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To the editor,

Well, good news for all you "One World" people out there: Big Brother can now look over your shoulder at all times (and so can anyone else for that matter). I was browsing today's paper when I saw John Ward's complaints against the university for posting so much private information in its various directories and databases. I found it quite amusing that John is concentrating on that particular source considering how many others there are out there. If you think the campus directory is a problem, then try these out for size: Did you know that you can go online and easily access the public records of anyone who has ever had ANY dealings with the government, be it civil, criminal or commercial? You can quickly type in your last name and find that "Jane Doe" (who was born on 12/17/78, incidentally) got a speeding ticket on June 10, 1995 and had to pay a $40 fine in addition to taking traffic school for three days.

You can also see that your neighbor, "Mr. X" was arrested and taken to jail on cocaine possession charges on Feb. 4, 1999 and is currently on probation awaiting his hearing. Why, you can even check if Jim Click has paid his property taxes this year or not. Wake up, people! If someone wanted to discover everything about you, there are far more useful and easily-accessible information sources out there than the UA student directory! You can even perform complete criminal background, credit and employment checks on anyone if you're willing to spend the time looking.

And with the census coming up again next year (which, I might add, will be the most thorough to date, considering computer technology in use today) it might even list your favorite vegetable! There's even an internationally supported group called Project Echelon that filters all electronic communications on this planet for key words like "revolution" or "bomb" supposedly to prevent terrorism. So why don't you lay off the university considering that you lost your privacy a long time ago thanks to the visionary work of such men as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Welcome to the computer age, where information is power and they've got it all! Oh, and by the way, you can tell the university not to make your information accessible. Not that it really matters...

Jacob Lauser

Electrical engineering sophomore