Congressman Peter King Talks, Students Protest

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Students protest upstairs after Rep. Peter King (R N.Y.) gives a talk on Homeland Security in an event sponsored by the department of Italian American Studies

By Radeyah Hack
and Jeff Licitra

Amidst a background of protesters chanting, “Dethrone Peter King,” the Long Island Congressman stood before over 100 students, faculty, and community members yesterday in the Humanities building to speak on matters of homeland security, ranging from the war in Iraq to the New York Times reporting of NSA surveillance.

“I strongly support the Patriot Act,” said Peter King, the Republican congressman who is chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. “We are engaged in a life and death struggle between civilizations.”

Sponsored by the Center for Italian American Studies and the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF), a Washington D.C. based group, Congressman King was invited to Stony Brook as part of the foundation’s public policy lecture series.

The chair of NIAF described the group’s mission as ensuring “those that are capable of going forward should not be prohibited because they have a vowel at the end of their name.” He described the group’s activities as ranging from study abroad programs in Italy to having “promoted all the positives on Judge [Samuel] Alito” so that he would be judged “not on his politics, not on his last name.”

King began his talk by addressing the question of "are we safer today" to which he answered "Yes, we are safer."  King continued, "If we had the systems in place today that we did five years ago, it is safe to say that the 9/11 attacks wouldn't have occurred."

 As an example of these systems, King cited the thwarting of terror a plot in Toronto as well as "two students down in Atlanta, Georgia, down at Georgia Tech” both of whom “were homegrown terrorists."

 King cited the London attacks and Madrid bombings as evidence that the terrorists threat still exists. He emphasized the point that New York City is the number one terrorist target in the nation and that the NYPD has over 1,000 police offers trained to respond to terrorism, as opposed to only several hundred in other major American cities such as Chicago.

Claiming that Americans are significantly safer than they were five years ago, King told the largely Italian American audience that “the next attack could well come from the suburbs where it’s actually planned in the suburbs and brought into the city.”

Known for his strong opinions on the Muslim American community, King most recently claimed that 85 percent of mosques in the United States have extremist leaderships. “Political correctness trumps national security and honesty,” he said.

King however was challenged on his assertion about U.S. mosques. “How exactly did you arrive at this number,” asked Erol Ruzehaji, who questioned the Congressman as a member of the audience (while also reporting on the event for the Stony Brook Statesman). As King answered that his assertion came from his experiences in Homeland Security, Ruzehaji continued to interrupt, “Did you do a survey or visit all the mosques?”

King also openly stated his support for NSA surveillance use in homeland security. “I believe the President has the inherent constitutional power.” He went on to say that the New York Times front page publication of the surveillance was “reprehensible and a disgraceful violation of the Espionage Act.”

Approximately ten minutes into Congressman King’s speech, his words were interrupted by a crowd of 60 protestors gathered outside in the lobby chanting, “Hey! Ho! Peter King has got to go!”  The protestors had surrounded the back doors and front doors of the lecture hall, both of which were locked and attended by officers of the University Police Department.

Before the event started, numerous protestors and students who appeared to be attending the event for class were blocked from entering the event, initially by the event's organizers, and then eventually by the University Police Department.  While all available seats were filled, the room capacity was listed at 122 and there were only four people in the standing section at the top of the room.

“We’re here to send a message that Peter King is not welcome on this campus,” said Jim McAsey, an organizer with the Long Island group Jobs with Justice. Members of Stony Brook’s Social Justice Alliance also participated and contributed to the organization of the protest.

Congressman King, while affirming that the public is safer now than five years ago, concluded his talk by saying, “again, we’ve had some significant successes, but there’s no doubt we will be attacked again.”

Photos by Dan Woulfin