{"article":{"id":19331,"heading":"San Diego Activist Tech Collective Targeted as "terrorists"","author":"from sf indymedia","created":"2002-09-26 20:45:41","modified":"2013-11-10 23:46:49","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 06:46:49","article":"

San Diego based burn.ucsd.edu is being targeted as providing material support for terrorists because they LINK to a farc website. You see where this is going, right?



Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 17:52:51 -0700

From: Gary R. Ratcliff

To: che@libertad.ucsd.edu<\/a>,xxxxxxx@hotmail.com<\/a>, xxxxx@ucsd.edu<\/a>, xxxxxxxx@ucsd.edu<\/a>

Cc: cmvazquez@ucsd.edu<\/a>;, mstrong@ucsd.edu<\/a>;, naguilar@ucsd.edu<\/a>

Subject: URGENT: Issue with burn.ucsd.edu web site

xxxx, xxxxx, xxxx, and Che Cafe Collective:

Pursuant to the Section II.A.2. and 4 of the Memorandum of Understanding between the UCSD and AS\/GSA\/Co-ops, this letter will serve to inform you that the Che Café is in violation of UCSD policies and Federal law by maintaining the burn.ucsd.edu web site and using UCSD computer network resources to provide access to a terrorist organization. Presently, the burn.ucsd.edu web site includes links supporting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), an organization listed by the U.S. Department of State as a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

Providing material support or resources to a designated FTO is a violation of federal law (18 US 2339A, see http:\/\/www.state.gov\/s\/ct\/rls\/fs\/2002\/12389.htm<\/a>). Using UCSD computing resources to violate federal laws is against UCSD Policies, specifically the Acceptable Use Policies of Academic Computing Services (see http:\/\/www-acs.ucsd.edu\/lib\/aup.html<\/a>). Federal law also specifies that providing material support to support terrorists not only includes money and training but also includes communications equipment, personnel, and facilities. In this case, communications equipment is the use of the UCSD computer network resources, personnel are the Che Café members who maintain the server with burn web site, and facilities include the Che facility where the server is housed.

I am hereby instructing you to immediately remove the FARC from listing on the burn.ucsd.edu web site or any other web site that is uses the “ucsd.edu” domain name or any computer or other communications equipment or other resources or facilities used by the Che Café that are owned, leased or operated by UCSD. Your are further hereby instructed to immediately disconnect the link on burn.ucsd.edu to the FARC web site. Your failure to comply with the instructions noted in this notice will result in disciplinary action under the UCSD Student Conduct Code and\/or the termination of the MOU as it may apply to the Che Café. Principal members of the organization will also be held responsible for the actions of the organization.

Please confirm your compliance with these instructions by no later than Friday, September 20. Additionally, you should review the U.S. Department of State’s listing of FTOs (see http:\/\/www.state.gov\/s\/ct\/rls\/fs\/2002\/12389.htm<\/a>) and the content of the burn web site on a regular basis to be certain that links or material on the web site are in compliance with the UCSD Academic Computing Services Acceptable Use Policy and with all applicable laws.

