Baruch Times Article
N.S.A. Plan to Log Calls Is Renewed by Court
WASHINGTON — The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court released a new legal opinion on Friday that reauthorized the once-secret National Security Agency program that keeps records of every American’s phone calls. The opinion also sought to plug a hole in a similar ruling made public last month.
n the six-page opinion, which was signed on Oct. 11, Judge Mary A. McLaughlin said she was personally approving for the first time the extension of the call log metadata program, which must be approved every 90 days. But she wrote that she endorsed a lengthy legal opinion written by a colleague, Judge Claire V. Eagan, who was the previous judge to approve extending it.
Judge Eagan’s opinion, which was made public last month, held that the N.S.A. could lawfully collect the bulk data about all Americans’ calls without warrants, in part because of a 1979 case, Smith v. Maryland. In that matter, the Supreme Court held that call records were not protected by the Fourth Amendment because suspects had exposed that metadata to their phone companies and had no reasonable expectation of privacy.
continued on page 10-http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/19/us/nsa-plan-to-log-calls-is-renewed-by-court.html?ref=technology
Baruch freshmen settle into urban campus life
The semester has finally picked up at Baruch College, as a September marked by many holidays has finally passed.
Now that it is October, freshmen are finding that their expectations of college have been met, exceeded, or fallen short.
Sixteen-year-old Freshman Sydney Stern has had a particularly bad experience at Baruch thus far.
Her intended major is either pre-med or psychology, but she is already planning on transferring because she feels that Baruch has, “beyond anything else, failed me as a student.”
“I expected classes to be packed and a lot more work. Currently, school is very easy and not a lot of work. I expected large classes with big lecture halls,” she said.
continued on page 5-http://ticker.baruchconnect.com/article/baruch-freshmen-settle-into-urban-campus-life/
Democrats Aim to Restore Immigration to Agenda
As the fiscal crisis subsided and the government went back to work this week, President Obama and other leading Democrats were quick to say that an immigration overhaul should be back on the agenda in Congress.
Mr. Obama raised the issue in his first comments after lawmakers reached a deal to reopen the government, and on the night the shutdown ended the three top Senate Democrats said they hoped to extend the bipartisan moment that produced the compromise by taking up immigration.
“Let’s move on,” said the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada. He added that he hoped “the next venture is making sure we do immigration reform.”
But the possibilities for progress on the issue will be determined in the House of Representatives, where many conservative Republicans are fuming with frustration over their meager gains from the two-week shutdown and turning their ire against Mr. Obama, saying he failed to negotiate with them. It will be up to Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio to discern whether relations with the White House are simply too raw for House Republicans to consider legislation on an issue the president has made a priority.
continued on page 2- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/19/us/politics/democrats-aim-to-restore-immigration-to-agenda.html?ref=politics
A Nudge to Poorer Students to Aim High on Colleges
The group that administers the SAT has begun a nationwide outreach program to try to persuade more low-income high school seniors who scored high on standardized tests to apply to select colleges.
The group, the College Board, is sending a package of information on top colleges to every senior who has an SAT or Preliminary SAT score in the top 15 percent of test takers and whose family is in the bottom quarter of income distribution. The package, which includes application fee waivers to six colleges of the student’s choice, will be sent to roughly 28,000 seniors.
The program is the largest response so far to new research showing that most low-income students with high test scores and grades do not even apply to, let alone attend, select colleges. Forgoing significant financial aid, many students may instead enroll in nearby colleges with low graduation rates.
Judith Scott-Clayton, an economist at Columbia who is not involved in the outreach program, said the lack of applicants is one of the rare hurdles in education that could be easily addressed.
continued on page 15-http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/education/for-low-income-students-considering-college-a-nudge-to-aim-high.html
A Gap Year Is Much Better
The next generation of Americans needs be one that understands what it means to be a citizen of the world, not just a citizen of their country. Study abroad addresses part of this need, gap years go even further.
Whatever profession we, as American students, choose, we will all be interacting with the world. We need that global savvy: fluency in other cultures and ability to adapt to novel situations. For me, that came from a year in China. I applied for a scholarship for a year there, and got it. I went right after I graduated high school. Total cost: a plane ticket.
When I tell people about my gap year, I don’t say I “studied abroad.” I say I lived in China. I became conversationally proficient in Mandarin. I found myself asked to explain beliefs I had never thought to question, like why Americans hold free speech so dear. I became a part of the Chinese community in a way only possible in a full year. On top of that, I started at Brown already having a year of global learning.
continued on page 7-http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/10/17/should-more-americans-study-abroad/a-gap-year-to-live-abroad-not-study
Stumbling Blocks in Reducing Balance on a Student Loan
YOU’VE been working hard and paying your student loans on time, and you find yourself with a bit of extra cash. So you decide that instead of spending it, you’ll make an extra loan payment, to whittle down your principal faster and save money on interest
But when you receive your next statement, your loan servicer appears to have merely credited you with an early payment for next month, rather than applying the money to your principal.
Difficulties in having payments properly applied to a loan balance are among the most common complaints the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau receives about student loans, according to the bureau’s second annual report on the topic…..
Rest on page 3- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/your-money/stumbling-blocks-in-reducing-balance-on-a-student-loan.html?ref=education&_r=0