4A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, November 6, 1995
UObe idtigau 4ruiI
JAMES M. NASH
ON THERECORD
420 Maynard Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Edited1 and managed by
students at the
University of Michigan
i
MICHAEL ROSENBERG
Editor in chief
JULIE BECKER
JAMES M. NASH
Editorial Page Editors
Behbd the technology, new
threats to our prvacy loom
Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of a majority ofthe Daily 's editorial board. All
other articles, letters, and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily.
Yitzhak Rab in,1922-95
Slain Israeli leader worked tirelessly for peace
Y tzhak Rabin, 73, the brave architect of
the Mideast peace process, was assassi-
nated Saturday night, reportedly at the hands
ofa young Jewish fundamentalist. Rabin was
gunned down at point-blank range, minutes
after joining Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
and a crowd of around 100,000 in a poignant,
moving song for peace. It is bitterly ironic
that Rabin's murder occurred at the scene of
Israel's largest outpouring of pro-
peace sentiment this year.r
Born in Jerusalem in 1922,
Yitzhak Rabin became Israel's
first native-born prime minister in +C;
1974, in the aftermath of the Yom J
Kippur War. In his decades of
service to the Israeli nation and
her quest for freedom and peace,,
Rabin'sjourney has paralleled that Rabin
ofhis nation: born from the ashes
of the Holocaust in 1948, inde-
pendence from the British, the waging of five
costly wars, countless military skirmishes,
massive influxes of immigrants, spiraling
inflation, regional boycotts and international
terrorism.
Today, Rabin has brought Israel to its
most defining moment in 47 years of state-
hood. Israel, beset by vicious domestic dis-
cord and the continued opposition to the
peace process ofconservative Israelis, stands
at a most important crossroads: either the
culmination ofpeace talks with Israel's former
enemies or the demise of four years of ardu-
ous negotiations.
Rabin was a Israeli national hero, a sol-
dier, a commander, a diplomat, a Nobel Peace
Prize recipient and a remarkable, courageous
statesman. He fought for Israeli indepen-
dence from 1941 to 1948 as a young Haganah
commander, in charge of a unit stuck with a
decidedly difficult task - to open up the
treacherous, winding Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
road. In 1967, Rabin - as the Israeli army's
chief of staff- directed the Six Day War, in
which Israel seized the Sinai Peninsula, the
Old City of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
On thermorning of June 7, 1967, Rabin, along
with Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, was
one of the first Israelis to witness the libera-
tion of the Western Wall by Jewish troops.
Shaken, Rabin said a silent prayer for peace
while his men shed tears ofjoy. From 1968 to
1974, he served as the Israeli ambassador to
the United States, and in 1974 joined Golda
Meir's cabinet as the Minister of Labor. A
month later he was elected to the prime
ministership.
In the summer of 1992, Rabin, at the age
of 70, was chosen for a second time to lead
Israel's Labor Party, ending 15 years of con-
servative rule. With the help of Peres, Rabin
undertook to revitalize and redirect the peace
talks begun in Madrid in 1991. In 1993,
Rabin ordered Peres to begin secret negotia-
tions with the Palestine Liberation Organiza-
tion, a group that a few short years ago was
still dedicated to the outright destruction of
the state of Israel. These talks led to the
historic signing of the groundbreaking Dec-
laration of Principles in Washington on Sept.
13, 1993. On this bright, sunny, late summer
day, the war hero and national leader of the
Jewish state shook hands with PLO Chair-
man Yasser Arafat-until then Israel's most
despised foe - in the White House Rose
Garden.
In 1994, Rabin continued to seek a peace-
ful resolution of outstanding Arab-Israeli
differences. Rabin's Labor government
signed a full peace treaty with Jordan in
October of that year, ending 27 years of
Israeli occupation of the Gaza and Jericho.
Amid Jewish settler violence and
Islamic fundamentalist terror,
Rabin established official dip-
lomatic relations for the first
time with Morocco, Tunisia,
Oman, the Vatican and a num-
ber of Arabic Gulf states. These
bold moves have set the course
for the possibility of a lasting
peace between Arabs and Jews
in the land where three conti-
nents converge and three reli-
gions were born.
