4A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, September 12, 2005 OPINION UT*£rka ~1 JASON Z. PESICK Editor in Chief SUHAEL MOMIN SAM SINGER Editorial Page Editors ALISON GO Managing Editor EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com NOTABLE QUOTABLE ''They couldn't conceive of the notion that (inner-city resi- dents) couldn't load up their SUV's, put $100 worth of gas in there, put some sparkling water and drive off to a hotel and check in with a credit card." -Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) criticizing the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, on ABC's "This Week" this Sunday. 01 MICHELLE BIEN Imagined terrorists ELLIOTT MALLEN IRRA1IONAL EXUBERANCE T he Federal Bureau of Inves- tigation was recently caught with its proverbial pants* down after the Ameri- can Civil Liberties Union received docu- mentation of a meet- ing entitled "Domestic Terrorism Sympo- sium," in which the FBI, U.S. Secret Service, Michigan State Police and Michigan State University Public Safety sat down together at a Holiday Inn Express in Belleville to discuss the terrorist threat posed by such allegedly violent East Lansing ne'er- do-wells as the pro-affirmative action group BA MN, the anti-war Direct Action and, per- haps the most threatening of the lot, the East Lansing Animal Rights Movement. Not surprisingly, many students are dismayed to find that the terrorist label has become broad enough in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to apply to both Hamas and a handful of students who get miffed when Maybelline gets smeared in the eyes of rabbits. The FBI maintains that students have nothing to fear, with FBI senior resident agent Richard Licht assuring us that illegal sur- veillance is not an FBI tactic and that "there is a lot of misconception about what we do out there." However, when it comes to investigating student groups, the bureau's less-than-perfect track record shows that it lost any claim to the benefit of the doubt a long time ago. It's always clich6 to compare anything to the 1960s, but in this case, the parallels are clear. The FBI launched the Counter Intelligence Pro- gram (COINTELPRO) in 1956 to investigate (and subsequently destroy) the Communist Party USA, but soon set its sights on the much more formidable growing student movement. Accord- ing to internal FBI documents, COINTELPRO's explicit purpose was "to expose, disrupt and otherwise neutralize the activities of this group (the New Left) and persons connected with it. It is hoped that with this new program their vio- lent and illegal activities may be reduced if not curtailed." This kickoff document recommended the authorization "to immediately initiate a coor- dinated Counter-Intelligence Program directed at exposing, disrupting, and otherwise neutral- izing the New Left and Key Activists," all in the name of ensuring domestic peace and quiet while maintaining racial segregation in the South and a disastrous war in Vietnam. This was accom- plished through menacingly-titled programs such as Project MERRIMAC, Project RESISTANCE and Operation CHAOS. In Operation CHAOS alone, the CIA illegally spied on its on citizens in order to compile 3,500 "domestic security" memos and 3,000 "action items" that it sent to the FBI. COINTELPRO's efforts hit uncomfort- ably close to home when former Michigan Daily editor and Students for a Democratic Society co- founder Tom Hayden was specifically targeted as a "key activist" in one internal memo that out- lined the various options that could be used to smear his name and "neutralize" the threat he posed to domestic security. While the FBI's current scrutiny of MSU stu- dent groups clearly isn't as draconian as actions taken under COINTELPRO, that doesn't mean that there isn't cause for concern. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, it's worth pointing out that COINTELPRO's existence wasn't even made public until a group called the Citizens' Committee to Investigate the FBI broke into bureau offices and released stolen documents to the press. On the other hand, the FBI's current involvement with student groups was made public through a Freedom of Information Act request, in which the FBI is allowed to withhold any informa- tion it deems too sensitive to reveal to the public. It took much agonizing on the part of the ACLU in order to finally receive the meager 10-page document that reveals the FBI's involvement with MSU student groups, and the ACLU has pressed charges in order to speed up the release of docu- ments detailing the investigations of Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Ameri- can-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. The ACLU has found other examples of the FBI working in conjunction with local and state law enforcement agencies to gather information on peaceful left leaning groups, such as the compiling of names and license plate numbers of anti-war and envi- ronmental activists in Denver. Through the FOIA, the ACLU has only been able to take tiny peeks into the FBI's domestic anti-terrorism investiga- tions. While another exploratory break-in is prob- ably ill advised, we are still without a full picture of the FBI's involvement with student political organizations. Although unsettled by the investigation, Direct Action is not letting it interfere with its plans for the year. The State News, MSU's stu- dent newspaper, has fallen in line with the FBI, running a news article with the hysteria-tinged title "Local terrorist activity suspected" in the aftermath of the ACLU's discovery. I spoke with DA member Stefan Lanwermeyer about this, expecting him to be dismayed by both the FBI's actions and with the negative portrayal of Direct Action by the student press. Although DA's offi- cial response to the State News's coverage was nothing short of scathing, Lanwermeyer was excited about DA's future. He says that "we view the FBI's investigation as an intimidation tactic," but this is having the opposite effect. He cheer- fully reports that "our first meeting this fall was the largest we've ever had, and about 60 percent of the attendees were there because of the head- lines." DA, whose plans for the year include such typical terrorist standbys as providing