Let’s face it. Americans like spying on one another almost
as much as they like Jesus and NASCAR. It’s in our blood.
Paul Revere spied on the British ““ the result was his famous
horseback ride. John Hancock spied on Thomas Jefferson having
relations with his slave ““ this allowed him to blackmail
Jefferson into letting him have the biggest signature on the
Declaration of Independence. The Bush administration spied on Iraq
““ this allowed us, armed with complete confidence in our
pre-war intelligence, to conquer the entire Middle East in seven
hours, including a lengthy lunch.
So don’t let the ninnies who are harping about America
having been built on ideals such as “personal freedom,”
“civil liberties” and “stop looking in my
underwear drawer” keep you from staying the course. America
and spying on people go together like whipped cream and apple pie.
As far as I’m concerned, if you’re concerned about
people secretly taping your lectures, filing through your Google
search records, or listening to you talk to your aunt on the phone,
then you must have something to hide.
This is why I’m proud of UCLA alumnus and founder of the
Web site UCLAProfs.com, Andrew Jones.
By formerly offering to pay students $100 to turn over extensive
notes, lecture recordings, and the outraged testimonials of
like-minded students for any class with a “radical”
liberal professor, Jones opened up his wallet for freedom.
Don’t listen to liberals who say it’s illegal to
sell lecture information without the consent of the professor.
First of all, Jones has said that he’d only accept materials
from students whose professors have consented to be recorded. And,
if we can’t trust professors to give their consent to a
clean-shaven student with a Bush/Cheney button on his backpack who
is wearing a new $100 polo shirt, then what is America coming
to?
In what was true entrepreneurial spirit, Jones offered several
reasonable payment options should a concerned student not have been
able or willing to meet the “exacting” standards for
materials on a professor.
“Full, detailed lecture notes, all professor-distributed
materials, and full tape recordings of every class session”
would have netted you the equivalent of one Benjamin in your
pocket. “Full, detailed lecture notes and all professor
distributed materials” would have gotten you $50, and
“advisory and all professor-distributed materials”
would have netted you $10.
This last option was really a winner ““ it was easy, and I
personally know six or seven professors who put “Bush
sucks” in capital letters at the top of every class
handout.
I’m already seeing the benefits of this revolutionary
program in the classroom. My psychology professor, after reading a
pertinent news story that mentioned the Bush administration in a
slightly negative manner, whipped around to look behind him for
spies and joked, “I hope nobody’s taping this
lecture.” I hope for your sake somebody was taping the
lecture, professor. That’ll teach you for reading the news in
class.
I hope you’ll agree with me in saying that surreptitiously
spying students should work much better than legal, above-the-table
review and university oversight measures to eradicate UCLA of
classes that are, as Jones puts it, “taught in an
unacceptable or unprofessional manner.” Jones’ Web site
is so focused on classroom performance that he would never post a
profile of a professor based not on lecture antics but on prior
jobs, campaign contributions and petitions he has signed completely
on his own time, right?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say if you’re
against UCLAProfs.com, you’re against America. You’ve
probably also had emergency meetings with your comrades to express
your outrage over the Justice Department’s court order trying
to force Google to turn over the search histories of millions of
users.
You probably think that looking through what people have looked
at on the Internet in their own time in the confines of their own
home constitutes an egregious violation of their privacy.
You probably also think the administration is only doing this in
order to circumvent the Supreme Court (it struck down an online
pornography law that the Justice Department was quite fond of).
But let me tell you why you’re wrong. The unsettling
precedent the court order would create is more than necessary in
order to catch the five stupidest child pornography viewers in
America ““ the ones who find their illegal pornography on
Google by searching “child AND pornography AND disgusting AND
arrest me please.”
Rest assured that your government will stop at nothing to keep
you safe from the foreign terrorist menace. This menace is so
menacing that even those who are neither foreign nor terrorists
could be involved in it. This is why, according to this
week’s Newsweek, the Pentagon felt it necessary to create a
top-secret group called “TALON” to “collect raw
information” on potential meetings of American terrorists
““ such as a student war protest at UC Santa Cruz.
Would you trust a banana slug who told you he wasn’t a
terrorist? Me neither.
All the recent controversy over different instances of spying
only proves that there are a lot of Americans who have things to
hide. I’m willing to bet there are a lot of professors with
things to hide as well. It must be despite this horde of radical
professors that the patriot Andrew Jones was able to get a good
enough education at UCLA that he could so effortlessly get his name
all over the national press.
If you want to be able to exercise your freedom as an American
not to have any privacy, your freedom to have J. Edgar Hoover
himself wiretap your biochemistry lecture, and your freedom to have
the Pentagon “collect raw information” on you while you
peaceably assemble, then join me in taking a stand. Join me in
proclaiming your love for spying. Oh, and don’t turn around
too suddenly ““ I’m standing right behind you.
If you haven’t figured out yet that it’s
Opposite Day, e-mail Atherton at datherton@media.ucla.edu.