In his later years, Rabin was more a healer
and a reconciliator than a man of war. He
understood that to achieve real peace and
security for his nation of almost 5 million, it
was necessary to negotiate with the Palestin-
ians and grant those living in the occupied
territories basic political, civil and human
rights. For Israel to be recognized as a sover-
eign state with an inherent right to peacefully
coexist between the shores of the Mediterra-
nean, the Galilee, the Dead Sea and the Red
Sea, it had to come to terms with the funda-
mental paradox that has plagued Israel since
its inception: its mistreatment of Palestinian
Arabs. Rabin, the Israeli freedom fighter of
the '40s, dared to negotiate with a known
terrorist, to withdraw troops from the strate-
gic West Bank and to allow for free Palestin-
ian elections, scheduled for early next year
- a plebiscite that could conceivably el-
evate militant Hamas politicians to power.
But Rabin accurately saw the decision to
negotiate a settlement now, although risky,
as Israel's best - and maybe only - chance
for peace.
Rabin was a powerful, evocative symbol
of a new Middle East. He gave people hope
that Israel and its former enemies could tran-
scend the past and defeat cynicism, religious
violence and hate - not simply enjoy a brief
respite between regional wars. Rabin's mes-
sage was that although war has made en-
emies out of neighbors, there is much more to
live for than fighting, killing and bombing.
Rabin's death, at this critical point in the
peace talks, undoubtedly will have a pro-
found effect on the Israeli people, whom he
so eloquently led through times of war and
uncertainty. As a leader, Rabin was stirring
and persuasive. He expressed so many Jews'
willingness to listen to the Palestinian people,
to see the Palestinians' own desire, not un-
like the Jewish people's, for self-determina-
tion and peace. He knew, for Israel's sake,
that it could do nothing less.
The world has lost a man who believed in
his people, his nation and, at the time of his
tragic death, in the ability of both Jews and
Arabs to see past their differences and grasp
their shared values. He died on Saturday. The
world must hope the prospects for peace
didn't die as well.
W ith every whisper of mergers or mega-
acquisitions in the media world, free-
speech advocates cry foul. Media Magnate
Mickey Mouse and Culture Contaminant
Time-Warner are labeled grave threats to
the free exchange of ideas and information,
if not to the integrity of American culture
itself. In corporate boardrooms, the logic
goes, information becomes a commodity
like any other, to be sold to the highest
bidder.
Perhaps. But the outcry over media con-
glomerates obscures another, graver, threat
to the free flow ofinformation. Corporations
and government officials have drawn a noose
around the Internet. The question is: How
tight will they - or can they - pull it?
While some would-be government cen-
sors see the Internet as a network that can be
tamed like any TV network, in reality it is a
formless, boundless collection of computers
and servers that crosses national boundaries.
That makes the Internet frustratingly diffi-
cult to regulate. But it doesn't stop some
from trying.
Consider the "Clipper," the federal
government's skeleton key to all Internet e-
mail, even encrypted messages. Free-speech
advocates saw the Clipper as a dangerous
tool for Big Brother to eavesdrop on private
conversations. Government officials insisted
the Clipper was needed to intercept mes-
sages from organized criminals, drug cartels
and terrorists. The debate continues, with
serious consequences awaiting its outcome.
Last summer, Congress invited a
firestorm of criticism with the Communica-
tions Decency Act of 1995, an attempt to
filter pornography from the free flow of data
moving over the Internet. The act - while
well-intentioned-was the first Machiavel-
lian legislative attempt to stamp a set of
morals on the Internet. It would have im-
posed penalties of up to $100,000 and two
years of prison on anyone knowingly trans-
mitting "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy or
indecent" pictures or text over electronic
networks accessible to minors.
