In the Old West, lawlessness prevailed.

Bandits held up trains, cattle rustlers stole cows and outlaws shot men just for snoring. People knowingly and purposely broke both the written and unspoken laws of the land, and the sheriffs charged with enforcing the laws were just as bad.

Today, here in the New East, far from dusty trails, tumbleweeds and saloons, a different dynamic seems to emerge.Unlike the Old West, laws are “accidentally” broken, and the perpetrators plead ignorance to blatantly illegal activities.In fact, laws are being broken at FAU on a daily basis under the guise that some laws are unclear, non-existent or not applicable to a certain situation.

Student Government has a history of breaking not only university policy but Florida state Sunshine Laws as well. Agencies like the Night Owls fail to follow legal procedure, dorm residents break housing rules all the time, and many of us break obscure state laws that we don’t even know exist, despite the fact that many of them are asinine and obsolete.FAU police patrol the campus, protecting students from potential criminal occurrences, but there is not much they can do to enforce the many “white collar” crimes that go blissfully – and repeatedly – undetected.

Do these infractions make students criminals? Not really, since their offenses may seem petty in the grand scheme of things. But since it is your money that funds SG, the Night Owls and the police – and they are all, in effect, state employees – we thought it might be worth taking a closer look at the law of FAU’s land.