When you go away to college, you may not feel like it, but you are an adult. You can join the military and fight to defend democracy, you can vote and drive a car. You can get married and have children if that suits your fancy.

You can take the law into your own hands if you choose and face the wrath of the powers that be as you are charged as an adult, but if you get caught drinking underage, the university might tattle on you.

If you have not familiarized yourself with the “snitch bill,” you should. Iowa lawmakers in the House and Senate have already given the go ahead to HF 2437 which would give college administrators the option of contacting the parents of anyone under the age of 21 if that student violates a school alcohol rule.

It is a gross violation of privacy and the bill should not even be, theoretically, possible in a country that touts itself as the land of the free.

Like so many other things in this fine country, freedom is only prized as a concept. When it comes to the practice of freedom, that is where we seem to get hung up time and time again.

Gov. Vilsack should not sign HF 2437 into law. He should veto it, tear it up and use it to line his cat’s litter box to show the proper contempt for this miserable piece of legislation.

How ironic is it that we live in a country where we do not even blink an eye when 14-year-olds can be tried as adults yet we continually treat college students like toddlers?

Part of being an adult is taking responsibility for ones actions. Like it or not, sometimes adults decide to break the law. We decide to speed when no one is around. We choose to disturb the peace and assemble without permission in order to protest. And sometimes, people who are not 21 decide to drink because they don’t care about the law that unfairly discriminates against them in the first place.

Very few people who took a drink underage were not aware of their willful lack of respect for the law and were perfectly content to take their chances on getting caught and paying the fine.

But now the state wants to resort to tattling to our parents? This is not good lawmaking, but rather childish, boorish, heinous disregard for the Constitutional rights we all take for granted.

The Iowa Civil Liberties Union is currently planning a campaign to turn the tables by asking college students to call the parents of lawmakers in the same spirit as this twisted little bill.

“If it is the proper role of government to interfere in the private relationship between an adult and his or her parent, then it is proper for citizens to ask the parents of lawmakers to get their adult children to behave as well,” said Ben Stone, ICLU’s executive director. “This is Big Brother at its worst.”

The governor will veto or sign the bill in the next three days. We can learn the names of the legislators who are trying to stick it to us at http://www.legis.state.ia.us/ or by contacting the ICLU in Des Moines at (515) 243-3988 or by e-mail at: [email protected].

Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Sara Ziegler, Greg Jerrett, Kate Kompas, Carrie Tett and David Roepke.