The act was virtually unenforceable- it
could only cover U.S. citizens who transmit-
ted materials undertheirtrue names. Itwould
not apply to citizens ofother countries, whose
postings are accessible to Americans. Any-
one with the computer knowledge to post
anonymously or pseudonymously could
elude efforts to enforce the law. Lawmakers
have given up on the Communications De-
cency Act but are pressing ahead with legis-
lation to curtail the circulation of "blue"
material over the Internet. Free-speech ad-
vocates have found an unlikely ally in House
Speaker Newt Gingrich, who blasted the
Communications Decency Act as "clearly a
violation of free speech and .. a violation of
the right of adults to communicate with each
other."
Unfortunately, not everyone is so deter-
mined to protect that right. Corporations
have been sued by former employees fired
for statements they made in e-mail they
mistakenly thought was private. Many com-
panies maintain that they have a right to read
all e-mail between employees - even per-
sonal messages. Once-private e-mail has
been used in lawsuits alleging employment
discrimination and harassment. What's dou-
bly troubling in many of these cases is the
employer's failure to inform computer users
their e-mailbox may be pried open without
their consent.
Law has failed to keep up with technol-
ogy, leaving vast discretion to companies on
whether they can access their employees'
personal communications. Company policy
tends to err on the side ofthe corporate "right
to know."
Despite lawmakers' attempts to meddle
in the Internet, the global computer network
remains an information frontier free ofinter-
ference. That's how it should be. With other
media outlets pulled one by one under a
widening corporate umbrella, the Internet
may be the last great media democracy, with
information rights for all.
The University, thankfully, recognizes
the democratic balance between community
and individual rights. E-mail here is closely
guarded, but even so, lawsuits can be used to
force disclosure of supposedly confidential
messages. Depending on how the law is
interpreted, even the Freedom of Informa-
tion Act someday may be used to make e-
mail public. Former Provost Gilbert R.
Whitaker Jr. defined the University's policy
on e-mail confidentiality in 1993, pledging
that the University would uphold privacy
"to the fullest extent permitted by law." That
means either the sender or receiver of an e-
mail message may use or forward that mes-
sage as they please. Other parties - a boss
or law-enforcement agent, for example --
may "ordinarily" gain access to e-mail
through the sender or recipient, according to
University policy. That policy isn't exactly
watertight, even if its attempts to leave the
University some wiggle room in extraordi-
nary circumstances are understandable. So
far the University hasn't needed it.
University policy makers acknowledge
they may be swimming against a legislative
current chipping away at both privacy and
the free flow of information on the Internet.
If this ominous trend continues, the govern-
ment and corporations -not Mickey Mouse
- may become the biggest media demons
of all.
- James M. Nash can be reached over e-
mail atjnash@umich.edu.
J.M LASSER
SHARP AS TOAST
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NOTABLE QUOTABLE
'Rabin was
looking to the
future. He was
looking out for
us, the younger
generation. They
killed him. They
killed my hope.'
- Amir Shavir, an 18-
year-old from Tel Aviv
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LETTERS
Right to life
includes the
right to die
To the Daily:
I applaud your resolve in the
editorial calling for assisted sui-
cide to be both legalized and regu-
lated ("Death with dignity," I 1/
3/95). You clearly presented both
practical and moral reasons about
why the right to life includes the
right to end it. As a future physi-
cian, I agree the duties of a physi-
cian include both saving lives and
easing the suffering of the ill. If
and when these duties come into
conflict, I believe it is rash to
always blindly choose the former
over the latter. Obviously life is
important; however, suffering
will define the rest of one's life.
Unfortunately, the clear pic-
ture the editorial portrays is
grossly deformed by the media
and figures such as Dr. Jack
Kevorkian. By referring to cases
of assisted suicide by using terms
such as "machine," "killer" or
"choking to death," the media
continue to distort the practical
and moral basis of assisted sui-
cide and confuse public citizens.
The ambiguity and confusion cre-
ated allow lawmakers in Lansing
and Washington to retain the sta-
tus quo and ignore proposals that
would legalize assisted suicide.