Sincerely,

Gary Ratcliff

Director, University Centers

www.state.gov\/s\/ct\/rls\/rpt\/fto\/2001\/5258.htm

add your comments<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"San Diego based burn.ucsd.edu is being targeted as providing material support for terrorists because they LINK to a farc website. You see where this is going, right?","numcomment":14,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2002\/09\/19331.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":19343,"heading":"LINK = "Communications Equipment"","article":"The crux of the issue is for the UCSD administration, and by extension the US government, to prove and justify that a LINK = "communications equipment."\r\n\r\nThis, in my opinion, is an incredible stretch of the imagination and will fail if it were to pursued in a court. However, the kangaroo courts of the University of California will probably determine that a link is equivalent to computer hardware.\r\n\r\nNow is the time for EVERYONE on the internet to put a link to the FARC-EP et al to challenge this nonsense. And more importantly, UC students system wide should be putting up links to the FARC et al and every alleged terrorist organization found here:\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.state.gov\/s\/ct\/rls\/fs\/2002\/12389.htm\r\n\r\nso that the Che Cafe doesn't have to defend itself alone. In that spirit, here goes:\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.farc-ep.org\/\r\n\r\nFTP","author":"FTP","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-27 01:53:52","modified":"2002-09-27 01:53:52","fileurl":""},{"id":19356,"heading":"Take it off","article":"What overblown hyperbole. What a bunch of oily-faced meatheads. Take the flipping link off your site or get prosecuted, kiddies. FARC is a terrorist organization. They blow crap up and assassinate people. They occupy the Supreme Court building and butcher judges. They set off car bombs in the middle of cities.\r\n\r\nNo one is targeting you, they are telling you. And it is the UNIVERSITY that is telling you, not the government. They don\u2019t want you to support FARC or Hamas or Islamic Jihad on their nickel. If you want to plug your laptop in at home and give the KKK or the IRA a link, fine. Universities have been telling other organizations with links to hate and terrorist sites to cut it out for a long time now. So grow up.\r\n\r\nWe want to protest! We want to support terrorist groups in other countries! We want someone else to pay for it! We are a bunch of screaming jackasses!\r\n","author":"Douglas O'Brien","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-27 15:11:10","modified":"2013-11-10 23:46:49","fileurl":""},{"id":19358,"heading":"It's called the First Amendment, Mr. O'Brien","article":"This is a first amendment battle. If Mr. O'Brien actually believes that providing a link to an organization constitutes material support in the form of communications hardware, then it's clear that you would prefer censorship over constitutionally protected speech.\r\n\r\nHere's an article worth reading:\r\nhttp:\/\/news.com.com\/2100-1023-959544.html?tag=fd_top\r\n\r\nfrom the article above:\r\n\r\nThe Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) said UCSD's reading of the USA Patriot act was laughably censorious. \r\n\r\n"I think their interpretation of materially supporting terrorism is dreadfully overbroad and a massive threat to freedom of speech," said Greg Lukianoff, FIRE's director of legal advocacy. Lukianoff said FIRE was willing to represent the Che Cafe against the university, which must abide by the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech because it is a government school. \r\n\r\n"All you'd have to do is declare someone a terrorist organization to prevent someone from knowing who the enemy is or what they stand for," Lukianoff said. "That's not how democracy works." \r\n\r\nFTP","author":"FTP","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-27 15:48:54","modified":"2002-09-27 15:48:54","fileurl":""},{"id":19359,"heading":"It's called the First Amendment, Mr. O'Brien","article":"This is a first amendment battle. If Mr. O'Brien actually believes that providing a link to an organization constitutes material support in the form of communications hardware, then it's clear that you would prefer censorship over constitutionally protected speech.