UCSD Students Fear "Operation College Freedom"

29 August 2006

A writes:

Can you add an update, since its the top Google result, that says that the letter was eventually sent to the administration with 4 signers? It's here: http://deletetheborder.org/node/1474

22 August 2006

Princeton University study of history of the state of fear, state fears, fear of the state:

http://dav.princeton.edu/news/2006/05/e17/new_topic_for.html

Fear Architecture: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/08/22/architecture/

UCSD is the University of California at San Diego

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:18:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: <nettime> actors wanted
From: lotu5[at]resist.ca
To: "nettime" <nettime-l[at]bbs.thing.net>

Some of us on campus tried to do the simple act of circulating a letter
opposed to wasting so much money on this ["Operation College Freedom"]
in the name of the war on terror and further militarizing our campus.

Unfortunately, the climate of fear at universities in the US has gotten to
such a height that no one would sign on. We even asked for suggestions and
changes in the wording, but no one replied with those either.

Maybe the letter wasn't all that great, but 3 people specifcally told us
that they were "scared" to put their names on the letter.

__________

Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:23:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: <nettime> actors wanted
From: lotu5@resist.ca
To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net

Actually, here's the letter that never got sent. At least you lucky
nettime readers will get to read it.

//

As students, faculty and staff at UCSD, we are appalled by UCSD's
decision to host the August 22nd terrorism preparedness exercise. While
thousands of people in New Orleans and millions of people
in Lebanon need real disaster relief right now, time and money is being
wasted on this so called "anti-terror" simulation.

We do not want our university to "play the part of the front line in the
war on terrorism", a fictitious war that has only served to increase the
profits of oil and defense corporations while causing so many lost lives,
a war that has served to legitimize human rights abuses, the erosion of
civil liberties, the undermining of the constitution for the purposes of
expanding executive power far beyond what democracy allows, and the
implementation of a police state in the United States.

In addition, we do not want our campus to be any further militarized. With
fighter jets roaring overhead everyday and recruiters at every career
fair, the UCSD campus already has a constant military presence. Bringing
the police and fire departments and the SWAT and HAZMAT teams on campus
will only serve to worsen the climate on campus. We want this to be a
place of learning, not a boot camp!

In this country, we are in a McCarthy-esque climate where academic
freedoms are being infringed on daily. Bringing this kind of
anti-terrorism activity into our school only serves to further a climate
of suspicion and fear. These exercises are not intended to protect us but
to increase the climate of fear so that we do not speak up against more
government abuses.

We request that the UCSD administration make a clear public statement
about how much this "anti-terror" exercise is costing this school, who
requested that it be here and why. We also request a statement about how
the decision was made for our University to be the front line in the war
on terror when neither the faculty or the student body were consulted on
this decision.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

> Could a terrorism theme park be not far away?  /jc
<...>

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo[at]bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime[at]bbs.thing.net