JOHN Ashcroft has taken deserved heat for his legal shortcuts in fighting terrorism, but his request for police to help interview foreign visitors, mostly from the Middle East, seems reasonable. If conducted as some police chiefs interpret the attorney general's request, the interviews should be neither intrusive nor offensive, if consensual, and might produce valuable leads. Alien interviews are
proper if consensualThe issue: Honolulu's police chief has
agreed to consider interviewing aliens.Honolulu Police Chief Lee Donohue has said he "would consider any request while making sure that all rights of our citizens are upheld." That vague statement may indicate that police will avoid situations that can be considered racial profiling. Donohue's posture, which he should clarify, contrasts with that of the police department in Portland, Ore., which has rejected the request.
The nation's police chiefs had every reason to be skeptical of Ashcroft's Nov. 9 memorandum asking for help in interviewing 5,000 men who have traveled to the United States in the past two years from nations -- mostly in the Middle East -- with suspected terrorist links. The Bush administration has run roughshod over civil liberties in detaining more than 1,000 people since the September 11 terrorist attack and announcing plans to discard the justice system in prosecuting terrorism defendants. However, those questionable arrests should not be equated with interviews of aliens.
Andrew Kirkland, Portland's acting police chief, said the FBI list of Portland's share of 200 men gave "no specifics" about what crimes were being alleged. He raised concerns about the memo's suggested attempt to collect telephone numbers and ask questions regarding the alien's residence in the United States, what countries he has visited and when, and whether he or anybody he knows had ever visited Afghanistan.
"If the FBI has something specific about a crime they are investigating, or a potential crime that these people might commit, then we would reconsider," Kirkland said. His concerns would be valid if the FBI had suggested that police regard the men to be interviewed as suspects, adding to those already incarcerated.
That is not how most police chiefs read the request. "A fair analogy is that this is like a standard police neighborhood canvass after a crime occurs and we go into an area to ask questions." says Edward Flynn, the police chief in Arlington, Va. The interviews also have been compared with asking witnesses to a traffic accident what they saw.
"We're not talking about terrorist suspects," explains Elliot Enoki, the acting U.S. attorney in Honolulu. "If there's a crime committed, police will knock on people's doors and ask if they've seen or heard anything ... That's what's happening."
Such interviews are acceptable as long they are voluntary.
WITH nearly $250 million allotted for construction at the University of Hawaii in the next two years, appointing an overseer is a sensible and prudent move by President Evan Dobelle. The effort could help to avoid the kind of bureaucratic bottlenecks and bungled projects that have plagued the university and better manage money and planning. Construction overseer
smart move by DobelleThe issue: Several projects
and repairs at the University of
Hawaii necessitate a coordinator.Having one person designated to manage construction would eliminate cross purposes, fiefdoms and the bits-and-pieces responsibilities under which projects are done at present. Further, Dobelle will employ his trademark practice of including stakeholders -- faculty, researchers, administrators and students -- in consultations about new projects, an acknowledgment that the people who will use a building would best know what is needed.
Would that this were done in previous endeavors. One of the most embarrassing UH projects was its $1.2 million softball stadium where spectator stands were built too high, obstructing the view from 90 percent of the seats. Fixing the problem involved raising the field four feet, costing the university an extra $612,000.
Another example was the $48 million Pacific Ocean Science and Technology Building. The facility was opened officially in 1997, but for years several floors remained vacant because of safety problems. Similar problems arose with the $27 million Agricultural Science Building where the wrong electrical outlets were installed for stoves and equipment. Alterations cost upwards of $300,000.
The construction overseer position was not created because of such problems, a UH spokesman said, but had there been someone like that in charge in previous years, many of these snarls could have been avoided.
Dobelle's appointee, Allan Y.S. Ah San, is a longtime administrator at the university. His experience will be an advantage when dealing with the state bureaucracy, particularly the Department of Accounting and General Services, notorious for its tangled rules and regulations. A good measure of problems with the technology building can be attributed to DAGS's procedures. For example, it farmed out various components of construction to different contractors, resulting in uncoordinated fixtures and materials. In addition, while the building was being constructed, no one sought money from the state Legislature to buy furnishing, which further delayed the facility's opening.
Ah San will have his work cut out for him. As the university builds new structures on which it will stake a good part of its future -- a medical school in Kakaako, for one -- he also will have to coordinate a $170 million backlog of repair and maintenance work.
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