Air Force e-mails an invasion of privacy for UNM students

Editor,

I don’t know who gave permission for UNM’s general e-mail list to be used for Air Force recruitment purposes, but I strongly object to it. I think it is wrong for a student list to be used this way. When I signed up for UNM e-mail, I certainly did not give permission for my e-mail to be used for this kind of access.

Let this serve as my formal request for this type of UNM e-mail usage to stop immediately. I think it is highly improper if someone in the administration gave permission for this to be done. I would appreciate if any of you could look into this and prevent any further use of UNM’s e-mail list in this way — or at least, if possible, let me know whom I can write to and object to about this situation.
I do not support UNM’s involvement in support of the “war machine” in any case, and I do not think the general student body should be taken advantage by military personnel who presume their right to recruit people from the general list.

Those who want to participate in the military can choose to attend ROTC and register for whatever they wish to register for. If they want to be part of the military, they know how to do it.

Those who do not want to participate in the military should not be lobbied in any form whatsoever, especially through e-mail, as it is invasive and abusive. It also presumes use of personal e-mail for political purposes that I, for one, have not granted permission. I may have to accept recruitment efforts on campus even though I object to them, but at least I can walk by and not be forced to relate to them.

This e-mail sent to the general student body goes too far, not only in imposing it upon me personally, but because, ethically and legally, I believe it is an improper use of the general student e-mail list. Again, I strongly request that this be stopped immediately and that there be a policy put in place to prevent any further infractions and abuses of the student e-mail list for military (and thus, implicitly also, for political) purposes.

I cannot send a reply directly to any of the senders in the usual manner (reply to all), or to the original sender, because the original message will only accept a digitally signed ID in order to do that, and I refuse to do that.

If this gets to you, it will be because I had to cut and paste what was sent out into a different message in order for me to send it out. Using a UNM list for recruitment purposes is totally improper and unacceptable. It should not be happening. Although I would rather not receive any recruitment e-mail, it actually is better that I received this so I can object extremely strongly to it. I intend to object to any and all administrative sources who allowed the UNM lists to be used this way.

Varda Brahms
UNM graduate student