The you you didn't know Confessions of By JOE GRIMM 4TUDENTS at large universities some- times complain that their identities are reduced to plastic cards and identi- fication numbers. For those students and most other people, the problem is worse. Identities can be stolen. For several weeks I assumed ano- ther .student's identity at the University of Michigan. To many people, I became that student. During those weeks I checked out library books, borrowed sports equipment and acquired identifi- cation under Mark's name. My assumed identity began when I ap- plied for a replacement meal ticket in Mark's dorm. First I told the girl at the dorm's desk that I was Mark and asked if anyone had returned my "lost" meal ticket. She checked and saw that no one had turn- ed in the ticket and asked me if I wanted to buy a duplicate. I TOLD HER I needed one and gave her a five dollar bill and Mark's room number. Five minutes later I had a meal ticket with Mark's name and my pic- ture on it. With the meal ticket I could eat thir- teen meals a week in the dorm, with- out paying. Books and records from the dorm's library, keys to music rooms, the dark room and computer room as well as gaming equipment may be exchanged for a meal ticket. If I decided to keep any of the equip- ment, Mark would be held responsible until he could show that the meal ticket really wasn't his. Then Mark would be off the hook and the dorm would have to absorb the loss, passing the cost on to residents. Meal tickets can also be exchanged for duplicate room keys. Two weeks after getting the meal ticket, I went back to the desk and said that I had locked my- self out of "my" room. I exchanged the meal ticket for a key to Mark's room. I COULD HAVE stolen anything I wanted from Mark's room. The stereo, money, credit cards, checks, typewriters or the refrigerator, anything I wanted. After visiting Mark's room I had to re- turn the key to the desk and retrieve the meal card. Meal cards can also be used to get student identification cards. To get a replacement ID card, students must give their name, student number, phone num- ber, address, date and place of birth, five dollars and occassionally, a second piece of ID. Names, addresses and phone numbers are in student directories, student num- bers in desk directories in dorms. Birth dates and places are more difficult, but not impossible to get. Obtaining another person's ID card doesn't always require elaborate schem- es. Between August 5 and November 6 of 1974, 940 students reported that them' ID cards had been lost or stolen. The registrar's office reports that between 1600 and 2000 cards have been replaced every year for the last. three years. THE YELLOW plastic cards are used at registration, to record information at transactions, for identification and are held in security for borrowed items. The IDs aren't meant to be used in all of these ways, but they are anyway. I obtained a replacement ID card with Mark's name on it for five dollars and used it in many of these ways. The ID card let me check out books from the graduate library, the under- graduate library and the undergraduate library's reserve reading desk. The ID card will also work at other libraries around the campus, including the Flint and Dearborn campuses. A person who wants to can conceiv- ably check out thousands of dollars worth of books - permanently. Attempts to retrieve the books would lead to an innocent and uninvolved student. Libraries aren't the only places that require ID cards before they will let people borrow things. The intramural building and the computing center are "I told her I needed a nteal ticket and gave her a five dollar bill and Mark's room number. Five min- utes later I had the ticket with Mark's name and my picture on it." aniD two more places where IDs are in security for borrowed equipmen AT TIMES, student ID cards are for identification. With a student card, anyone can use intramural f ties and get parking stickers or ti to sports events and performance student rates. On occasion, people have used stolen or falsified IDs to collect pa and financial aid checks. However,' ris D. Olson, associate registrar "We haven't had too many problem side the University." Olson said more problems occur side the university, referring to rip-offs at banks and businesses that cept the IDs as identification. My intention was not to defraud University, students or local merche I was trying to find out what flawst in current university identification tems. I HAD THE means and the oppor ities to steal, but I did not. All I la( was a motive. "We have a terrible incidence oft on this campus," said Fred Davids, rector of the University's safety del ment. "We lose over a quarter of a lion dollars every year that we know Apparently someone does have a tive to steal. Whether some of 1 people are taking advantage of flaw the identification system is any guess. Precautions can be taken alone e, step of the way to make sure that cards and meal tickets won't be used honestly. In many cases, if Univej personnel would ask for a driver's ense or similar piece of pnoto ide cation, the fraud could be prevente In cases of student ID applica without proof of identity, Fred Da suggests that applicants be require answer one or two "key" questions. questions now asked are date and p of birth. MORE RELIABLE questions wou. the mother's nationality or maiden n These facts can't be found it i m sources, usually don't change and remembered by students. Even if he problem of fraudulentl taining IDs is solved, IDs will stil lost and stolen. Under the present hustler "We have a terrible in- campus," Fred Davids said. 