By wpengine October 26, 2001
Keeping their word to reevaluate the state of the men’s hockey ticket sale this year, the newly created commission of athletic directors and students met last Monday to discuss this issue and brainstorm new ideas. University administrators decided to create the group, which consists of two students and three athletic staff members, after chaos and injury erupted at the Sept. 28 hockey ticket sale outside Bartels Hall. The first in a series of many meetings discussed student safety, possible alternatives to days and times of the year the sale should be held as well as concern for those who view the event as an unofficial Cornell tradition. For most involved, the first meeting started them on the right path to finding a solution that will work best for all. “I think we all left the meeting with a very optimistic aftertaste,” said Frank Araneo, athletics administrator and the committee’s chair. “We identified overall objectives for the sale and brainstormed various options for next year taking into account past experience.” Araneo’s committee members include Anita Brenner, associate director of athletics, Gene Nighman, director of the hockey ticket office, Student Assembly freshman-at-large representative Joshua Bronstein ’05 and S.A. vice president Mark Greenbaum ’02. Bronstein and Greenbaum both stress their appreciation for the athletics department welcoming their input into the process that affects many student fans of hockey. “I was thoroughly impressed with their desire to work with students. The meeting was extremely productive,” Bronstein said. Araneo, and the other administrators agree, noting that both Bronstein and Greenbaum helped include a new perspective on the situation. “The discussion was open and constructive; it was a true pleasure having [Greenbaum] and [Bronstein] involved,” he said. During this constructive meeting, the five discussed many of the pertinent issues surrounding the ticket sale and how they can best be addressed. “The members [of the committee], myself included, agreed that it is in the best interests of Cornell hockey to have the basic framework of a line because it fills Lynah [Rink] and allows the game to have the most lively, energetic crowd,” Greenbaum said. Preserving this spirit, however, may come with a new toned down system that will allow those who want to camp out the chance to do so but would create a separate line — possibly the following day — that would be for others who arrived later. They hope that this minimizes tension during the sometimes long sale process and help on the amount of security present, which Greenbaum notes should be increased. “The committee agreed that Athletics will need to have more of a presence to monitor the line and throw out anyone who cuts in line or causes trouble,” he added. This does not mean that a raffle system will be implemented similar to one’s held in recent years. The line will still exist in its current form but the committee notes that an increased awareness of when the tickets will actually be distributed should come in the future. “We’re trying to avoid student discomfort,” Bronstein said. He notes that students skipping classes was one of the committee’s major problems with this year’s sale. Naturally, administrators say they don’t want students missing classes for the sale which lead them to present different days of the week the sale could be held however no conclusion was met. “We identified certain areas where improvement is warranted,” Araneo said. Nighman is in the process of drafting a proposal that will be reviewed by the committee at a later date. It should outline the more specific changes to the process and bring more finality to the process. Nighman feels that although the committee is working hard these changes will not occur overnight. “[Students say] there should be an easy way of doing this. There’s always a snag with doing these [types of things]. It’s very difficult,” he said. Archived article by Carlos Perkins
By wpengine October 26, 2001
Robert Gellman, a privacy and information policy consultant in Washington, D.C., traveled to Ithaca yesterday afternoon to give a lecture titled “Do We Have Any Privacy? Do We Even Know What It Is?” in Uris Hall Auditorium. In attendance were approximately 50 students, faculty and local activists. Gellman, a graduate of Yale Law School, served for 17 years as chief counsel to the Subcommittee on Government Information in the House of Representatives. His responsibilities on the subcommittee included privacy — especially of health records — and freedom of information. He also served as a member of the Department of Health and Human Service’s National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics from 1996 to 2000. “People are doing things every day that show a lack of a desire to protect their privacy,” Gellman said yesterday. Ordinary actions, ranging from using a frequent shoppers card at a supermarket, to using a library card or accepting “cookies” on the Internet have the capacity to threaten our privacy, he said. These relatively innocent actions allow businesses to create an “incredible profile on our habits and lifestyles,” Gellman added. Gellman continued by explaining why he felt that today’s consumers are not aware that their privacy is being threatened. “Today’s consumers should not be asking, ‘Why do I get junkmail?’ We should be asking, ‘Why did I get this particular piece of junkmail?'” Generally, Americans fall into three categories of privacy awareness, he said. The first, “privacy fundamentalists,” care a great deal about privacy and protecting it. On the other end of the spectrum are the “privacy indifferent” consumers, who care very little about their own privacy. Both of these groups constitute a relatively small portion of the population compared to the “privacy pragmatists,” who are willing to exchange some of their privacy in return for something advantageous, such as supermarket discounts or the convenience of E-ZPass, the system for quick toll payment on highways in the Northeast. Historically, the United States has not had many federal laws that protect citizens’ privacy. Gellman described federal legislation as a “moving target” that usually responds to the concerns of Congress. For example, in 1988, Congress passed the Video Privacy Protection Bill after a Washington journalist uncovered which home videos had been rented by Judge Robert H. Bork, an unsuccessful Supreme Court nominee. Employment records, federal insurance records, marketing and purchasing habits and the Internet continue to be relatively unmonitored by the federal government, allowing corporations and businesses to set their own privacy policies, Gellman said. The government’s hands-off stance on privacy protection has resulted in many recent lawsuits. In one such lawsuit, CVS Pharmacy was found to have sold patient information to large drug manufacturers. In a defense brief, CVS claimed to have no duty of confidentiality to its patients, Gellman recalled. Gellman outlined three important ways consumers can protect their privacy today. First, consumers should treat personal information like money. “Every time we need to give up personal info, we should ask, ‘Are we getting anything back of significant value?'” Next, as consumers, people should always be asking questions when personal data is requested by companies. “We should ask, ‘Where is this information going, and what will it be used for?'” If a company is not willing to divulge this information, consumers should be suspicious of how their personal information is going to be used, he said. Finally, consumers can fight back. According to Gellman, they should “vote with their wallets.” Smart consumers will only do business with companies who will protect privacy. Consumers should do what they need to do to protect their personal information, even if that means paying cash to avoid leaving an electronic record, or using pseudonyms on frequent shopper card applications. “It’s a personal choice,” Gellman concluded. “It’s up to you. You have to recognize that in everything you do, you are creating a record that someone can access later on.”Archived article by Marc Zawel