UW-Madison Police will Not Question Foreigners

UW-Madison police will not question foreigners
10:44 PM 12/06/01
Andy Hall Wisconsin State Journal

   UW-Madison police on Thursday joined a handful of law-enforcement agencies across the country that are refusing to assist the U.S. Justice Department in questioning 5,000 foreigners about the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks.
   A local Islamic leader praised the university police for showing sensitivity to foreign residents, but law-enforcement officials in Madison and Milwaukee said other federal, state and local agencies will press ahead with interviews of about 130 Wisconsin residents named on a Justice Department list.
   "The purpose of the project is to, in a very non-threatening, non-controversial manner, contact the people who are on the list we received from the Department of Justice," said Grant Johnson, interim U.S. attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, which includes Madison. Investigators will request interviews, but "if they say no, we'll thank them and leave. If they say they want an attorney, we'll say fine ... have your attorney call ... and we'll set it up."
   Asked to react to UW-Madison's decision, Johnson said, "I certainly don't have any qualms about that whatsoever." It's not necessary for university police to participate, he said.
   In a carefully worded statement, UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley announced that the university's police department "has declined to participate in arranging and conducting interviews for the U.S. Attorney's Office with a number of Dane County residents, including UW-Madison international students."
   Wiley said the university always has, and will, cooperate with investigations of "suspected criminal activity."
   "But university officials, including me, believe the criteria to select individuals for interviews ... is broadly based and appears to consist of people who are not suspected of any crimes or suspicious activities," he wrote, echoing language from a Nov. 27 announcement that University of Michigan police also will refrain from the interviews.
   UW-Madison police, Wiley said, will remain active on an anti-terrorism task force headed by the U.S. Attorney's Office that includes federal, state and local agencies.
   In an interview, Wiley said he doesn't object to other members of the task force interviewing foreigners. "I do have an objection to our police doing it," he said.
   One concern, Wiley said, is that although the interviews are described as voluntary, people who decline to be interviewed could face coercion from law-enforcement agencies.
   Earlier in the week, Madison police Chief Richard Williams said his department will work with federal officials, if requested, but he does have concerns about the process. "It's religious and racial profiling," Williams said. "They're being looked at because of their race, religion and culture ... The test will be to define some behavior beyond the fact that they're Muslims from a certain country."
   Other police agencies declining to take part in the interviews include those in San Mateo and San Jose in California and Portland and Corvallis in Oregon, the Associated Press reported.
   Salih Erschen, outreach coordinator for the Islamic Community of the Madison Area, said the estimated 2,500 to 3,000 Muslims in Dane County will appreciate the UW-Madison Police's decision.
   "I think it's a noble thing that the police (are) going to stay away, the UW police at least, because a lot of the people that might be questioned, at least in Madison, would probably be UW students," Erschen said.
   He described the local Islamic population as "amazingly beautiful, wonderful people ... very much concerned and enveloped in their career and their studies. For the most part what you see in Madison is Muslims who are very devoted to research and getting a higher degree, a lot of doctors, engineers."
   Despite federal officials' vows that the interviews are voluntary, Erschen said, "in the end they know it's going to cause hardship in the hearts of these people, no matter what."
   Johnson, the interim U.S. Attorney, said the interviews are "an investigative technique that's used every day. If you have a bank robbery and there's a blue car involved, you're going to go out and ... interview everybody who owns a blue car."
   He added, "There's absolutely no pressure being applied whatsoever."
   Some people may not realize they possess valuable information, said Johnson, who added that about 100 people in his jurisdiction are being sought for questioning. "If you get one or two good pieces of information out of the entire 5,000 interviews, it's worth it."
   In addition, about 30 people in the Milwaukee area are being sought.
   Francie Wendelborn, media liaison for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Wisconsin's Eastern District in Milwaukee, said the interviews are directed at men who entered the United States after Jan. 1, 2000, from an unspecified list of countries where the al-Qaida terror network has operated.
   "We're trying to learn more about their world," Wendelborn said. "And we need their help."
   A Justice Department press guide, she said, contains this suggested response to questions about the propriety of the interviews:
   "We have allowed these individuals to enter our country to visit, to study, to do business, and we expect them to cooperate and help us by providing any information they may have. This is what we would expect of a neighbor who has witnessed a crime in his neighborhood. We all have a responsibility to help prevent future acts of terrorism."

Geez herb, that was beautiful. I see you've been having imaginary conversations with Jerry Garcia again. Regardless, you consistently miss the point. Conservatives are good-hearted and good-natured people, and yes, I'm making a generalization. However, we're not mean enough to compel people to help others through government and its oppressive social programs.

As for Madison being all warm and fuzzy, the most intolerant people I have ever met have been Madisonians. Remember, if you will, about 5 years ago when militant homosexual groups shattered the windows of a local church during a service. Or when leftists repeatedly shout down conservative lecturers on campus. Tolerance works both ways, and this town doesn't seem to understand that.

