The American Civil Liberties Union asked Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst yesterday to pledge that the US would not institute dragnet “investigation, interrogation and surveillance” of Arabs living in this country. If Arabs in the US are being investigated only because they are Arabs, as part of the new attempt to weed out terrorists and would-be terrorists, such measures “must be condemned as constitutionally Impermissible Insofar as they go beyond fair and respectful Inquiries by law enforcement officers for the purpose of securing voluntary information about the planning or commission of crimes,” wrote Aryeh Neier, ACLU executive director.
Agreeing that “terrorists incidents abroad make it clear that the government interests here are Important,” Neier added that there must not be “the impression in the (US) Arabic community that public statements of support for the Arabic position in the Arab-Israeli dispute will be reason enough for federal officers to take an official interest in the spokesmen of those views.”
U.S. INSTITUTES NEW SCREENING POLICY
(In Washington, it was reported that the State Department has initiated a stringent new screening policy to prevent the issuance of American visas to persons with possible ties to terrorism. The new policy, called “Operation Boulder,” was detailed to US Embassies by Secretary of State William P. Rogers and applies to nationals of all nations except “persons known well and favorably” to the US. The screenings are being conducted by the Federal Bureau of investigation, the Central intelligence Agency, the immigration and Naturalization Service and other agencies.)
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
