UC Tries To Censor BURN!

Press Release From the Ché Café Collective

On September 16, 2002, UCSD administration notified the Ché Café Collective that they were allegedly "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." Gary Ratcliff, director of the University Centers at UCSD, wrote that the Ché Café and burn.ucsd.edu were providing material support in the form of communication equipment, personnel and facilities to a Foreign Terrorist Organization by maintaining "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)."

In his letter, Mr. Ratcliff instructed the Ché Café Collective "to immediately remove the FARC from [the] listing on the burn.ucsd.edu web site" and to "immediately disconnect the link on burn.ucsd.edu to the FARC web site." He made it clear that the Ché Café would suffer consequences should they not acquiesce to his demands. He threatened that "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."

Later, the UCSD administration changed its story when giving various media interviews, saying that it is not the link, but a page (http://burn.ucsd.edu/~farc-ep) that appears for approximately 5 seconds before the link takes the browser to http://farc-ep.org. The University's lawyers claimed that because there is a .ucsd.edu in the address of this page that it is providing material support to a terrorist organization.

After the Ché Café refused to remove the links or censor information, the UCSD administration sent a second letter; this time through Nick Aguilar, Director of Student Policies and Judicial Affairs at UCSD. In this second letter, Mr. Aguilar states that the Ché Café "has discontinued both the hosting and the redirecting activities of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia [sic] (FARC) web site by 'BURN'." While the Ché contended that neither they nor BURN! hosted the FARC web site in the first place, the redirect did not change and is still functional (you can try it out for yourself at http://burn.ucsd.edu/~farc-ep). While Mr. Aguilar's statement may seem surprising, it is possible that he was referring to the fact that the FARC's home page, http://farc-ep.org, which has nothing to do with either the Ché Café or BURN!, has been taken down and replaced by online gambling (and has disappeared from both the Google Cache and http://archive.org). This would account for his error... except that the FARC home page was taken down days after he sent this letter to the Ché Café Collective. (One might be tempted to think that other agencies were involved in this attack on burn.ucsd.edu).

Though he claimed that the Ché had satisfactorily met the University's requirements concerning the FARC web site and even wrote, "Thank you for making this correction," Mr. Aguilar was not satisfied. He requested that the Ché Café "discontinue the hosting and the redirecting activities for the PKK." The part of BURN! in question is at http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/PKK/pkk.html. The page contains historical information from the late 90's about the Kurdistan Workers Party, which is no longer in existence. The official home page of the PKK can be found at http://pkk.org (at least until it is taken down and replaced with online gambling).

BURN! started as a student project in the communications department in the early 1990's as an experiment in a new type of media. Instead of publishing information written about various social protagonists, BURN! publishes information written by them. Primary source media eliminates the go-between because the best way to learn about what's going on is to hear it from the people who are actively involved. The information that is published on burn.ucsd.edu is used for research by academics and journalists throughout the world.

A lot of the information found on BURN! is unavailable elsewhere. In the interest of preserving academic freedom and availability of information, BURN! publishes information that is censored by various governments. This information is also used by people who live in the countries where it is coming from, because the difficulty of getting news there.

The internet has huge possibilities for the dissemination of information. With the internet, there is much more freedom to distribute and to access information, making this new type of media possible. We no longer need to look to the television or newspapers to learn about current events and the people participating in them, because we can just look to these people directly and decide what we think on our own. BURN! facilitates this by publishing primary source information to allow people to bypass the traditional corporate media as sources for information.

The Ché Café Collective and burn.ucsd.edu refuse to be pressured into censoring dissenting information. Even before 9/11, there were concerted attempts to violate the First Amendment by attacking burn.ucsd.edu. They have had to move multiple times due to the administration's attempts to shut it down. In the summer of 2000, both the Ché Café and BURN! came under attack. BURN! was shut down for basically the same reasons as the administration is giving now. It was first kicked out of the Communications Department at UCSD (where it started in 1990) and relocated to the Groundwork Bookstore (one of four independent student run co-ops at UCSD, like the Ché Café). BURN! was chased out of Groundwork earlier this year. This is when the Ché decided to take responsibility for publishing the site.

The Ché Café was started as a co-op coffee house and vegetarian restaurant in 1980 by students, faculty and members of the San Diego community. From its beginning it was involved in UCSD campus politics and has been a space for leftist activists and students questioning the authority of UCSD administration. It has also become an important venue for independent music in San Diego.

We at the Ché Café strongly question the motivation behind these attacks. They are obviously an attempt to both silence voices of opposition (foreign and local). But they are also the latest chapter in a long history by UCSD administration to shut down the co-ops, the Ché Café and BURN. When looking at the regularity of attacks on these and other leftist organizations at UCSD, it is clear that a deliberate and conscious attempt is being made to intimidate students through use of force in order to achieve the goals laid out by the administration.

We also question legislation, such as the death penalty and sedition act from 1996, 18 US 2339A that is being used destroy important information. When legislation such as this can be used to justify such blatantly absurd attacks as this, we are on the brink of entering into an age of fascism to rival Nazi Germany, where such censoring of dissenting views was common. We question the reasons that the UCSD administration or the U.S. Government have to be afraid of information about groups that oppose it. If it claims itself to be a democracy, the U.S. should promote access to information because it is this information that enables the public to make better decisions.

We call on all who consider Free Speech and Academic Freedom something to be fought for and guarded, to contact UCSD administration, Chancellor Dynes at (858) 534-3135 dynes@ucsd.edu, Nick Aguilar at (858)534-6225 naguilar@ucsd.edu, Joseph Watson at (858) 534-4370 jwwatson@ucsd.edu, and Gary Ratcliff at (858) 534-1956 grratcliff@ucsd.edu.

We further call on all who are against Fascism to stand up against the Patriot Act, George Bush, and America's TERRORIST war on the world's people, now celebrating its 226th year of success.

For more information and to read all correspondence between the UCSD administration and the Ché Café, visit http://checafe.ucsd.edu. For more information about BURN! visit http://burn.ucsd.edu.