\r\n\r\nHere's an article worth reading:\r\nhttp:\/\/news.com.com\/2100-1023-959544.html?tag=fd_top\r\n\r\nfrom the article above:\r\n\r\nThe Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) said UCSD's reading of the USA Patriot act was laughably censorious. \r\n\r\n"I think their interpretation of materially supporting terrorism is dreadfully overbroad and a massive threat to freedom of speech," said Greg Lukianoff, FIRE's director of legal advocacy. Lukianoff said FIRE was willing to represent the Che Cafe against the university, which must abide by the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech because it is a government school. \r\n\r\n"All you'd have to do is declare someone a terrorist organization to prevent someone from knowing who the enemy is or what they stand for," Lukianoff said. "That's not how democracy works." \r\n\r\nFTP","author":"FTP","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-27 15:51:18","modified":"2002-09-27 15:51:18","fileurl":""},{"id":19360,"heading":"U.S. Air Force claims that a link does NOT equal support","article":"People will find this extremely interesting:\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.au.af.mil\/au\/aul\/bibs\/tergps\/tgtup.htm\r\n\r\nThis is an Air Force research page called "Air University Library Publications" where they link to the MRTA page on burn.ucsd.edu. What's interesting is that they have a disclaimer for the link, in the same way burn does for the university. It reads,\r\n\r\n"Inclusion of a link to a web site does not imply endorsement by the Air University Library or the United States Air Force."\r\n\r\nWell, gee, according to University of California, San Diego officials, it constitutes "material support" in the form of "communications hardware." Will the Air Force be targeted? Can you smell the hypocrisy?\r\n\r\nFTP\r\n","author":"FTP","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-27 16:31:35","modified":"2002-09-27 16:31:35","fileurl":""},{"id":19361,"heading":"Whine, whine, whine.","article":"What a load of crap. This doesn\u2019t have anything to do with the Patriot Act or the first amendment or the government at all. The flipping SCHOOL is telling the jerks to take the link off of the sight. The SCHOOL is using statutes to back up their position, but this is a far cry from being \u2018targeted\u2019. No government official has said anything to anyone concerning this subject. I don\u2019t think I heard you moralizing and wringing your soft little hands when the SCHOOL restricts free speech elsewhere. Where it enforces codes of speech and punishes violators without due process. Where was your concern? Isn\u2019t this the same SDSU that prosecuted a witch-hunt against a student newspaper for parody? Where was your concern then?\r\n\r\nI reiterate: If you want to link to a TERRORIST group, don\u2019t make the SCHOOL pay for it. \r\n","author":"Douglas O'Brien","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-27 17:08:30","modified":"2013-11-10 23:46:49","fileurl":""},{"id":19362,"heading":"O'Brien, You're an Idiot","article":"It's UCSD, not SDSU. You obviously aren't reading carefully. \r\n\r\nyou say, "If you want to link to a TERRORIST group, don’t make the SCHOOL pay for it." It demonstrates how little you know about the situation, or even care about the implications for freedom of speech. I'm not sure what you mean by "pay" for it since you are pretty incapable of making a cohesive argument, but if you mean materially, the school isn't. If you mean the school could face a lawsuit, then you are more naive then you lead on. The school will never get sued over this, they are simply using it as an excuse to justify a crackdown.\r\n\r\nFTP","author":"FTP","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-27 18:13:40","modified":"2002-09-27 18:13:40","fileurl":""},{"id":19363,"heading":"Idiot?! Well, OK.","article":""this letter will serve to inform you that the Che Caf\u00e9 is in violation of UCSD policies and Federal law by maintaining the burn.ucsd.edu web site and using UCSD computer network resources to provide access to a terrorist organization."\r\n\r\nI realize you are so much smarter than all of us, Mr. FTP, but the above passage seems to indicate that the SCHOOL is telling the JERKS to take a link to a TERRORIST organization off of their website which is hosted on the SCHOOL\u2019S COMPUTER NETWORK. The school pays for the network, Einstein. They also pay for the electricity to run it. If the worshippers of Che the Bolivian bullet catcher want to associate with terrorists, let them do it on their own server. The school is responsible for the content that is found on it\u2019s network.\r\n","author":"Douglas O'Brien","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-27 18:40:25","modified":"2013-11-10 23:46:49","fileurl":""},{"id":19371,"heading":"Brown Shirt O'Brien","article":"Bottomline:\r\n\r\n1. it is legitimate for any student organization to link to any website on the internet, regardless if they are controversial or not. student organizations have the right to use university resources for legitimate first amendment activities. YOU have not justified how a link constitutes "communications hardware." If the FARC hosted their site on the students server, then the argument has more weight. But that is not the case.