Faking Security From Middlebury to Iraq

Author: Carl Larson

Middlebury College's installation of the Enhanced Access System (EAS) and the United States' war in Iraq were both justified by circumstances that later proved questionable. The Bush administration, despite objections from citizens and other nations, insisted that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Now, after a very expensive war, inspection results have little to show for illegal weapons.

The Middlebury College administration used the December 2001 assault of a sophomore in Hadley Hall to justify installation of a proximity card-based security system, which cost thousands of dollars.

For months, students insisted that the assault was an isolated, drug-related incident but the administration continued to investigate security system options. In the March 13, 2002, issue of The Middlebury Campus news came that Dr. Adam Thermos of the Strategic Technology Group had been brought in as a consultant to propose a new system for the College that he claimed would promote "enhanced access."

In that same issue, three months after the incident, Middlebury Police Chief Tom Hanley was quoted as saying that despite reluctance to label the December 2001 crime narcotics-related, "clearly drugs were involved." In the same article Director of Public Safety and Associate Dean of Student Affairs Lisa Boudah admitted, "Through the investigation (of the assault) it became apparent that there was less and less of a direct threat to the community." EAS, however, was here to stay.

Members of the Student Government Association, such as Ben LaBolt '03, were justifiably wary of the preliminary Strategic Technology Group proposal, which included possible surveillance cameras. Other concerns included the system's ability to track a student's every entry and exit.

The surveillance camera idea was quickly dropped and the ability to track students' cards was denied. However, just like the stories from the Bush administration about weapons from Niger, the story behind EAS changed, too. For instance, cards promised to work from within a backpack actually need to be held directly to a sensor.

In the Oct. 3, 2002, issue of The Campus, Assistant Treasurer Tom Corbin noted that "tracking is not a possibility and would be of no advantage to the department." Yet the first line of the next paragraph in the same article read, "The only possible time the school would review which cards unlocked which doors would be in the case of a major felony."

Later statements read "felony" in place of "major felony." With the Patriot Act, the United States gave Rumsfeld the right to tap our phone lines and check out what we were checking out of the library. With EAS, Middlebury College gave Boudah the right to track everyone who has ever entered Forest as long as a felony appeared to have been committed there.

Both the Patriot Act and EAS were supposed to make the world a safer place. Draw your own conclusions about national safety since the enactment of the Patriot Act and global safety since the war in Iraq, but I feel that safety at Middlebury has not been improved by EAS.

Now that the only center of Public Safety is located near the Center for the Arts, trying to flee to safety and/or warmth at 3 a.m. on a cold winter's night in the heart of campus can be technically impossible.

Without an enhanced access card, the College's late night landscape of locked doors gives vulnerable students being followed no place to hide and leaves under-clothed drunks passed out in snow-banks. Last year I witnessed the latter and on two occasions dragged unconscious students into the dorms next to which I found them.

But while the College Administration has been eager to install the EAS, it has refused to install more well-lit call boxes. While 30 boxes were stingily installed along with the access system, the question still remains, "Where are the boxes?" Where's the box on the access road behind Ross? Where's the box on Adirondack View? Where's the box in front of McCullough?

The argument for campus security has come up again since the murder of Colby senior Dawn Rossignol on Sept. 16.

In last week's Campus article about the murder at Colby, readers were told that Boudah showed confidence in EAS, saying, "We did not see anything (about the incident at Colby) that made us think we had to change our system."

The article then discusses "our system" and the cause for it citing an assault two years ago. Don't let history books tell children we went to war in Iraq over illegal weapons. Don't let Middlebury get away with controlling and monitoring our movement.

If Rossignol's death could have been averted, it would most likely have been thanks to a well-placed and visible call box, not an "Enhanced Access System." Don't be fooled.