Bubble police

As an underclassman at Princeton, I felt so protected and safe in the cushy orange bubble, only receiving about one Campus Safety Alert per semester. Almost two years ago, I wrote a column about the rude awakening that came with reports of laptop theft in Frist. People leaving their stuff around or rooms with open doors being robbed was about as serious as I remember it getting. This year, reports of multiple sexual assaults and more serious thefts have left me wary of more than someone walking off with my iPod.

Whenever I walk somewhere on campus, I always pass at least one Public Safety car and a blue-light phone or two, but I'm beginning to wonder if our campus safety system is really serving its intended purpose. The number of randos who walk around campus and ride their trick bikes around the dorm buildings at night wouldn't bother me if I didn't feel that their presence was going totally unnoticed by Public Safety. I've heard several stories of flashers on the toe-path and two separate incidents of old men sticking their heads in open dorm room doors to see if anyone was there. To be honest, I've never quite felt the same about the bathrooms in Frist since this fall.

The recent 'Prince' article about Public Safety officers using information from facebook.com to crack down on partiers and building-climbers leaves me feeling like the real safety issues on campus are not being addressed. Other schools have tough RCAs who police room parties and underage drinking, and I think most of us are glad we've been spared from that system. The problem, however, lies in the fact that our Public Safety officers are becoming too concerned with attacking us and not enough with protecting us. Past generations of Princeton students called Public Safety officers "Procs," short for "proctors," as a sort of "five oh" slang to warn when a party was going to be broken up.

Obviously, if Public Safety is a kind of police force for the University, they're technically required to address issues like loud partying and underage drinking. The whole Facebook issue, however, seems like an underhanded attempt to catch us doing stupid college things and suggests that the campus safety system is excessively focusing on issues that leave more serious threats unaddressed. Yes, we're the ones choosing to put up information about ourselves on the internet, but we shouldn't have to worry about how much of someone's dorm room is showing in one of our photos.

I don't think I could have put it better than Public Safety Deputy Director Charles Davall, who said that looking at students' private information through the Facebook would be like "Big Brother." The story of Aaron Dawes '06, whose excessive garbage situation apparently warranted a full-blown Facebook investigation complete with printed-out picture and manila folder, particularly irked me. Davall claims the Facebook is only used by officers as a follow-up measure, mainly for obtaining contact information. Since when is a picture of a soused guy at a frat party considered essential contact information? If Public Safety officers need to get in touch with us, there is no reason why they should need to consult the Facebook. If pictures for identification purposes are needed, the University has its own online facebook. But what do they do if they need to know where we live on campus, or they need to call us? Are they not aware of U-CALL or the Princeton People search on the University's website? It's almost scary how easy it is to find all kinds of personal information about Princeton students, information that the students themselves did not even post online.

I'm not saying that the campus needs to go on lockdown or that Public Safety officers need to be walking around on foot everywhere. Princeton isn't exactly the middle of New York City, and I think a lot of us chose the school just for that reason — we liked its "campusy," suburban-but-not-too-isolated feel. If Public Safety is enforcing the rules, that's fine. I just think it needs to refocus its efforts on more serious issues and make students feel like they're more on our side not against us. All that said, who isn't going to poke them now? Laura Berner is a psychology major from Rye, New York. She can be reached at lberner@princeton.edu.