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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With Jan Ting, Stanley Cohen

Aired December 01, 2001 - 10:13   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Since the September 11 attacks, authorities have arrested or detained hundreds of mostly Middle Eastern men. Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered U.S. attorneys to question 5,000 non-American men who entered the country since last January and some are calling that racial profiling, which is -- would be a violation of civil liberties. But the polls show that most Americans agree, and agree quite highly with these tactics.

Joining us to talk about the issue, from Wilmington, Delaware, Jan Ting, law professor at Temple University and from New York, civil rights lawyer Stanley Cohen.

Thank you both for joining us this morning.

All right, let's start with the issue of those that are being called to come in, these 5,000 men. Mr. Ting, what you think of the move?

JAN TING, LAW PROFESSOR, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY: Well, I think the attorney general said that he's prepared to use every legal means at his disposal to try and prevent further terrorist attacks.

I think this is simply standard operating procedure, to go out and gather information from whatever sources may be available. I would urge these young men to cooperate with the government and if they have any information, to share it with law enforcement authorities. We would expect that kind of cooperation from any United States citizen. And I think it's quite reasonable for us to expect that kind of cooperation from visitors and guests and all -- these are all young men who have entered the United States in the past couple of years and we ought to -- we ought to expect that kind of cooperation.

SAVIDGE: All right, well, let's open up the debate now with Mr. Cohen. Would you consider this a kind of racial profiling, doing this?

STANLEY COHEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Absolutely. What they're doing is they're selecting certain visitors and certain guests. In this case, Muslims and persons from Arab nations. It's well settled that the test isn't reasonable when you seek to single out for disparate treatment individuals on the basis of race or religion or heritage. You violate equal protection requirements of the law.

Moreover, when you said that most Americans support these, well, the Constitution is not a popularity contest. It's designed to protect the minority and majority, in this particular place -- in this particular point, the tyranny of the majority.

SAVIDGE: But the Constitution has been -- I don't want to say waived -- but it has certainly been pushed in the background in times of war before. Why should it be different now especially when this attack has killed so many people? They had their rights certainly violated, those in New York and at the Pentagon.

COHEN: Well, the Constitution in the past has upheld slavery for a 150 years and denied the right of women to vote for 130 years and interned 160,000 Japanese-Americans who we now know that 30 years, that we all concede and the courts concede and Congress concede, it was mistaken because the executive lied there. There was no need. There's no need here.

The Constitution is most necessary in times of crisis not in time where we don't need the protections.

SAVIDGE: Mr. Ting, is it true that if you are a non-U.S. citizen that the Constitution doesn't apply to you?

TING: No, that's not true. It is true, however, that non- citizens do not have exactly the same rights as United States' citizens.

I disagree with Mr. Cohen in the way that the Constitution applies in this situation. I absolutely think the test is reasonableness. And I think if and when cases get to the courts, the courts are going to apply that standard in deciding whether there was anything wrong with what the attorney general and the Department of Justice are doing.

I think there are many lessons from history. I think people like Mr. Cohen tend to trot out the bad lessons of history. But I think there are positive lessons of history too. One of which is that emergency measures adopted in wartime have little lasting effect on American society once the war is won and peace is restored. Even for us in a Lincoln suspension of habeas corpus had no lasting effect once the war was over.

SAVIDGE: What if you were among these 5,000 that are called in? You come in voluntarily. You start to answer some questions and then maybe you find the line of questioning not going the way you thought and you try to back out. You're stuck there, aren't you? I mean you're sort of -- you're now, I guess, painting yourself as being possibly a criminal.

TING: I don't think that's the case. I think these are voluntary interviews and people are entitled to withdraw from the interviews if they choose to do so.

SAVIDGE: Mr. Cohen, you go along with that?

COHEN: No. Well, we don't know what these so-called voluntary interviews are going to be about. What I find so interesting if we're really worried about preventing terrorism and we know the government says these crimes were hatched in Germany and Italy and France and Spain, why are we not asking in blonde haired, blue eyed men and women? Why are we not asking in Christians...

SAVIDGE: Well, part of it was that...

COHEN: ... voluntarily asking...

SAVIDGE: They used those nations as a base. They didn't use that population.

COHEN: But if you're doing an investigation, doesn't it make sense when they're claiming they went to colleges, they dated, they went and they had jobs. They had landlords and landladies. They knew people who weren't Muslims. Doesn't it make sense that you would want to -- quote -- "voluntarily" ask those persons to come in?

Are we only focusing on one particular group? We know the answer is yes. And we know the test is reasonableness. And equal protection, when you single on people on the basis of race, creed, religion or heritage has got to be narrow and a necessary means to compelling state ends. They don't have it here and it's unconstitutional.

SAVIDGE: We could go a long time on this. Mr. Ting, I'll give you the final say here.

TING: I think in the end, the courts are not going to agree with Mr. Cohen. They are going to apply the test of reasonableness. The fact of the matter is that none of these hijackers were blonde, blue- eyed females. And I think most Americans and most federal judges are going to agree that the measures taken by the Department of Justice are entirely warranted and reasonable under the circumstances.

SAVIDGE: Jan Ting from Temple University, thank you very much. Stanley Cohen, an attorney from New York City. Thank you both for being with us. Sorry, I wish we had more time.

COHEN: Thank you.

TING: Thank you, Marty.

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