Foreign students monitored by police
Several hundred foreign students at Norwegian universities are being monitored by the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST). The PST claims they must have intelligence on students that gain knowledge that could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction, student newspaper Studvest reports.
In Bergen alone over 500 foreign students are registered by the PST. The lists pertain to students from nations outside of the Schengen area and North America.
Students from countries run by totalitarian regimes or from nations that had not ratified treaties against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are of special interest.
The dean at Oslo University would not reveal whether he had given the names of students to the PST, saying he assessed the approach as demanding confidentiality.
Education director Mette Torrissen at Bergen University said that such lists were unwelcome but that they took care not to submit more than the minimum information necessary.
The head of PST Hordaland, Steinar Karlsen, confirmed that they sought information on students whose subjects could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction.
"It can, of course, be interesting, to have a dialogue with a student that has these areas of study," Karlsen told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK).
The head of the Norwegian Bar Association's commission for asylum and immigrant law, Arild Humlen said that information should not be forthcoming unless there were concrete reasons to suspect an individual.
"This contributes to a collective suspicion being rendered against a group and that is unfortunate, and also conflicts with international agreements," Humlen said.
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http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=720632
This strikes me as being a bit over the top, at least they're not handing out the information happily from the University side. They must do something similar in the US, no?