'We lose over a quar- ter of a million dollars every year that we know of." tem, there is no way to tell if a persor. who presents an ID card is actually the person named on the card. Davids advocates a university wide system of photo IDs. Harris Olson says that such a system isn't really neces- sary enough to justify the costs it would demand. Picture IDs, could assure that the person who holds the card is the per- son named on the card. Picture IDs are already used by university plant person- nel, the Dentistry School, the School of Architecture and Design and University Hospital. THESE PHOTO IDs also seem to be much more tamper-proof than the cur- rent IDs. Even after cutting the card in half, I found it impossible to remove the picture or cover it with another. Even if I had been able to do that, I still would have had to reseal the card some- how. Photo IDs also have their disadvant- ages. For one thing,bpeople change. A person can grow a beard, start wear- ing glasses, let their hair grow and change their looks completely in just a few years. Photo IDs would have to be renewed every few years, like Michi- gan driver's licenses. The cost of changnig to a new system of student identification Fhould also be considered. Changeover costs are in the tens of thousands of dollars. To make new IDs effective, there would also have to be a program to teach university per- sonnel how to work with the new system. Whether an entirely new student ID system is needed or not, it is clear that many deficiencies exist in the pre- sent system.,These pratfalls are correct- able, but corections won't come easy. Joe Grmnm is a junior journalism ma- jor. 111K MILWAUKEE JOURNAL FTiM Nrxspagr Syadiaate,t97I Fighting communism sure pays off a lot better than fighting stagfla tion!' Eighty-four years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Friday, February 8, 1975 News Phone: 764-0552 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48104 Crime pays, ask plumbers THE FUNDAMENTAL economic law of supply and demand still holds true, and as such, John Dean, Jeb Magruder, Ronald Ziegler,and all their friends who participated in "that third-rate burglary attempt" in Washington should have no trouble feeding their families for many months to come. All of which is readily under- standable. For many Americans, Watergate is far from a dead letter yet; they just don't believe that all the facts came out. at the trial or in the papers. (Ironic isn't it that Nix- on's phlebitis made it impossible for him to testify at the trial, but now that it's over he's available for the lecture circuit as a -Republican spokesman? The operative wisdom is simple; perhaps one of the formerly high and mighty will choose to finally tell the whole story. And given the bore- dom and tedium of the lecture cir- cuit, it's conceivable, if { not likely, that one night in someplace bleak like TODAY'S STAFF: News: Barbara Cornell, Dinah K o 1- srud, Sara Rimer, Stuart Sherr, Jeff Sorenson, Kate Spelman Editorial Page: Peter Blaisdell, A I a n Gitles, Paul Haskins, Debra H u r- witz, Stephen Selbst. Photo Technician: Pauline Lubens Omaha, Jeb Magruder might tarry too long at the bar or indulge in some Ibogaine, approach the po- dium completely wasted, and inone terrible blunder, let slip the awful truth. C IVEN THIS DEEP desire to hear all the dirt once and for all, many of these men could conceivably make more money giving speeches at $1,000-2,000 per night than they've ever made at any other profession in their lives. Ziegler, for example was a tour guide at Disneyland before he got on the Nixon Administration gravy train. That's absurd and wrong. As a group these men must be among the most successful ex-cons ever. But there's no reason in the world why they should profit by their associa- tion with the most pervasive attempt to undermine the government in the nation's history. No argument can justify these men enriching themselves because they happened to be in the employ of Richard Nixon at the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) time. If there was any true jus- tice, none of these men should be allowed to make a single penny from this. Instead they should be required to donate all honorariums received tto a foundation whose purpose is to protect basic civil liberties. -STEPHEN SELBST What's good for GM and other myths <. - ;i. . . <<. , , 0' .jn . By MARK SULLIVAN WHIP INFLATION NOW - Buy A Car, as often as we hear these exhortations we fail to realize how they contradict each other. Are we supposed to tighten our belts and empty our pockets at the same time? As senseless as the WIN, bullet-biting, belt- tightening syndrome seems, it no where near matches the short-sighted selfishness of the Buy-A-Car men- tality perpetrated by a corporation that is sensitive neither to its consumer or employee needs. WIN started out on the valid premise that a de- crease in money flow accomplished through decreased spending by private citizens would help stall the in- flationary spiral. Through an appeal to the public con- science, President Ford attempted to get the Ameri- can public to put any extra money into savings rather than in circulation through purchase of non-essential products. Now, the American automotive industry is trying to get as many people as possible to buy cars that they don't need. Beyond the obvious negative en- vironmental implications of buying cars, we are being prodded into supporting a corporate empire that doesn't deserve our support. THIS IS NOT to say that the thousands of unem- ployed in Detroit should be ignored. The automotive companies have a throttlehold on Michigan, the power of which is difficult to imagine. Only after speaking to a business man in Flint did it became apparent how awesome the economic power of the auto companies was. Michigan's and America's economy has become essentially indistinguishable from the economic well- being of the car industry. As such, it has become im- possible to challenge Ford and GM without affecting millions of people. One out of every six Americans is connected in some way with the automotive indus- try. Therein lies the power of the auto makers. HOWEVER, the maxim "What's good for GM is good for the country" is only partially true. The pub- lic's economic well-being is so inextricably linked with the auto makers" that the latter has a ready-made base of support for most policy