I have family in many areas of this country, and by far the most generous, helpful people can be found in cities with the exact opposite political philosophies of Moscow on Mendota.

"...Rightness and goodness are on our side."

Sure thing, Mr. 'Gott mit uns'.

I really don't know whether to laugh or cry after reading your self-satirical smarmy post. On the one hand, I believe that you are sincere, if delusional; that makes me weep for the sad state of American intellectual life. On the other hand, your words are those of an auto-lobotomized liberal 'intellectual', and therefore blackly hilarious.

'...goodness...' LOLOLOLOL!!!!!

how so many are so incredibly egostistical that they deem all who don't share their moral vision as evil sinners.

Well, you know the saying "it takes one to know one!" You have just perfectly described every ultra-liberal musician I've worked with over the last 40 years! The only difference being...most of these liberals are SO egotistical and self-absorbed, they view anyone who does not share their vision of themselves (i.e. "artists") as "center of the universe" as evil sinners!

The Justice dept. isn't making a big deal of it, because they don't have confidence that the Madistan cops would conduct a useful interview. They'd rather arrange to do it themselves.

" How can it be authoritarian to not investigate innocent people?"

It's not. What this is about is a claim by the Madistanis, that the feelings and dignity of those being interviewed would be hurt. The Madistanis claim the folks are being singled out, because of ethnicity and religion and that there is no grounds to do this. Well there are grounds to do it. All jihadists are so, because they are islamic and islam has some quirks that promote heinous thoughts and action. The failure to interview isn't covered under authoritarianism, it's covered under Madistani promotion of immoral, decadent debaucheries. Failure to uncover a criminal plot followed by the plot's realization will give the authoritarians more fuel for the propaganda campaign against others that directly oppose them. If the interviews were requested to uncover tax due WI, or Dane county, they'd jump right in w/o question.

The jihadists are mean spirited and the Madistanis provide them with as much cover as they can, under the guise of compassion, kindness and being nonjudgmental. On the other hand you scheme and search to get as much of other peoples money as you can and you use it to further your own cause. Your kindness and compassionate morality fall apart when you judge people that actually produce the weath as stingy, because they won't turn control of it over to you. The same exposure of your hypocritical claim of nonjudgmentalism and fairness occurs when you run your green scam, to take what you can and send the rest of the world back to prehistory.

"It was conservative militant homosexual haters who recently came from out of state to disrupt our town."

Then ignore it. You gave the guy an audience to promote homosexuality all over the news and the PC educators use it to as an excuse to promote it in the schools.

Regarding patriotism the pledge and Bush. Your propaganda machine is working at full steam to present the United States of America as an imperialistic brigand, that runs roughshod over the world, consuming it's resources, destroying the planet and enslaving the "peoples". That is all a lie. The fact is that Americans work hard and engage in fair trade to attain what they have. The pledge of allegiance represents that as a benefit of Freedom. The Madistanis on the school board are opposed to that, just like binLaden. That's the association.

Your problem with America is that it's defenders are Free to illustrate, claim and defend that truth to the world and to continue advancing a successful and prosperous nation . Socialism doesn't fair well when folks are entitled to control their own property and wealth and can speak their mind. The only way socialists gain wealth and power in America is to steal it with the justification of a vote, after they run a con on their subjects. That's what all your govm't programs are about. They are a token bribe in return for the power of absolute rule.

"As a liberal, I don't want any ~~one~~of your money or any of the wealth that you think you've created.

Then tax yourselves and don't run any candidates that promise anything that is paid for with other peoples money.

"By the way, it should be mentioned that the GDP of the Gore-blue states exceeds that of Bush-red states."

The populations of those bore-blue states were bribed.

Re:Good fortunes silver spoons and third base.

A bogus propaganda scheme claiming that paychecks come from luck, or fate, and that economics is a zero sum game. Paychecks come from work. The harder one works and the more focus and effort is put on making and presenting a good product/service the higher the earnings.

They can't stand the fact that other people might choose to live differently than they do.

We can't stand the fact that a few Madisonions are shoving liberal ethics upon the rest of the entire state.

They can't stand to let other people have their freedom.

You have freedoms, just don't force the rest of us to give up our freedom to accomidate yours, which are already stated in the constitution.

They hate Madison and all it supposedly stands for.

Only a few supposedly stand for liberalism. The liberals will lie, cheat and steal their way into power because the rest of society does not want they lifestyle proposed by liberals. And Liberal Madison is a moral-less society.

Madison is here and it's liberal because that's the way we (most of us) want it here.

No, most do not want it that way. How many Madisonians showed up to protest the school board's leftist decision to not say the pledge or have only the music to the National Anthem? I have family living in Madison. They send kids to school, they have jobs, all the people they know and work with are appalled with the fact that a very minority few are destroying the values that have made this country great.

Get over it.

Not until we have our back in our state. Why should we let a few nuts rule our lives?

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