President Spanier, you have always supported the use of legitimate file sharing programs for their value in education and legal transfer of ideas and information.

Now it seems you are doing a complete reversal by not fighting against the firewall that will be installed in the fall that will block file sharing programs like Kazaa ("Firewall will block Kazaa use," Nov. 14). It's fine if you need the firewalls in place to protect university computers, but our PCs are our responsibility.

It is up to the student to decide how they will use these programs, and they must live with the consequences. No one in the real world will be there to hold our hands.

If you really need to protect the network that badly, find a way to do it without blocking things like Kazaa. Otherwise, you risk becoming a hypocrite and an ineffective leader.