[PEN-L:33394] academics stand up to the punks

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

FBI Seeks Data on Foreign Students
Colleges Call Request Illegal

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 25, 2002; Page A01


The FBI is asking colleges and universities around the country to
provide the government with personal information about all foreign
students and faculty, prompting objections from some schools and higher
education groups that view the request as illegal.

The FBI says it needs the information to determine whether foreign
students or teachers have ties to known or suspected terrorists. FBI and
Justice Department officials say recent antiterrorism language in the
USA Patriot Act allows schools to provide the data without notifying
those involved.

But one prominent higher education group has told its members that
providing the information would violate federal law. The U.S. Department
of Education also indicated in a general advisory this year that some of
the information now sought by the FBI cannot be provided without a court
order or subpoena.

The conflict has attracted the attention of Sens. Patrick J. Leahy
(D-Vt.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who complained in a letter to
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft last week that the "legality of this
request is not so clear." The two, who are members of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, said the Patriot Act approved after the Sept. 11,
2001, terror attacks was specifically designed to limit government
access to student records.

"This law requires both a court order and a showing that the request is
specifically tailored to a terrorism investigation," the senators wrote
to Ashcroft on Dec. 18. "The FBI request does not appear to fulfill
either of these requirements."

The controversy serves as the latest example of tension between law
enforcement and academia since the Sept. 11 attacks, carried out by
hijackers who were trained at U.S. flight schools and took advantage of
lax oversight given to foreign students in the United States.

The FBI's request comes as schools are scrambling to provide similar
information to another agency, the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, which is building a database to track the more than 200,000
foreign students who enroll in U.S. schools each year. But unlike the
INS, which is entitled to personal student information under immigration
law, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have a limited ability
to obtain such information, legal and education experts said.

In the weeks following the Sept. 11 attacks, about 200 colleges
acknowledged in a national survey that they had turned over information
about foreign students to the FBI, most of the time without a subpoena
or court order. But most of those requests were about specific students,
and compliance was allowed under emergency provisions of federal privacy
laws, officials said.

The new letters, sent from FBI field offices beginning last month,
request that schools provide the "names, addresses, telephone numbers,
citizenship information, places of birth, dates of birth and any foreign
contact information" for teachers and students who are foreign
nationals, according to a sample copy provided to The Washington Post.

The FBI declined to say how many schools have been asked for the
information, or how many have provided it. But officials said compliance
is voluntary.

"There's no requirement on the part of the colleges to provide this
information," FBI spokesman Bill Carter said. "We can request it, and
they can provide the information. They don't have to comply."

Before the Patriot Act took effect, the law governing the privacy of
student records, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, allowed
schools to provide only "directory information," such as names, ages and
birthdates, to law enforcement officers. Even then, the law required
schools to obtain students' consent for providing such information
without a court order, legal experts said.

The FBI's position, as outlined in its letter to universities, is that
amendments included in the Patriot Act allow schools to "release
information to the federal government for use in combating terrorism,"
including a student's citizenship and foreign addresses.

But LeRoy S. Rooker, director of the Family Policy Compliance Office at
the U.S. Department of Education, said in an interview yesterday that
federal education officials have determined that, even with the changes
made by the Patriot Act, citizenship and foreign address information
cannot generally be provided to law enforcement agencies without a court
order.

Rooker outlined the limitations in a guidance document last April.

After the FBI began sending letters to colleges and universities last
month, the Association of American College Registrars and Admissions
Officers issued a report to its 10,000 members saying that "a subpoena
or court order MUST accompany all law enforcement requests for
nonconsensual releases" of citizenship and similar information.

"Nonconsensual release of private student information, unless pursuant
to a subpoena or court order or otherwise authorized under a separate
provision of law, could expose institutions to significant legal
consequences," the association said.

FBI officials said many schools have denied the request, but declined to
say how many. The FBI has not ruled out seeking court orders or
subpoenas to obtain the information, officials said.

The data obtained from schools will be compared with information
compiled by the Justice Department's Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task
Force, which is building a classified database of suspected and known
terrorists, sources said.

Not all education groups and legal experts agree on the disclosure
issue. Sheldon E. Steinbach, general counsel for the American Council on
Education, said he does not see any problem with the FBI's request.

"Does it cause some psychological discomfort for many people? I'm sure
it does," he said. "But we don't see any reason why a school should not
be able to honor this request if they choose to. . . . This is part of
the new landscape that we're all becoming accustomed to since September
11."