Students in Fayyaz Hussain’s Integrated Studies in Social Science class had a chance Thursday to discuss their concerns about the terrorist attacks with area Lansing FBI Resident Supervisor Richard Licht.
Hussain said he invited Licht because students need to discuss their frustrations so they can better understand what is going on.
“Unanswered questions are dangerous,” Hussain said.
Licht used the opportunity to explain how the FBI works, its involvement with other government agencies and how it’s utilized to prevent terrorism.
He told students the FBI effort is split between trying to find and prosecute those who are involved in or responsible for the Sept. 11 attack and trying to prevent attacks in the future.
“We want to be on the watch for anyone out there who may just be waiting for a signal to act, to drive a gas truck into a nuclear power plant or something like that,” Licht said.
For now, everything except the terrorist issue has been put on the shelf, he said.
“We get a fax from the White House almost every day telling us to investigate any allegations of ethnic intimidation or hate crimes,” he said.
Licht also spoke about suspected terrorist links in Detroit.
“Wayne County has the largest Middle Eastern population anywhere besides the Middle East,” he said, “And a lot of fund-raising goes on in Detroit that helps fund terrorist efforts.”
When discussion opened up to the students, Licht was faced with a question that remains without an answer - why didn’t the FBI know the Sept. 11 attacks were going to happen?
Licht said it’s impossible to go through every piece of data and decide what could be a threat and what is not important.
“I wish we had known and I wish we could have prevented it, but with everything we know now, I can’t imagine that we could’ve stopped it,” he said.
He said if the FBI stops 99 out of 100 threats, they should not consider it a failure.
MSU pre-vet freshman Marta Piotrow said the discussion helped her feel better, and made her more aware of the events going on.
“I think that it is going to be tough on our privacy, and that some of our rights are going to be taken away,” she said. “But it’s all right for them to do that because it’s for our own protection.”