\r\n\r\n2. stretching the patriot act to censor a website's LINKS (!) is ludicrous, frivolous, and constitutes an act of state censorship.\r\n\r\n3. if you believe in free speech, you support those views you disagree with, otherwise you do NOT believe in free speech. the link, in this case, is an act of free expression. if you support censoring it, you do not believe in free speech. period.\r\n\r\nFTP","author":"FTP","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-27 21:40:15","modified":"2002-09-27 21:40:15","fileurl":""},{"id":19378,"heading":"Bloody handed communist murderer FTP","article":"First thing: This is the second time in one conversation that a Leftist has called me a fascist. I am no more of a fascist than you.\r\n\r\nSecond: A student organization can do exactly what the university says it can do. Universities have, as I said above, for years enforced draconian \u2018speech codes\u2019. These represent actual violations of free speech. This is no such thing. This little tiff is about the SCHOOL telling the JERKS to take their link to a TERRORIST organization off of a website the SCHOOL is paying for. If you want to support terrorism pay for it yourself.\r\n\r\nThird: No one is stretching anything. Has anyone from the government (including your local dogcatcher) said anything about this? NO. This letter is from the SCHOOL not the GOVERNMENT. If you want to get all puffy and hyperventilate, then do so in the dean\u2019s office. You can\u2019t complain about ill treatment until you\u2019ve been ill treated.\r\n\r\nFourth: I absolutely believe in free speech. I also believe in the right of an organization to decide what is done with its resources. The SCHOOL owns the network. The JERKS are being told to take a link off of a site that the SCHOOL pays for. The SCHOOL is not saying that the JERKS can\u2019t support their pet terrorists; they\u2019re merely telling them to support them elsewhere.\r\n\r\nFinally: I don\u2019t need to justify how a link constitutes \u2018communication hardware\u2019. In the letter above it clearly says:\r\n\r\n\u201cIn this case, communications equipment is the use of the UCSD computer network resources, personnel are the Che Caf\u00e9 members who maintain the server with burn web site, and facilities include the Che facility where the server is housed.\u201d\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t particularly agree with this definition, but again it is the SCHOOL who is the author of the letter. If your pet Socialist\/fascist club wants to fight it, then fight it. But don\u2019t claim to be \u2018targeted\u2019.\r\n","author":"Douglas O'Brien","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-28 13:20:14","modified":"2013-11-10 23:46:49","fileurl":""},{"id":19381,"heading":"Is this website for real?","article":"This is the most idiotic thing I've seen on the internet so far. People arguing back and forth over something so insignificant. Doug, are you for real? Why would you waste your time arguing when it is with an obvious idiot that doesn't read a word you write?","author":"Friday","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-28 14:46:56","modified":"2002-09-28 14:46:56","fileurl":""},{"id":19384,"heading":"Good point.","article":"I'm reeeeeeeeelllllly bored at work, Friday.","author":"Douglas O'Brien","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-28 16:59:15","modified":"2002-09-28 16:59:15","fileurl":""},{"id":19388,"heading":"The students will win","article":"I can assure you that the students will fight this and they WILL WIN. Let's just see how far the administration is willing to push this issue.\r\n\r\nO'Brien, do recall something called the free speech movement at Berkeley? Remember that the administration claimed that students couldn't table on the plaza because the administration said so? Remember that they claimed it was university property and they had to abide by university rules in regards to political speech?\r\n\r\nWell, guess what happened? IT WAS CALLED THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT. And it won, and successfully allowed student organizations to have political opinions on campus. University proclomations about "university property" being used for political speech was beaten by students. The same thing will happen here, and for the same reasons.