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Boston Globe - September 15, 2005
Massachusetts governor suggest wiretapping
of mosques and monitoring of attendees
By Scott Helman
WASHINGTON -- Governor Mitt Romney raised the prospect of wiretapping mosques and conducting surveillance of foreign students in Massachusetts, as he issued a broad call yesterday for the federal government to devote far more money and attention to domestic intelligence gathering.
In remarks that caused alarm among civil libertarians and advocates for immigrants rights, Romney said in a speech to the Heritage Foundation that the United States needs to radically rethink how it guards itself against terrorism.
''How many individuals are coming to our state and going to those institutions who have come from terrorist-sponsored states?" he said, referring to foreign students who attend universities in Massachusetts. ''Do we know where they are? Are we tracking them?"
''How about people who are in settings -- mosques, for instance -- that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror," Romney continued. ''Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping? Are we following what's going on?"
As he ponders a potential run for president in 2008, Romney has positioned himself as a homeland security expert: He sits on a federal homeland security advisory council, is active on the issue with the National Governors Association, and repeatedly speaks about the lessons the country has learned from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and, more recently, from Hurricane Katrina.
Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrants and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, called the methods Romney suggested misguided and ineffective. Tracking people based on their ethnicity, he said, will only sow resentment among immigrant communities and prevent their cooperation with authorities.
''Blanket eavesdropping and blanket profiling only erodes the safety and security of our country," Noorani said. ''People who really know what national security is and what intelligence is realize that we need to build trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities."
Elyes Yaich, president of the Islamic Society of Northeastern University, said that foreign students, especially those from Islamic countries, already face unfair scrutiny coming to the United States and that subjecting them to specialized monitoring would further invade their right to privacy.
''It's something that shouldn't happen," Yaich said. ''If they're going to do surveillance, why not do it for synagogues and churches, too?"
Nancy Murray, director of education for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said international students are already forced to submit personal data to a federal database designed to let the government closely track them. Keeping closer tabs would only cause a greater chilling effect on scholars coming here from other countries…..
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/09/15/wiretap_mosques_romney_suggests/
Washington Post - September 16, 2005
Groups Criticize Romney's Comments
By David A. Fahrenthold
BOSTON, Sept. 15 -- Civil liberties and Muslim groups criticized Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Thursday for suggesting that authorities should spend more time monitoring mosques and their attendees, possibly with wiretaps.
The comments came during a speech on domestic preparedness that Romney (R) gave Wednesday at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.
Romney, said to be considering a run for president in 2008, used the speech to offer suggestions for beefing up domestic intelligence-gathering, saying that too much effort is spent protecting buildings and too little on surveillance that might detect an attack in the planning stages.
After asking whether students from "terrorist-sponsored countries" should be tracked more closely in the United States, Romney asked: "How about people who are in settings -- mosques, for instance -- that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror?
"Are we monitoring that?" Romney continued, according to a video posted on the foundation's Web site. "Are we wiretapping? Are we following what's going on? Are we seeing who's coming in, who's coming out?"
In a telephone interview Thursday, Romney said he was not calling for a loosening of the rules governing when and how the government can conduct surveillance. But he defended his focus on mosques as potential surveillance targets, saying that attacks by Islamic terrorists in the United States, London and elsewhere justify a particular focus on Muslim places of worship. Authorities "should be watching what's being taught in a mosque more closely than what's being taught at the local 4-H Club," Romney said.
After Romney's speech was reported on the front page of Thursday's Boston Globe, groups in Boston and Washington expressed alarm, seeing in his speech a call for blanket surveillance of mosques and Muslims.
"It's irresponsible for the top elected official in any state to suggest blanket wiretapping of houses of worship," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Ali Noorani, the executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said his group plans to demand a retraction. "There's a need for the U.S. government and the intelligence system to better understand the Muslim community," Noorani said. "The way not to do it is to wiretap and surreptitiously surveil an entire community."
In general, mosques and other houses of worship do not have special protection from surveillance under U.S. law. As in other cases, wiretaps are supposed to be authorized when there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, or -- in cases involving the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court system -- when the surveillance relates to an ongoing terrorist investigation.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, several federal investigations have used informants, surveillance and electronic eavesdropping to gather information about mosques…….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/15/AR2005091502090.html
The Boston Globe - September 16, 2005
Romney, criticized by Muslims,
refuses to back down from comments
By Theo Emery
BOSTON --Muslim groups and civil libertarians demanded an apology from Gov. Mitt Romney on Friday for his comments about wiretapping mosques and monitoring foreign students, but the governor stood by his words, saying he was only advocating for improved homeland security.
The groups, which included the American Civil Liberties Union and various mosques and Islamic organizations, delivered a letter to Romney around noon which said "your desire to wiretap mosques is an affront to the values and principles that make America a great country."
"As religious, community, and student leaders, we expect far more from our elected officials. Your remarks have failed us," said Caline Jarudi, director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, reading from the letter.
After the letter was delivered, spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said the governor would not apologize or retract the comments.
Romney said Friday morning he wasn't advocating for anything that wasn't already being done.
But some Muslims said that Romney is stereotyping all Muslims as terrorists and promoting dangerous policies that erode civil liberties.
Imam Abdullah Faaruuq of the Mosque for the Praising of Allah in Boston urged Romney, who is considering a run for president in 2008, to "stop pandering to conservatives." "I pray ... that this man will never reach the office of being in control of this country as a whole, and may he be limited to this term that he's in presently, because he doesn't understand what true leadership is about here in America," he said.
One of the activists, Hamza Pelletier, spokesman for the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, said his group planned to attend all of Romney's public appearance until he retracts the statements….
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/09/16/romney_criticized_by_muslims_refuses_to_back_down_from_comments/
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