U.S. Wants to Talk to 5,000 Foreigners About Attacks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has compiled a list of more than 5,000 foreign men living in the United States whom it wants to question to try to gain more information about the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, officials said on Monday.

Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said the department is circulating the list, compiled with the help of the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, to the 94 U.S. attorneys' offices around the country.

"It's a list that's been developed of people who might have information," Tucker said, noting that the government was seeking clues to help find anybody who might have planned the Sept. 11 attacks and prevent future attacks.

The people included on the list fit three criteria: they are males, aged 18 to 33, and entered the United States on non-immigrant visas after Jan. 1, 2000, from specific countries.

The list of countries was not provided. But officials said they were not necessarily the native countries of the individuals and may have been the countries that known al Qaeda operatives were last in prior to entering the United States.

The United States has blamed Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network for the Sept. 11 attacks which killed some 4,600 people when suicide hijackers slammed four airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

Newly created terrorism task forces at each of the 94 U.S. prosecutors' offices around the country will coordinate the questioning, officials said.

"I have just directed the task forces to coordinate the interviews of individuals whom we believe may have information helpful to our investigative and prevention efforts," U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft told anti-terrorism coordinators from U.S. Attorneys offices Monday.

"By necessity, many, if not most, of these interviews will be conducted by members of state and local law enforcement," he said. "We ... recognize that this will be a time-consuming and complicated task. But it is critical that we expand our knowledge of terrorist networks operating within the United States."

Tucker said the department has created a questionnaire which tells the enforcement officers what they can and cannot ask in their interviews. Interviewers are instructed not to ask, for example, about the person's religious beliefs.

"The information will be collected and used in the future," Tucker said. She said the list was separate from a watch list compiled of people the FBI wanted to question in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. Most of those people have already been contacted.

I just heard Sen. Levin grilling the INS and they admitted when they catch an illegal at the border they give him a summons to appear at an INS hearing and then let them go! Well, doh, surprise, surprise they never show up! How in the world did we ever get such a snafued system? Fire the INS. Let 10 year olds run the borders; they'll take the job seriously. I remember when I wass on the safety patrol in elementary school. If a kid dared to disregard us we threw the book at them. Send in kids!

Wow, this is great. I don't believe it. Im going to have to go to Reuters and independently confirm this and make sure its not some cruel joke. This combined with 2 other events today make me feel great.

1. We are rounding up immigrants to "talk" to them. This makes commons sense.

2. We are expanding the strategic oil reserves. This tells me that the Administration is ready to risk disrupting oil supplies to take care of the business at hand.

3. The NA has routed the Taliban and is encircling them in the mountains of southern afghanistan. The opressed inhabitants will be free to become informers which greatly increases our chances of finding the Al Quaida leaders. There are more than a few Afghans who hate the arabs and will be more than happy to make a few million bucks.

NOTE TO MR. ASHCROFT and the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT:

Put the names/pseudonyms/aliases/photos of all 5,000 of these foreigners on a web site! Give them to John Walsh or whatever that guy's name on "America's Most Wanted" is...GET THEIR INFO BEFORE THE PUBLIC!! We, the American people, WILL FIND THEM FOR YOU.
rd

The INS has to be one of the best arguments around for using private employees to screen baggage. My wife is foreign-born, has been a permanent resident since she was seven years old (in 1974). Her green card was stolen along with her wallet. She has been trying to get a replacement for more than a year. Unfortunately, her records are not on computer, but in a carboard box somewhere in Chicago. So, we pointed out that she has been here long enough to qualify for amnesty and is also married to a citizen. No luck, though!!! The brilliant INS types pointed out that since she already has qualified for a green card, they can't issue her another one. But, they can't replace her old one because the records are not available.

Easier to harass taxpayers than bother terrorists, I guess...

My son was in a catch-22 with the State Dept. His daughter was born out of the country. Fine, my son is a citizen so his daughter is automatically a citizen. Not so fast. It showed on his passport that he had been out of the country for two years (at school) and he had to prove that he had a certain number of years continuous residency in the US prior to age 15. So my son said: Well, my first passport was issued by you, how did they issue me a passport if I wasn't a citizen and had been in the country. They answered: they only kept the records for ten years therefore the expired passport could not have verifying information since he needed info that was older than ten years. He finally was able to prove his residency through his Bar Mitzvah invitation and his immunization record. His booster shots were a proof! Anyone of those things could have been a forgery, but they were better proof than school records, letters of affirmation, and the old passport. I may have left out something here that I can't remember, but his daughter was not issued a US passport until they had the Bar Mitzvah invitation and his immunization record. It was the most bizarre situation I ever heard of. I tried speaking to the consular officer, but his English was worse than Putin's. Now, my grand-daughter was entitled to citizenship. My son is an AMerican born kid. Now go try and prove that you had continual residence if your usual ids for some reason were unacceptable. We felt like we were in a Kafka story. But I'll bet if some Saudi boy with a few bucks added to his application appeared, he would have been waved through.

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