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Letter
Imperfect
Are
you a conservative? Want to win a free cooler or a mousepad?
Just copy and paste a form letter praising Republican policies
from GOPteamleader.com, a Web site put up by the Republican
National Committee, sign them as your own and e-mail them
to your local papers. Even though the newspapers you contact
will not be amused if they discover they have unwittingly
run a political press release, the GOP will reward you for
it anyway.
These deceptive letters are known as “astroturf,” implying
artificial grassroots support for a politician, a party or
an issue. Recently, the Republicans were caught at it when
a Boston Globe reader, Amity Wilczek, discovered that
the Globe had been used for partisan ends without its
knowledge—it ran a GOP form letter expressing strong support
for President Bush’s tax cut, signed by Stephanie Johnson
of Milton, Mass., on Sept. 12—and notified the paper. The
Globe then learned it had published four such letters
since mid-October, and that dozens of dailies around the nation
had received identical or very similar letters. Editors at
the Globe were displeased when they realized they had
been snookered, and have since received more than 40 of the
e-mails.
Howard Healy, who handles letters to the editor at the Times
Union, said in a recent phone conversation that about
six of the GOP e-mails had shown up in the Times Union’s
editorial inbox. “It’s not uncommon,” Healy explained in reference
to political form letters, citing similar write-in campaigns
to the Times Union in the past by the Public Employees
Federation over the issue of weekday parking in downtown Albany,
and by a vegetarian group against eating meat. He went on
to say that the use of computers has greatly facilitated the
mass dissemination of such letters, and that many newspapers
are now alerting each other to them.
Reached by e-mail for comment on the Republican National Committee
form letters, Catherine Mathis, vice president of corporate
communications for the New York Times Company, wrote, “We
would not knowingly print a letter that was part of this sort
of campaign, and since we get hundreds of letters every day,
we certainly have no need to. Our goals are to present a variety
of views on different topics that are genuinely written by
the signees.
“The
editors in the Letters section call every person whose letter
we want to print, and check the accuracy of their statements.
There is no foolproof way to make sure the product of a political
letter-writing campaign doesn’t slip through, but we do our
best to make sure they don’t.”
—Glenn
Weiser
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Journey
to freedom: The 1837 logo of the American Anti-Slavery
Society.
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You
Are Being Watched
As
of Saturday, Feb. 15, the lives of international students
and visiting foreign faculty on campuses across the United
States were officially placed under a new monitoring regime,
with their day-to-day activities facing an unprecedented level
of scrutiny. That was the day the Student and Exchange Visitor
Information System (SEVIS) went online.
Mandated
by legislation passed in the wake of the first World Trade
Center bombing (which occurred in 1993), and modified by the
post-Sept. 11 USA P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, SEVIS is an online database
of information—available to both the Immigration and Nationalization
Service and the Department of State—regarding the status of
every foreign student and faculty member.
In addition to general personal data—including name, date
and place of birth, citizenship and degree program—all universities
are required to report to SEVIS information related to attendance
and course load. Foreign students, for example, are required
to carry a minimum of 12 credit hours, and must report any
change of address immediately. According to a memo sent on
Dec. 4, 2002, by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Office
of International Services for Students and Scholars (ISSS)
to academic departments, “[the INS] has stated that they will
not be forgiving if [the] student/scholar makes a mistake.”
The RPI memo outlines three specific areas the departments
and faculty are required to keep track of and report on. One:
If a student, visiting faculty or their families are “on campus”
or “no show.” Two: If a student is “not attending classes
or meeting degree progress.” Three: If a student is “talking
about not taking 12 credit hours.”
Civil-liberties groups are mainly concerned with the possible
misuses of this new, extensive database. As immigration attorney
Claudia Slovinsky told The Village Voice last month,
SEVIS acts as a “substitute for good investigative work. You
end up doing racial profiling.”
Schools have no choice but to follow the law, however. If
a college does not comply with SEVIS, it cannot enroll international
students.
The system has also suffered problems in the months before
its official launch. According to Business Week, the
INS was still working out glitches in SEVIS as recently as
three weeks ago. This is supported by the RPI memo, which
complains that: “We are working with a system that is brand
new and does not yet have the bugs worked out. We are also
working with regulations that are not final yet. . . . We
also are working with a govt. that is requiring or making
changes for students and scholars almost weekly.”
If nothing else, there are concerns that increased scrutiny
will lead to a chilling effect on the international student
communities on U.S. campuses. The RPI memo suggests just this
chill when it states: “A student cannot just be a student
anymore.”
—Shawn
Stone
Road
to Freedom
It
is a little-known fact that residences on Livingston Avenue,
State Street and Green Street were all key locations in Albany
during the Underground Railroad movement. In fact, hundreds
of fugitive slaves were helped in Albany. A spotlight will
be turned on this history when the College of Saint Rose hosts
a conference highlighting the Capital Region’s role in the
Underground Railroad on Saturday (Feb. 22).
The Underground Railroad was active in Albany as early as
1830s. Mary Liz Stewart of the Underground Railroad History
Project said the Capital Region was an attractive place for
the fugitive slaves because it presented a crossroads: They
were able to continue north into Canada or head east to Boston
in search of their freedom.
Stewart noted that there were a number of very active abolitionists
in the area, which was also a reason why slaves sought refuge
in Albany and its surrounding areas. African-American businessmen
teamed up with white abolitionists of the community to form
a vigilance committee that cooperated with the Underground
Railroad in New York City. It was their responsibility to
protect and aid fugitive slaves. Wealthy abolitionists sometimes
provided some financial assistance, while others helped to
find places for the fugitives to live or helped them set up
jobs.
At Saturday’s conference at CSR, a number of workshops will
be offered on several related topics including Harriet Tubman
and African-American history in the first half of the 19th
century; there also will be storytellers and level-appropriate
educator workshops. Stewart hopes the conference will help
reclaim this important part of local history and place it
within a national context. “This period in history, prior
to the Civil War, has gotten little coverage,” said Stewart.
“By coming to and being part of the conference, it is possible
to see the bigger side of the picture.”
Speaking at the conference will be Dr. Judith Wellman, director
of Historical New York Inc. and retired professor of history
at SUNY Oswego. Registration is $15; the conference begins
at 8:30 AM. For more information, or to register, contact
the Underground Railroad History Project at 432-4432 or e-mail
conference@ugrworkshop.com.
—Jaclyn
Acker
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Columns
& Opinions