resources for hurricane relief and encouraging high school students to resist military recruiters, has been subjected to a history of police interference that ranges from not-so-subtle eavesdropping on meetings to videotaping rally participants. Lan- wermeyer is wary of hastily linking this with the FBI's previous activity, saying that "what happened in the 1960s was a long time ago." However, he points out that current law enforce- ment activities "could shape" into something resembling COINTELPRO, but that it's a ways off. Instead, he seems more inclined to ride the wave of press and watch the organization grow. So much for intimidation tactics. Mallen can be reached at emmallen@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Let the people decide on Roe v. Wade To THE DAILY: In his dissent (The Bush Court, 09/09/05), John Stiglich boasts about how a John Roberts- led Bush court could overturn Roe v. Wade. He writes, "(They) could ensure liberals' worst fear - that the people decide on abortion." Despite being fiercely, 100-percent pro-choice, I actually agree with Stiglich and would actually be happy to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Why, you might ask? Because it would be the single biggest windfall the Democratic Party has ever seen. In the words of our "glorious" leader, "Bring it on!" Polls show almost two-thirds of the coun- try believes that Roe should not be overturned. According to one Pew poll, fewer than 10 per- cent of Americans believe that abortion should be completely illegal. So yes, let's allow the people to decide. For decades, Republicans have been scream- ing until red in the face about the injustice of abortion without ever being able to outlaw it. Let's let them vote and have them answer to the people who elected them. Let's have Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) explain why he thinks a raped girl must be compelled by law to carry her rapist's child to term. Let's have Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) explain why he believes fer- tility clinics should be outlawed because of the mere chance that an embryo might be discard- ed. Let's have Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) justify why he contemplated filibustering the bipartisan-supported ,stem-cell bill earlier this summer. Let's have all our Republican leaders look us in the eye and tell us that our mothers and our daughters, our sisters and our cousins, our aunts and our nieces are all worth less to College ratings fail to grade education quality To THE DAILY: The American obsession with'convenient sta- M tistics (Michigan's rating drops to 3rd, 09/09/05) has damaged the college search process. You can't grade an entire school with one or even a dozen numbers. It takes plain research and campus visits to judge the quality of a college, with every pro- spective student responding differently. Even then, any student can ruin a college experience for him- self regardless of the school's quality. At the end of the day, these rankings are ban- died about like sports scores and celebrity gossip. They're fun to know and make nice dinner-party conversation among parents. It's unfortunate though that so many high school students mistake them for decent college evaluations. James Cho Engineering junior them than a mere embryo. Ryan Manthey LSA senior VIEWPOINT An open letter to Lloyd Carr 0 BY AARON JOHNSON Dear Lloyd, I came to see you this Saturday. I even brought some friends. We piled into a car, drove a really long distance, paid a lot of money and parked pret-. ty far away just to stop in and have a visit. So why the lack of hospitality? I wouldn't be so upset if after the game (You know the one I'm talking about, the one with the goal-line offense that would have choked a yak and the quarterback who didn't seem to know up from down, left from right or maize and blue from gold and white), you didn't get on the radio and talk about how happy you were with how your team played. I begin to wonder, is it really that great to be a Michigan Wolverine? I love you guys, you know that, but why is it so great to be associated with a team that has not beaten a top-10 opponent in a shovel pass or do anything that the other team can't possibly replicate 5,000 times in practice the week before they show up? Resting on talent alone is great when you have Braylon Edwards, who can jump 14 feet into the air and snag down even the most errant balls. It's not so good when you have Steve Breaston, whose last moment of glory was two seasons ago, because you hoodwink his abil- ity to confound defenses by limiting him to two or three deep ball opportunities per game (even my mom knows he's not that kind of receiver, Lloyd). Or when you treat Jason Avant (a very capable receiver), like Mike Williams, when he's really more of a Mercury Hayes. Then again, no one player can carry your team, Lloyd, and since you can't really coach, or demand excellence from the team at large, the team slips into mediocrity. How hard would it be to turn all these tal- ented guys into something wholly unique, excit- ever hope to compete in NCAA Division I football with this current mindset? I do love Michigan football. I love how you guys ram it up the opponent's nose 40 percent of the time, try to control the clock and never go too crazy on either offense or defense, but when Kirk Ferentz, Urban Meyer, Pete Carroll and, oh heck, Charlie Weiss, are making a mockery of the last 130 years of football triition just by being demanding and innovative, we've got problems, Lloyd. Don't get me wrong. We used to have the inno- vative and demanding Fielding Yost, and at least we had demands for excellence (if not always innovation) in Bo, and even Moe. Honestly, I can't remember the last time you successfully beat a team that had a better coach than you. I remember Braylon defeating Jim Tres- sel in 2003, but every other instance is just you being outcoached - pure and simple. You've even been ouitco'.hach by neolike BRob Da~vis and Editorial Board Members: Amy Anspach, Amanda Burns, Whitney Dibo, Jesse For- ester, Jared Goldberg, Eric Jackson, Brian Kelly, Theresa Kennelly, Rajiv Prabhakar, Matt Rose, David Russell, Dan Skowronski, Brian Slade, Lauren Slough, John Stiglich, I