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Oregon police Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011129/us/attacks_interviews_8.htmlhttp://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011129/us/attacks_interviews_8.html
Thursday November 29 11:06 AM ET
Ore. PD Won't Interview Foreigners
By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER, Associated Press Writer
Police in an Oregon college town became the second force to
rebuff federal law enforcers' plans to interview foreigners as
part of an antiterrorism sweep.
In Michigan, meanwhile, a newspaper report of a federal
memo has increased doubts about a program encouraging
people from countries where Osama bin Laden's terror
network has been active to come forward for questioning.
Corvallis, Ore., police said Wednesday they would refuse to
interview foreign visitors as part of the federal probe. Portland,
Ore., had been the only city to refuse the request by the Justice
Department to participate in the interviews, citing state privacy
laws.
As many as 5,000 foreign visitors will be questioned
nationwide - some 200 in Oregon.
Corvallis Police Chief Pam Roskowski said the city of 50,000
will be better served if officers concentrate on criminal
investigations rather than interviewing people on the federal list
who are not criminal suspects.
``It is incumbent on all law enforcement agencies to promote
the balance of protecting the community ... while preserving the
freedoms and civil liberties of all residents,'' the police
statement said.
Federal agents will likely question 23 foreign visitors in the
Portland area since police have refused to take part, the U.S.
Attorney's office said Wednesday. About 30 people will be
interviewed in Corvallis, home of Oregon State University.
In Michigan, home to the nation's largest concentration of
Arab-Americans, the U.S. Attorney in Detroit announced
Monday that federal investigators would ask Middle
Easterners and other foreigners to submit to questioning rather
than be sought out.
On Wednesday, the Detroit Free Press reported on a U.S.
Immigration and Naturalization Service memo that said some
foreigners wanted for questioning may be jailed without bond if
investigators wanted to scrutinize them further.
The memo, dated Friday, also said people with visa violations
and those of interest to local FBI agents and U.S. attorneys
can be held by authorities.
Noel Saleh, a Detroit immigration attorney, expressed fears
that using the INS to hold people based on a request from the
FBI left plenty of room for abuse.
``It's hardly a method of voluntary cooperation when you start
holding people with no bond based on what is I'm certain will
be some investigators' jaundiced view,'' Saleh said. ``This
basically confirms everybody's worst fears that this is a
witch-hunt and a dragnet, and people are going to get swept
up in it for no reason.''
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