The image of Jack Kevorkian en-
tering people's houses, perform-
ing the procedure and then van-
ishing off into the night also does
ran hn hner--entinat theis,
complexity is the last thing we
need. The time is now to clear up
a simple, but immensely impor-
tant. issue that continues to be
debated.
Anand Parekh
Inteflex sophomore
D.C. march
underc ounted
To the Daily:
It is interesting that many
newspapers and television publi-
cations (including the Daily)
printed the Washington, D.C..
park services estimate ofthe Mil-
lion Man March without check-
ing it forthemselves. ABC World
News Tonight reported that they
commissioned an independent
source (a professor of population
studies at Boston College) to do a
computerized head count of the
Million Man March. The expert
interviewed said first of all the
government took the photos from
the worst possible angle (from a
helicopter flying behind the Capi-
tol building) blocking many of
the marchers from view, but us-
ing the same photos the park ser-
vice did, he literally perfromed a
computerized head count of the
people pictured in the photo-
graphs. His estimate of the num-
ber of participants was that there
could have been no more than
1,120,000 and no less than
675,000, his best estimate being
875,000 particiapnts photo-
graphed in the pictures taken. In
all cases the numbers are farmore
than the government estimates of.
Support Detroit paper strike
To the Daily:
The nation's two largest news-
paper chains are waging war on
their workers, and you must de-
cide whose side you are on. You
can't pretend the Detroit newspa-
per strike doesn't concern you.
Whether you like it or not, you
are involved.
Gannett and Knight-Ridder,
owners of The Detroit News and
the Detroit Free Press, already
have lost more than $50 million
trying to break six unions. They
could have settled with the 2,500
striking workers for a fraction of
that cost. What the companies
want is a victory in Detroit, the
labor capital of America, that will
send a message to working people
everywhere.
If the newspaper unions lose
in Detroit, it will mean papers
everywhere will pay lower wages
and produce poorer products. And
employers in other industries will
be more willing to bust unions,
leading to depressed wages and
poorer working conditions nation-
wide.
The University of Michigan
is among the institutions watch-
ing the Detroit newspaper strike
closely. Whatever career you en-
vision, whether in a unionized
industry or not, your working
conditions and wages will suffer
if unions are weakened.
Because The News and Free
Press have continued to publish
since the strike began July 13 and
have refused to bargain fairly, the
strikers' hone for a victory rests
know how many millions they
are prepared to squander, but we
must keep raising the cost until it
becomes intolerable. To do so,
we need help.
The next few weeks are cru-
cial. November is the biggest
month of the year for newspaper
advertising revenue. We need to
double efforts to keep advertisers
out of the paper.
Don't think you can sit on the
sidelines. You're already in-
volved. If you but a copy of the
Detroit Free Press or The Detroit
News, you're contributing to a
company that's willing to kill
people to get its scab papers de-
livered. Asked during a radio in-
terview who gave the order to run
trucks through plan gates at strik-
ing workers, News Publisher
Robert H. Giles answered: "The
expectation was that they would
get out of the way."
If you shop at the stores that
are advertising in The News and
Free Press - including ABC
Warehouse, Kmart, Hudson's,
Mervyn's, Target, Art Van
you are patronizing businesses
that are helping Gannett and
Knight-Ridderwage war on 2,500
families.
Merchants who sell the pa-
pers also are collaborating in the
scab papers' success. They in-
clude Border's and almost all the
major bookstores as well as many
party stores. Students must bring
more pressure to get scab papers-
out of the campus area.
-. . - - .
HOW TO CONTACT THEM
Ann Arbor Mayor and City Council:
Mayor Ingrid B. Sheldon
Ann Arbor City Hall
100 N. Fifth Ave.
Ann Arbor, MI 48107
994-2766
Tobi Hanna-Davies (D-1st Ward), Patricia Vereen-Dixon (D-1st Ward), Peter Fink (R-2nd
Ward), Jane Lumm (R-2nd Ward), Jean Carlberg (D-3rd Ward), Haldon Smith (D-3rd
Ward), Peter Nicolas (1-4th Ward), Stephen Hartwell (D-4th Ward), Elisabeth Daley (D-
R