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APRIL 19, 2007
THURSDAY
VOLUME 96, ISSUE 78
Students choose Pugh, Dabney
Another chapter of ASG begins with announcement of newly elected leaders By Molly Berkenhoff The University Star
An ear splitting scream erupted in Lilly’s Lounge Wednesday with the announcement of next year’s Associated Student Government President and Vice President, Reagan Pugh and Alexis Dabney. “I’m pretty overwhelmed,” Pugh, said. “It’s a great feeling to have done something right and honestly from day one and to come out on top.” Pugh received 61.3 percent of the vote, and running mate Dabney received 60.6 percent. Opponent Chris Anderson and running mate Rebecca Quillin received 37.4 percent and 38.7 percent, respectively. The voter turnout doubled from last year’s election. The results of the election are not official until the completion of a 72-hour protest period. If no grievances are made during the time frame, Pugh and Dabney will be officially announced as next year’s ASG executive leadership at the next president’s meeting. Current ASG President Kyle Morris, and Vice President Amanda Oskey will continue to hold their positions until June 1. “This is pretty much the best experience of my life,” said political science junior Monty Marion/Star photo and re-elected ASG Sen. Eileen
CHANGING OF THE GUARD: Reagan Pugh, English junior (center), receives congratulations Wednesday from a crowd of supporters in the LBJ Student Center after the announcement he had won the ASG presidential seat.
See ELECTION, page 5
Official: Campaign e-mails violated university policy By Philip Hadley The University Star Two e-mails sent to students, faculty and staff Tuesday, one containing an attack ad on Associated Student Government President-elect Reagan Pugh, were determined to be unsolicited and in violation of university policy. The attack ad came from a group calling themselves Students for Truth. The other email was from Pugh’s opponent Chris Anderson outlining his campaign platform. The e-mails were deleted from recipients’ inboxes by Texas State Information Technology after the department classified them as spam. The grounds for deletion were specified by the appropriate use of information resources policy. C. Van Wyatt, vice president
for Information Technology, said the department became aware of the unsolicited e-mails from student complaints. “The e-mail slipped under the radar — it was clear it qualified as spam,” Wyatt said. “We tracked down the e-mails and did not recognize the organization. We quickly deleted the email from the mail system and blocked future e-mails from the same address.” Wyatt said the e-mails violated three stipulations of the policy. “First and foremost, the emails were unsolicited,” Wyatt said. “Second, it was sent for a political purpose, and it was sent anonymously. All of these things constitute inappropriate use of information resources. When you log on to university mail, it clearly states that sending unsolicited mail is forbidden.” Wyatt said it is not the first
time unsolicited e-mail has been deleted from recipients’ inboxes. “Frequently when we spot spam, if part of the message has passed through our filters we will go out into the servers and any un-opened spam that’s still there we will retrieve and delete just as if it wasn’t delivered,” Wyatt said. “If the spam gets through and it winds up in an inbox and gets opened then our practice is not to delete it.” Wyatt said the policy does not stipulate that Information Technology can delete unopened emails. “The policy only tells you what’s permissible, how we handle cases is our discretion,” Wyatt said. “Each situation drives a little different set of circumstances.” Anderson said he disagreed with the university’s actions.
“I would have to review the policy more carefully, but I don’t think the e-mail should be considered spam,” Anderson said. “I disagree with the action taken by Information Technology.” The policy states the university e-mail system is subject to review and users should not expect privacy from disclosure in any messages. It says the system cannot be used for personal financial gain, commercial purposes and the transmission of spam mail, chain letters, personal advertisements, solicitations or promotions. It cannot be used to affect the result of a local, state or national election, or any other political purpose. Wyatt said gathering student e-mail addresses with a net ID would be difficult. “The simplest way would be to have 10 people sit down and write down a mass number of
e-mails. The other way it’s done is through worms sent through spam,” Wyatt said. He said Information Technology documented between four and six thousand messages that slipped through the filter on Tuesday. He said the main purpose of deleting spam is to protect users computers from malicious programs often transmitted through the messages. Election Commissioner Ryan Galloway said he planned to wait 72 hours to gather protests and determine if the e-mail had an influence on the outcome of the election. “(The commission) will meet formally on Monday to determine the significance of the e-mail; however, I don’t see it having much significance considering the 940 vote difference between candidates,” Galloway said.
