BY MATT HUTCHINS
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Some time between 4:00 p.m. on Friday, February 20 and 10:00 a.m. the following Monday, an unidentified person entered the offices of the Harvard Law Record and stole the newspaper’s digital camera.
When I entered the office that Monday, I was not immediately alarmed by its absence, for any of our many other staff members (Andrew or Chris) could have been using it to photograph an event on campus. It was only the next day, during Howell Jackson’s town hall address that the camera’s absence became conspicuous. After the conclusion of the event, I searched the office and contacted the entire staff (including Linda) to try and locate the missing device. I noticed that the charger was still in the office, and saw that as a positive sign that it had probably not been stolen. However, after receiving a resounding negative to all inquiries, the only conclusion to be made was that someone had pilfered the device.
Wednesday morning, I entered the office at 10:00 a.m. and found definitive evidence that whoever had stolen the camera could access our office whenever they saw fit. The camera charger was no longer there. Immediately, I moved to action, informing Harvard Facilities and Police that a theft had occurred and our premises were not secure. To their credit, the HUPD sent an officer over promptly to file a report and collect serial numbers, and Facilities immediately had a locksmith come to change the locks.
The story now becomes a sad one, for as each day goes by, I reach for my trusty megazoom camera and come up empty, losing countless opportunities to photograph the stars of legal academia as they expound upon principles of international law and constitutional scholarship. Just this week, the ILJ’s symposium will come and go with no camera available to capture the day. As the pages of the Record languish in black and white with no images to break up the text, the need to replace our lost equipment will translate itself from emotional loss to financial. Fortunately, the future looks bright for the Record getting a replacement for its stolen property. Even though our locks have been changed, we will be more careful this time. After all, as George W. Bush said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . . .”