Interpol chief: Terror laws abused

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[VeteransRights] Interpol chief: Terror laws abused

Interpol chief: Terror laws abused
Thursday, October 2, 2003 Posted: 9:02 AM EDT (1302 GMT)

Noble addresses Interpol members at annual assembly in Benidorm.

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BENIDORM, Spain (Reuters) -- The black American who heads Interpol says he is
concerned about the over- zealous use of anti-terrorism laws and that he has
himself been singled out because of his looks.

Ronald K. Noble, secretary general of the 181-nation police organization, told
Reuters in an exclusive interview Thursday that people subjected to abuse often
had no chance of redress from anonymous officials.
"I know that I've been searched because I look like a person who could be
Arabic, if I'm travelling from an Arab country, or I could be a drug-trafficker
if I'm coming from a drug-trafficking country," Noble, 47, said.

He acknowledged: "There has been an overuse of terrorism laws to the
disadvantage of ordinary citizens and travellers."

Noble said he knew from experience, as a "person of color" who could be taken
for an Arab, an African or a Hispanic, that ordinary citizens were facing abuses
in the name of the war on terror.

Many countries had poorly trained security staff who relied on their own
prejudices when deciding whether to make travellers submit to strip-searches, or
singled out passengers who were stressed or sweating.
"I perspire and I'm the head of an international law enforcement agency," Noble
said.

He is the first non-European to head Interpol and has pushed to modernize the
organization since the September 11, 2001, suicide attacks on the United States.

He took the helm in 2000, and had previously been a law professor and chief law
enforcement officer in the U.S. Treasury Department, overseeing agencies
including the Secret Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and
Customs.

Noble said governments had to make sure any random searches were truly random
and not based on the whim of officials saying: "I pick whoever I want."

People subjected to a "horrible secondary inspection" and at risk of missing
flights had no chance of redress from anonymous officials.
"You have a lot of abuses that are never, ever checked," he said, adding that
laws per se were not to blame. "It's not that the laws are saying 'Abuse
people'."

Noble, attending an Interpol's annual conference in Spain, said he believed most
police forces had the laws they needed to investigate and prosecute terrorist
activity.
"Globally speaking, there are enough laws in place," he said.

In a week when Belgian and Indonesian courts handed down the latest sentences
against radical Islamists, Noble said police were "taking great strides" in
combating terrorism.

But, he said, "I don't see it so much as something that is being won, as being
controlled."

Al Qaeda sleeper cells still posed a significant risk, and police were working
hard to track and eliminate them.
"We believe that the police worldwide are the least prepared and equipped to
fight bio-terrorist threats because of a lack of resources, lack of training and
lack of education about what the principal threats are," said Noble.

He was concerned about a real threat of bio-terrorism but also "the panic and
loss of confidence in governments and societies that could result from a hoax
bio-terrorist act."

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