\r\n\r\nRemember that the UC system is a GOVERNMENT system. It is not a private institution. It has the governor on the board of REGENTS. They are accountable to the constitution. Just because some bonehead administrator claims that they are violating the Patriot Act doesn't make it so. The administration will have to do more than make absurd claims, they will have to fight to uphold that nonsense. AND I ASSURE YOU, the students will not give in so easily.\r\n\r\nFTP","author":"FTP","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-28 18:44:08","modified":"2002-09-28 18:44:08","fileurl":""},{"id":19409,"heading":"University takes a "step back"","article":"College Questioning Site's Link\r\nBy Amit Asaravala\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.wired.com\/news\/politics\/0,1283,55450,00.html\r\n\r\n2:00 a.m. Sep. 28, 2002 PDT\r\nOfficials at the University of California at San Diego are reconsidering a\r\nrecent decision that would have forced a student activist group to remove\r\nfrom its website a link to a known terrorist organization.\r\n\r\nThe activist group, known as Burn, hosts its site on university equipment\r\nand provides links to other radical organizations. One link directs visitors\r\nto the official site of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) --\r\none of the 34 groups on the U.S. government's list of foreign terrorist\r\norganizations.\r\n\r\nUCSD University Centers director Gary Ratcliff said the administration is\r\n"taking a step back" while it learns more about the site through the\r\nuniversity's legal counsel in Oakland, Ratcliff said.\r\n\r\nRatcliff sent the initial cease-and-desist letter to the Ch\u00e9 Caf\u00e9\r\nCollective, the university group that sponsors Burn, on Sept. 16. The letter\r\ncites a section of the USA Patriot Act that deems it unlawful for any U.S.\r\ncitizen to provide "material support or resources" to foreign terrorist\r\norganizations.\r\n\r\nThe Patriot Act has been heavily criticized by civil rights groups who claim\r\nit violates constitutional rights.\r\n\r\nA UCSD student and member of the Collective who says her name is Allie Katz\r\nnoted that Burn would not take down the link if the university decided to\r\nstand by its initial demand. "We see this as a free-speech issue," she said.\r\n"Merely having a link doesn't constitute material support."\r\n\r\nBret Fausett, an Internet attorney with Hancock, Rothert & Bunshoft, agrees\r\nwith Katz's assessment. "I simply find it a stretch to contend that a link\r\nto the farq-ep.org site provides 'material support' to a terrorist\r\norganization," said Fausett.\r\n\r\nThe site provides more than just a link to FARC, though. Visitors who click\r\non the link are taken to a splash screen hosted at burn.ucsd.edu before\r\nbeing redirected to the FARC site.\r\n\r\nRatcliff believes the splash screen might be an indicator of extended\r\nsupport for FARC. "The academic computing department has found that some\r\noutside groups have Unix accounts on the Burn server," said Ratcliff. "We're\r\nnot sure if FARC does, but that's why we'd like to talk further with the\r\nstudents."\r\n\r\nThe Burn site also hosts a number of Web pages promoting the Kurdistan\r\nWorker's Party (PKK) -- which the State Department also considers to be a\r\nterrorist organization.\r\n\r\n"Between the extremes of a scholarly article and an actual terrorist site,\r\nthere is a lot of gray," said Fausett. "If the link comes in the context of\r\na website that promotes terrorist activities and encourages readers to give\r\naid to FARC, then that likely is in violation of the law."\r\n\r\nDade Murphy, who is listed as a primary contact for Burn, did not respond to\r\nrepeated requests for comment.\r\n\r\nThe FARC issue is not the first time the university has clashed with Burn.\r\nKatz said the university threatened to shut down Burn in 1997 because of the\r\ngroup's Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement Solidarity Page, a portion of the\r\nsite that hosts news and statements about Peruvian rebels.\r\n\r\nIn April, UCSD officials succeeded in having the Groundwork Collective,\r\nBurn's previous sponsor, remove a link to the PKK.\r\n\r\nIf the university stands by its initial demand and succeeds in having the\r\nFARC link removed by way of the Patriot Act, the decision could set a\r\nprecedent for other public institutions looking to eradicate controversial\r\nlinks and sites.\r\n\r\nMembers of the Ch\u00e9 Caf\u00e9 Collective hope the situation does not reach that\r\npoint. "I would hope that, being a public university, UCSD would see the\r\nimportance of free speech," said Katz. "We choose to fight this."\r\n","author":"FTP","parent_id":19331,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2002-09-29 17:14:37","modified":"2013-11-10 23:46:50","fileurl":""}]}