UMass Magazine Online

Winter 2003

Departments

Around the Pond

Features

All my best friends are here

One giant molecule

I learnt to dream of Sicily

The Landscape Beautiful

Around the Pond

A delicate balance

IN THE AFTERMATH of the 9/11 disasters, university police departments nationwide have been working with the FBI on antiterrorism task forces. UMass Amherst is no exception. Here, a campus police detective reports to the FBI’s Springfield office.

Both faculty and community organizations have raised questions about how this collaboration affects the delicate balance between security, academic freedom and civil rights. A well-attended public meeting was held in November in response to the fact that an Iraqi-born professor of economics, M.J. Alhabeeb (see Gallery), had been questioned by the UMass detective and an FBI agent about his politics.

In an interview with the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Alhabeeb, an American citizen, played down the incident. He said that the officers were polite and that they had “asked a couple of questions and left. They got a complaint and they were just doing their job. I wasn’t bothered by it.”

Meanwhile, an Amherst attorney has filed a request on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union for information on campus police officers who conduct investigations under the USA Patriot Act.

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