FBI Forges Closer Ties To Campus Cops

Federal authorities have begun enlisting campus police officers in the domestic war on terror, renewing fears among some faculty and student groups of overzealous FBI spying at colleges and universities that led to scandals in decades past, The Washington Post reports in its Saturday editions.

That report comes on the heels of one Friday from The Associated Press quoting sources as saying the bureau is questioning as many as 50,000 Iraqis living in the United States in a search for potential terrorist cells, spies or people who might provide information helpful to a U.S. war effort.

Agents have fanned out across the country to interview Iraqis in their homes and where they work, study and worship. A senior government official, describing the program to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said the interviews began about six weeks ago and will last several months.

The FBI is looking for people who might wish to harm America or whose visas have expired. The agency also is seeking those who might be interested in helping the United States overthrow Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president whose rule many of them fled, AP says.

About 300,000 people of Iraqi origin living in the United States, according to the Iraqi-American Council. There are large Iraqi communities in Michigan, California, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

The Bush administration has long been searching for definitive links between Saddam's government and al-Qaida or other terror organizations. Aziz al-Taee, chairman of the council, said people who have been interviewed told him the FBI is "asking if anybody knows someone who worked with Saddam. They asked about a list of some who have vanished. They are asking about terrorist cells."

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the FBI has strengthened or established working relationships with hundreds of campus police departments, in part to gain better access to insular communities of Middle Eastern students, the Post reports.

On at least a dozen campuses, the FBI has included collegiate police officers as members of local Joint Terrorism Task Forces, the regional entities that oversee counterterrorism investigations nationwide, the newspaper points out.

Some officers have been given federal security clearance, which allows them access to classified information. Their supervisors often do not know which cases these officers are working on because details cannot be shared, officials said to the Post.

The FBI and many campus police officers view the arrangements as a logical, effective way to help monitor potential terrorist threats and keep better tabs on the more than 200,000 foreign nationals studying in the United States, the Post explains. Several of the Sept. 11 hijackers were enrolled as students at American flight schools, and one entered the country on a student visa but never showed up at the school.

"Campus law enforcement is starting to get a lot more recognition from the FBI and other federal agencies now, because they're realizing we do have police departments and we can play a vital role in stopping terrorism," H. Scott Doner, police chief at Valdosta State University in Georgia and president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, told the Post. "Everybody's got to have their eyes and ears open to make sure something doesn't happen again."

But the Post says effort has touched a nerve among some faculty and student groups, as well as Muslim activists, who fear that the government is inching toward the kind of controversial spying tactics it used in the 1950s and 1960s. With few restrictions, the FBI at the time aggressively monitored, and often harassed, political groups, student activists and dissidents.

Faculty leaders and administrators argue that U.S. colleges and universities are unique places devoted to the exchange of ideas, and that even the hint of surveillance by government authorities taints that environment, the Post says.

"This type of cooperation is perfectly valid if it's based on criminal activity, but the danger with the FBI is that it doesn't always limit itself to that," Sarah Eltantawi, spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said to the Post. "Given the FBI's history, there's a definite concern that they will go too far."

Closer ties between the FBI and campus police are the latest example of the government's determination to keep better tabs on foreign students and faculty in the United States. The efforts have met resistance at many colleges, which are accustomed to a fair amount of independence from government scrutiny and which often are home to activists suspicious of the FBI, the Post reports.

This month, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is launching a computerized tracking system for all foreign nationals studying in the United States, a program that was stalled for years, in part by university complaints. Some FBI field offices have also asked local universities and colleges for detailed lists of foreign students and faculty, prompting objections from academic groups and several U.S. senators.