initiatives. We are told that we should Buy-A-Car and thereby help the unfortunate many that the auto industry holds in its hands. If we can assume that the object of the Buy-A-Car campaign is to restore the former order of production and practices, can we also assume that this is a valid goal to strive for? Perhaps an examination of the auto companies' past history of social responsibility will help us in our decision. IN THE SHOP, there are basically two divisions of workers, first, the younger, or line workers who are involved directly with the production of the automo- bile, and secondly, the older, maintenance and super- visory personnel. For the people involved-in produc- tion, there is often a production quota set such that an employees must produce a given number of parts per day in order to remain in good standing. What usually happens however, is that someone will work quickly 3 hours of the day and drink coffee the rest. The more senior personnel, who supervise equipment and personnel, also generally work only a few hours a day and then read or drink coffee the rest of the day. The terrible pity of the whole situation is thatthese people are wasting away -needlessly. If production personnel weren't so isolated from the product they produce, if they could claim, that such and such a pro- duct was theirs, they could identify with their work and develop pride for what they do. Work could then perhaps become more than $6.50/hr. The state of the supervisory personnel is even more tragic. "There are people, often highly skilled crafts- men,are reduced to doing nothing because society cannot find a way to allow them to work for their pay. So instead they languish in the shops collecting seniority and pay, hopefully finding other outlets for their creativity. SOME ARE NOT so lucky, however. The frustration and boredom becomes too much to take, resulting in an incredible rate of alcoholism. Tension shows itself in bizzare ways also. For instance, after being sent home one day by his foreman, a line worker returned that same day with a shotgun and shot the foreman. The usual justification for such conditions in the shops is the quick, cheap, and efficient production of cars. But as we all know, cars are not so cheap nor so well made. The best example of this is the small car fiasco. Until the energy crisis forced the auto makers to face the economic realities of the small car market, they were extremely reluctant to make the move to small cars. The reason, of course, was that the profit margin was smaller. While materials costs are lower for the smaller cars, the labor costs are al- most identical as those for the bigger cars. (It wasn't surprising that some of the largest cars driven in Eu- rope are on the order of the Mercedes-Benz, whereas here it is considered a major move down from the "big" cars to the new Mercedes-size Granada). After the auto makers had acceded to the public's demand for smaller cars, they tried to restore a big car profit levels by adding extras to the standard car that were options thereby raising the price. Recently, the auto companies have found that the public refuses to pay $4000 for the car that cost only $2000 a few years ago. The people used the only wea- ,on that they have against the car companies, their buying power, to affect company policy. The compa- nies are now asking us to buy the cars we refused to buy earlier, using the much heralded rebates as a lure. We have paid dearly for our actions, however, with layoffs that probably wouldn't have been as severe had the small car prices been lower in the first place. ACTUALLY, the people do have another avenue through which to affect car companies, however in- direct and ineffective it might seem, that is, legislation. Nevertheless, it seems here also the economic powers of the companies often is at least partially victorious. etaoin shrdlu cmfwyp vbgkqj etaoin cmfwy etaoin ea, The long delayed appearance of the catalytic convert- er is a good example. The auto companies got a delay in the emissions requirements deadline so that they could develop and retool their lines for a more efficient emissions control than the catalytic converter. And what did. we end up with? The 1977 deadlines are now looming over the car companies and, as could be ex- pected, they are asking for a five year extension. It seems that the most powerful weapon in the ar- senal of the car industry is its huge economic base. Any serious drop in sales can very easily cause a local if not nationwide depression, as we can well see. Not that the car companies are consciously punishing us, but they have been building upon a narrow range of American vices for so long that they have strayed with their marketing far from the basic reason that people need a car, transportation. Until recently, it didn't seem that anything could penetrate the economic-monopolistic shield of the au- tomotive companies except hard won legislation. The economic weapon of refusing to buy is only currently seeing results. Earlier, the car market was so large that the car industry could force any number of poli- cies that we didn't like upon the buying public. But now, they are promising fewer models, fewer changes from year to year, and a smaller parts inventory that should lead to greater accessability. Don't think that the battle is over however. The companies are still bet- ting that American habits will sustain their efforts to foist impractical, ecologically unsound cars upon us. A recent statement by a GM spokesman illustrates this point well, "Hopefully, in the near future we'll have a 2000 lb. car with an engine big enough to carry an air conditioner." Is this social responsibility in a year of energy conservation? Let us have empathy with those out of work, but let us also seize our new found eco- nomic power over a corporate empire that has been insensitive to the needs of the consumer for too long. , V.77 . I ?g'oTECrnjC )TgNtpgzps Mark Sullivan is an Editorial Page staff writer. T hI Tho ffilV ARECTI&A I I I