Hijacking 101

Suddenly, something catches his eye; an event called the Muslim-Jewish Dialogue. Muslim and Jewish students would talk about their conceptions of God over cookies in Cafe Vivian. This was it! This had been their plan all along! They were planning to corrupt American allies!

If an agent were to spy on a Princeton — or any college — student organization, I imagine these sorts of connections would be a necessity, because without these leaps of logic, I’m not entirely certain why the information is useful.

Although Princeton has in fact been spared, the New York Police Department has been conducting surveillance on Muslim student organizations at colleges like the University of Pennsylvania and Yale. Multiple articles and blog posts — including those of this newspaper — have already dealt in depth with the ethical issues raised by this surveillance. I agree wholeheartedly with them. Racial or religious profiling, and the violation of basic rights to privacy, is inexcusable. But in this article, I want to draw attention instead to the sheer uselessness of spying on a University student organization.

First, I’m going to talk about how the membership of student organizations works. Let’s be real for a second. I have no clue how many organizations I currently belong to. They range from the ‘Prince,’ an obvious and memorable commitment, to Club Squash, a group I have never taken the slightest interest in but whose listserv I’m still on. In any college, spying on a student organization means that many of the people you spy on are just a waste of your time.

I’m a U.S. citizen who was raised in Bombay. But on my very first day on campus, I met a Pakistani junior who convinced me to join Pehchaan — an organization for Pakistanis at Princeton — so that I could attend the study breaks and learn more about Pakistani culture. I happily — with acute freshman eagerness — agreed. If some of the members decided that they were going to embark on some grand illegal scheme, would I be of any use to you as a source of information? Nope. Mak Hussain, a member of Penn’s Muslim Students Association said that about 10 percent of the students in the Association are members who just want to learn more about Islam. So forgive me for doubting that they’re all part of a secret terrorist cell.

Second, let’s look at the kind of evidence they’re collecting. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the police department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, defend NYPD’s actions in part with reference to the public nature of the material: blogs, events, websites, etc. But public information is hardly likely to be useful. Most of these organizations hold events like lectures, panels, study breaks and special celebrations of religious festivals. Is NYPD expecting to see “Sign up for suicide bombing between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. this afternoon”? Or perhaps, “Special Workshop: The Mechanics of Airplanes and How to Hijack Them”? One agent went so far as to accompany students on a whitewater-rafting trip. Perhaps a terrorist navy is in the works.

The activities of Muslim students in American universities receive a great deal of attention because of a few prominent terrorists who were educated at these universities. Anwar al-Awlaki, for instance, received a B.S. in civil engineering at the University of Colorado and was the president of its Muslim Students Association. But using that as a justification for spying on innocent students is foolish and wrong. Knowing that they are being watched could even breed animosity and hostility among Muslim students where there might previously have been none.

As a nation, and as a world, we’re divided enough. There is no need to alienate, frighten and humiliate members of our community even further.