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opinion:
Maintain privacy
in U.S.
SALT LAKE CITY --
The U.S. government's plan to compile a database of about 570,000
international students attending colleges and universities in
the United States will likely gain momentum due to the recent
terrorist attacks.
Rep. Lamar Smith,
R-Texas, supported a bill calling for the creation of the
database in 1993, but progress quickly slowed due to opposition.
Currently, only 25 schools in the Southeast are included in
the database.
Proponents of the
plan want to complete the project by tracing a student's information,
including his or her major, enrollment status and living quarters.
It serves as blatant
discrimination and an invasion of privacy.
Rather than placing
importance on the nationality of a person boarding an airplane,
security should be so tight that, regardless of skin color,
the person can't bring anything that could be used as a weapon
onto the plane.
This isn't to say
that no measures should be taken in regards to foreigners
studying in the United States.
Rather, some measures
should have already been in effect to prevent people like
hijacker Hani Hanjour -- who entered the country on a student
visa with plans to study English, but never even enrolled
-- from abusing the program.
Student loans regularly
require proof of enrollment from recipients, and those with
student visas should receive the same level of scrutiny.
But U.S. citizens
should avoid placing blame on Muslims.
With reports of
such people being kicked off airplanes and harassed, support
from the government would merely serve to make matters worse.
After all, if terrorists
attacked freedom on Sept. 11, all U.S. citizens should seek
to restore that freedom, not take it away.
This editorial
originally appeared in the Daily Utah Chronicle in the University
Utah.
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