Warnings create paranoia

Late at night on the seventh floor of Campus View apartments, I can hear sawing and hammering. I think someone is building something very large in the room above me.\nEvery time I leave the building, I see a fleet of white Residential Programs and Services pickup trucks parked along the curb. A single maintenance person always seems to be taking the trash out. \nI swear that guy takes out the trash 50 times a day. He's got to be a watcher, stationd outside the building to monitor who goes in and out of the building at all times.\nThe University recently announced that Campus View will be the next residence center to be remodeled. Out of all the housing facilities, why Campus View? I bet it's because at least half of my neighbors are international students. Is this "remodeling," or an excuse to install phone taps, miniature cameras and tracking devices on all Internet connections?\nFERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the legislation that protects student information from the public, does not apply to aliens. \nHani Hasan Hanjour, one of the terrorists who flew a plane into the Pentagon, entered the United States on a student visa. Hanjour, who applied to study English in Oakland, Calif., never attended a single class. The ringleader of the terrorist group, Mohammad Atta, attended flight school in Florida on a student visa. \nThe Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Services, created a database called SEVIS, Student and Exchange Visitor Information Service, to track student visas. \nAll colleges in the United States are now required to use the database. Each student visa issued is tracked through the program, and if a student doesn't show up to college, the BCIS will now be able to find out. \nIf an international student drops a class, it is registered on SEVIS, and the student may be deported.\nNow, if terrorists do enter the United States on a student visa, they will have to go to class at the same time they are pursuing terror. A potential terrorist, on a student visa, might right now be going to class at IU during the day, while he or she plots death and destruction at night. \nThe FBI has increased its presence around Bloomington since Sept. 11. Agents are flying surveillance planes over the town and keeping an eye on midnight coffee shops where machines of communication like faxes and e-mail are located. \nThe other day when I got on an elevator in Campus View going down, I rode with a tall woman and her two screeching kids. The woman smiled at me and said, "I hope you don't mind that my kids are so noisy."\nBut she didn't fool me. I could tell she was an undercover FBI agent, cleverly using her innocent kids to disarm strangers. \nOn Monday, RPS director Bob Weith told an IDS reporter asking about FBI agents in the residence halls to call University Council. The council office said they would not comment about the agent's presence. And FBI agent Doug Garrison, who has handled all the publicity surrounding the agents, did not return a phone call from Indianapolis.\nOn Feb. 11, Robert S. Mueller, head of the FBI, publicly warned of terrorist attacks against colleges. The war in Iraq has caused the Department of Homeland Security's alert system to rise to orange, meaning a terrorist threat is high.\nThe administration needs to address the terrorist threat because students are growing paranoid. Some think the presence of FBI agents is more than routine monitoring. Many think their presence suggests the existence of a local threat.