Two Scandals, One Connection: The FBI link between Penn State and UC Davis

[darth marth]

So THIS is what they are doing with Homeland Security money??
http://www.thenation.com/blog/164783/two-scandals-one-connection-fbi-link-between-penn-state-and-uc-davis


Two shocking scandals. Two esteemed universities. Two disgraced university leaders. One stunning connection. Over the last month, we’ve seen Penn State University President Graham Spanier dismissed from his duties and we’ve seen UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi pushed to the brink of resignation. Spanier was jettisoned because of what appears to be a systematic cover-up of assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s serial child rape. Katehi has faced calls to resign after the she sent campus police to blast pepper spray in the faces of her peaceably assembled students, an act for which she claims “full responsibility.” The university’s Faculty Association has since voted for her ouster citing a “gross failure of leadership.” The names Spanier and Katehi are now synonymous with the worst abuses of institutional power. But their connection didn’t begin there. In 2010, Spanier chose Katehi to join an elite team of twenty college presidents on what’s called the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, which “promotes discussion and outreach between research universities and the FBI.”

Spanier said upon the group’s founding in 2005, “The National Security Higher Education Advisory Board promises to help universities and government work toward a balanced and rational approach that will allow scientific research and education to progress and our nation to remain safe.” He also said that the partnership could help provide “internships” to faculty and students interested in “National Security issues.”

FBI chief Robert Mueller said at a press conference with Spanier, “We knew it would not be necessarily an easy sell because of the perceived tension between law enforcement and academia. But once we’ve briefed President Spanier on the national security threats that impact all of you here at Penn State and at other universities, it became clear to all of us why this partnership is so important. “

But the reality of this partnership is far different. Its original mandate was about protecting schools from “cyber theft” and “intellectual property issues.” As has been true with the FBI since Hoover, give them a foothold, and they’ll take off their shoes and get cozy. Their classified mandate has since expanded to such euphemisms as “counter-terrorism” and “public safety.” It also expanded federal anti-terrorism task forces to include the dark-helmeted pepper-spray brigades, otherwise known as the campus police.

[enough]

1. In addition, Linda Katehi was instrumental in undoing a longstanding Greek policy of

excluding police from college campuses.

http://crookedtimber.org/2011/11/22/athens-polytechnic-comes-to-uc-davis/

Athens Polytechnic comes to UC Davis

by John Quiggin on November 22, 2011

A Greek friend has sent me lots of information on links between the suppression of dissent at UC Davis and similar events in Greece from the days of the military junta to the present. Here’s a video commemorating the 1973 uprising centred on Athens Polytechnic, which led to the downfall of the military junta the following year<1>. the last title says “The Polytechneio lives on. In struggles today.” Link

Among the legacies of the uprising was a university asylum law that restricted the ability of police to enter university campuses. University asylum was abolished a few months ago, as part of a process aimed at suppressing anti-austerity demonstrations. The abolition law was based on the recommendatiions of an expert committee, which reported a few months ago (report here, in Greek).

snip>

Among the authors of this report – Chancellor Linda Katehi, UC Davis. And, to add to the irony, Katehi was a student at Athens Polytechnic in 1973.

end of article> See article for links.

[sabrina 1]

2. Interesting. She needs to go, such people do not belong in

educational institutions, but over the years, it looks like they have insinuated themselves, with some some powerful help, into our schools and universities.

Hopefully this will lead to more exposure of exactly who is running these institutions and maybe laws, as they had in Greece.

I have also read that her salary is over $400,000, twice the salary of the US President. And who pays for that? Looks like the students are the ones paying, with the constant raises in tuition turning what used to be free education into too expensive for many Americans. A good start would be to cut that salary at least in half.

[beac]

7. And she had the NERVE to say "I was there" (at the Athens Polytechnic Uprising)

when making her first non-apology to the UCD students. :mad:

Why isn't she GONE yet?

[Downwinder]

3. When do the campus police start suiting up in riot gear

for crowd control for football games?

[Remember Me]

4. Boy am I glad you posted this. Here's more --

I found this last night, just googling around a bit. It's a little more about PERF, and offers nothing more than a bit of information about Wexler, who was on those PERF-city conference call, as well as a glimpse at how our "national security" apparatus was/is getting more and more friendly with our campuses, or some campuses, or THESE campuses:

re PERF:
Reports of at least a dozen cities and some indication of as many as 40 accepting PERF advice and/or strategic documents include
San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Portland, Oakland, Atlanta, and Washington DC. The San Francisco Police Department and Mayor Ed Lee's
office did not returned the Guardian's request for comment about the PERF calls by press time. However, Oakland interim
Police Chief Howard Jordan was quoted by the Associated Press confirming Oakland and San Francisco police involvement
in the strategy sessions. PERF coordinated a November 10 conference call with city police chiefs across the country –
and many of these cities undertook crackdowns shortly afterward.
http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2011/11/18/cop-group-coordinating-occupy-crackdowns

PERF
Founded in 1977, the organization currently performs research funded mainly through government contracts with
the Department of Homeland Security and donations from companies such as Motorola and Lockheed-Martin. PERF runs
its police executive training course, SMIP, on the Boston University campus each summer, with professors from
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government teaching courses in leadership, crisis management, and organizational theory.
Its board of directors includes police chiefs from across the country.
While in Boston, he got to know two-time PERF Board President William Bratton, who once served as Boston
Police Commissioner under former governor Mitt Romney and now serves, like Wexler, as an appointee to the
Homeland Security Advisory Council. He is also a friend of longtime PERF Member-at-Large and Boston Police
Commissioner Ed Davis.
http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/130305-perf-ect-storm/#ixzz1es4V76fI

[Dawson Leery]

5. Ironically, Dianne Feinstein does not like this provision.

http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=d5f1339a-44cc-4e09-86e5-c961d9c30b13

[emcguffie]

6. This article deserves some attention, doesn't it?

I ran across it elsewhere, and was going to post it. But I found this post with its few responses from yesterday.