Scummy: "Round Up The Usual Suspects"

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The Oread Daily - June 6, 2002

ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Gen. Ashcroft, in his continuing effort to make the world safe for
democracy by getting rid of civil liberties, has announced a plan the
likes of which we haven't seen since WWII (The Big One).  The General
announced yesterday that 100,000 or more foreign visitors a year to
the "Land of the Free" will be fingerprinted, photographed,
interrogated, and required to register with the government.  Incoming
foreign nationals will be required to report to immigration
authorities within 30 days of their arrival.  Ashcroft refused to be
specific about the criteria that will be used to choose who will face
scrutiny when the program begins in the fall. He said citizens of
Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and the Sudan will be among them. Although
Ashcroft declined to identify others, saying only that many more
countries could be affected, other government officials said men 18
to 35 years of age from about 20 largely Muslim and Middle Eastern
nations, would make up the bulk of those who would be subject to the
new rules.  Ashcroft insisted that many European nations require
visitors to register. But senior Justice officials said they were
unaware of any that requires visitors to be fingerprinted. James
Zogby of the Arab American Institute said the Immigration and
Naturalization Service lacks the technology to carry out the plan.
''You can't take a broken, overloaded system and overload it with yet
more information and not expect it to break down further,'' he said.

Ashcroft said the "National Security Entry-Exit Registration System"
would eventually cover any of the 35 million people who visit the
United States each year if they pose a security concern. The criteria
for determining that threat will be largely kept secret.

Visitors will be asked if they are members of a terrorist
organization. (Clever move, General)

Arab Americans, civil liberties groups, immigration lawyers, and
educators whose schools have educated thousands of foreign students
questioned and criticized the proposed system. They contended it is
part of a steady encroachment on individual rights in the name of
fighting terrorism. Speaking about DOJ's move, Cato Institute Senior
Fellow in Constitutional Studies Robert A. Levy said: "? To satisfy
constitutional concerns, government must show that fingerprinting and
registration of persons other than U.S. citizens and permanent
resident aliens (i.e., green card holders) is an effective and
necessary answer to the systemic immigration problems that have
compromised national security. That showing hasn't been
made...Because the selection of persons appears to be based wholly on
nationality, the offending system is simply crude and unrefined
profiling, which civil libertarians properly condemn." Of course, it
is not members of Al Qaeda that will show up to register with the
government; it is just law-abiding aliens.  Sen. Edward Kennedy, who
heads the immigration subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
said the changes "will give U.S. government officials unfettered
discretion to use secret criteria to decide who should be registered
in a database we usually reserve for terrorists and criminals."

In a statement released today at a Capitol Hill news conference, the
Council on American-Islamic Relations said: "Recent policies
targeting Muslims and Arabs, including the interviewing of 8,000
legal visa holders, the detention without due process of some 1,200
individuals, the targeting of Muslim and Arab 'absconders,' the use
of secret evidence, the raids on Muslim homes and institutions, and
the new FBI guidelines allowing surveillance of mosques engaged in
legal activities, all failed to result in a single terrorism-related
arrest. Law-abiding residents in this country should not be made the
scapegoats for past intelligence failures." Sources: BuzzFlash,
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, USA Today, UMMAH News, Cato Daily
Dispatch

[The Oread Daily provides daily (Monday-Friday) progressive, left,
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revolutionary, etc. news and information from around the US and
around the world. The Oread Daily was a mimeographed sheet that came
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irreverent, radical, spicy, revolutionary et. al. Now, three decades
later it returns. To view the entire Oread Daily, please visit:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OreadDaily ]
 
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