University developing video surveillance system By Patrick Ygnacio The University Star A campus-wide surveillance system that would provide the University Police Department with unlimited access to video taken at specific campus locations is currently in development. Officials involved in implementing this surveillance system are emphasizing it as a documentation tool and not as a health and safety mechanism. “The only way you can use a camera for health and safety is if you have a human all the time, 24 hours watching, and it’s not something we can do,” said UPD investigator Jeb Thomas. “We don’t have enough people and even if we did — if you sat somebody down and gave them a wall of cameras to watch, is he going to be watching the right
one at the right time?” Last fall, existing security cameras at San Jacinto Hall were utilized in apprehending two students charged with burglarizing a residence. Texas State currently has cameras deployed at strategic locations in one parking garage and some residence halls. Thomas said those cameras are operated on an individual basis within their respective departments and not by university police. Because the operation of each camera is not entirely regulated by UPD, Thomas said there are instances when they are not utilized efficiently. He said the proposed system would expand on existing surveillance and would be a centralized network maintained by UPD. “What we’re trying to do with this initiative is bring it all un-
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der one umbrella, that way we have a set thing,” Thomas said. “We know they’re being recorded, we know how they’re being recorded (and) we can have access to them.” Rick Bishop, director of network operations, said his department has been working closely with UPD in finding the appropriate vendor to implement the expanded camera system. He said a pilot system utilizing 75 cameras across campus will be initiated to help identify where other surveillance would be necessary once the network is fully established. “What we’re trying to do is get a cross-section of where we need them,” Bishop said. Future surveillance would be an Internet protocol system that would use the university’s current communications network to consolidate the cameras into
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a manageable structure. Kyle Morris, Associated Student Government president, has been monitoring the development of the camera surveillance network and said he is confident the system would not invade the privacy of students while documenting activity on campus. “We don’t want this to turn into a Big Brother issue, but we’re confident the university administration will be able to manage that particular concern,” Morris said. “And from what I can tell from discussing the issue with them, it looks like a totally reasonable proposal that you would have surveillance at dorm entry points and also in the parking garages, particularly in the parking garages where you have a higher rate of crime.” With the recent shooting
at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va., Thomas said there comes a need to reevaluate the security measures at every school campus. “Every university, I think, is going to have to look at that,” Thomas said. “Just like Columbine had most school districts reevaluating how they did things and looking at what they could update, it’s going to be the same thing with this shooting.” Though cameras will offer a valuable resource to police, Thomas said the Texas State community carries an important responsibility to be vigilant in identifying suspicious activity on campus and reporting it to authorities. “Usually, the citizens are the ones that have the most knowledge about who should be in an area or (whether an activity is) normal,” Thomas said.
City council proposes river ordinance By Zach Halfin The University Star
The San Marcos City Council is one step closer to passing an ordinance which will restrict shuttle services that are granted legal access to city parks. The ordinance, aimed at controlling the number people using the San Marcos River, would establish a fee-based franchise system for businesses offering shuttle services for tubers. The city council passed the second reading Tuesday. City officials expect the volume of recreational traffic on and around the river and at Rio Vista Falls to increase as tourism in San Marcos grows in popularity. The annual franchise fees, ranging in price from $250 to $2,000, will go into a city fund that will be used only for projects directly associated with the river. The ordinance limits the number of franchises granted to the five known river-shuttle services that currently exist, and requires all companies to be insured and use preplanned routes. Andy Quittner, city attorney, said controlling access to streets is the only legal action the city can take to reduce the possibility of overuse of the river. “It is a matter of what we can and can’t do,” Quittner said. “We don’t have the right to tell See COUNCIL, page 5
Pleasant Street Garage facelift begins in July By Scott Thomas The University Star The Faculty Senate was updated on several ongoing construction projects Wednesday. Nancy Nusbaum, assistant vice president for finance and support services planning, expanded on what she wrote in an e-mail sent to all faculty, staff and students April 10. Nusbaum told the Faculty Senate the top two floors of the Pleasant Street Parking Garage will be closed for six months starting in July. The reason for the closure is to build a new bus loop on campus near the parking garage. However, walkways allowing students to bypass construction will not be built because of the cost. “We’re looking at what we can build with today’s prices,” Nusbaum said. She said the university is renovating a nursing building on the Round Rock campus. Nusbaum visited other campuses with similar renovations, including the University of Maryland, which she described as the premiere school for nursing. “We’re looking at (building) five simulation labs, with lots of equipment, and lots of filming going on,” Nusbaum said. “That’s an expensive program.” The political science and sociology programs will be expanded, Nusbaum said, as well as a new writing center and multicultural program. The Faculty Senate passed a vote officially supporting a proposal by Gene Bourgeois,
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