Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!malgudi!osc.edu!karl.kleinpaste
From: karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu
Subject: Re: E-mail Privacy
Message-ID: <1991Jun14.130553.28202@oar.net>
Sender: news@oar.net
Nntp-Posting-Host: ashley.osc.edu
Organization: Ohio Supercomputer Center, Viento Testbed
References: <2539@maserati.qsp.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1991 14:03:40 GMT
Lines: 49

scotts@qsp.com writes:
   No, not tricky.  You either tell the students (and all users) ahead of time
   that their e-mail is not private, or you MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.
   You are the system administrator, not the professor.  

Imagine yourself walking through the corporate offices late at night,
meandering past the treasurer's office.  You notice through the glass
door that someone is working over a safe in that office's back corner
in the dark via a flashlight.  How do you respond?

"I'm just an engineer, not the security guard."

Gads, I hope not.

Come on, people, a little ethical consistency, huh?

Anyone who witnesses a crime and does nothing to stop it is a party to
it.  In fact, screwed up though the USA legal system surely is, it
makes a lot of sense that certain crimes are defined in terms of the
failure _of_the_citizenry_ to report other crimes.

It is the responsibility of every citizen to uphold the law.  Remember
the phrase, "We The People"?  We The People are supposed to define how
law and order are managed, and We The People don't (or didn't used to)
abdicate that _authority_ to any goddamnable police power.

(That said, I'll immediately step back to say that many laws are
unjust, and it is equally important that We The People dismantle them
in any way we can.  FIJA strikes me as an example of an awfully good
philosophical basis for such things.)

I'm going to assume agreement by all that cheating within the
university is an academic crime.  If you see it, and do nothing about
it, _you_ are as much the problem as the cheaters themselves.

At OSU, one of the publications (I think it's the general bulletin,
though I might have seen it in the graduate program descriptions; I'm
no longer sure) explicitly states that maintenance of the academic
environment is the responsibility of every member of the faculty,
staff, and student body.

You people who want to turn blind eyes to all these problems really
sicken me.  Who is going to solve these problems if _you_ don't?

Citizenship is not a spectator sport.  Spectators are mere subjects.

--karl

PS to scotts@qsp.com- You're generating funky Message-Id's.