hacker-in-a-B-grade movie style, but instead are stolen through “human engineering” or just breaking through a password by asking for it or finding the information necessary to reset it. Rudyi said when Sarah Palin had her e-mail address hacked in 2008, it wasn’t that the technology was breached, her password just got reset. David Kernell, an at the time 20-year-old college student searched for the answers to Palin’s secret question online. (Advice: Don’t go resetting President Kustra’s e-mail password. Kernell was convicted of a felony and a midameanor, then sentenced to a year in federal custody followed by three years of supervised release.)
The Arbiter is combing through campus for bad-a writers for Spring You’ve blogged about your epic trip to Yosemite. You video-taped your little brother’s first tee-ball strike out (then journaled about the immense pressure he must have felt.) Now, it’s time to write for the award-winning, student-run university newspaper, The Arbiter. Perks: - Have eye balls from all over the world see your work - Learn this whole journalism meets web thing - Earn credit for your articles Hard work: - Talking to strangers, then gaining their trust and getting rock-solid information and excellent quotes - Slicing all your hard work into one story that students can understand If you think it might be for you and are prepared to take 2-3 credits and work your butt off, write an e-mail to News@ArbiterOnline. com with: 1. Your name, age, major 2. Phone Number 3. Two (yes, just two!) writing samples 4. Why you think, or don’t think, newspapers matter (200 word max.) If we think you’ve got the stuff, we’ll be in contact real soon.
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