We here at medical educator keep an eye on a number of blogs an postings about medical student life to try and keep our finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the world of medical students.
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- We used to worry when we got letters from the Student Loans Company. The CIA would make us even more worried.[Although we still don't like getting letters from the Student Loans People-Ed]
We were a interested in a report from the The Independent (a leading British newspaper) highlighted the case of one British Medical Student. It relates to students from University College London, specifically the transfer of student information to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The case in question is that of Umar Farouk Allmutallab, arrested in the US over terrorism charges from Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day. To refresh your memory on this, read reports on this here from The Times and here from the BBC. He was, of course the former student and president of the University College London (UCL) Islamic Society. There now seem to be repercussions for other Muslim students studying at UCL.
One British medical student has apparently had personal information passed to US authorities as a result of being a member of the UCL Islamic Society. He was quoted by the Independent on the 1st April as saying the following.
I feel frustrated and outraged. To pass on 900 student details because they were members of UCL Islamic Society is ridiculous. The reason I joined the society was for socio-cultural reasons. I’ve never seen the guy [he's referring to Abdulmutallab]. I wasn’t here when he was at university.
Is does seem a little extreme. One of our main contributors (who happens to be British Muslim) had the following to say.
It seems a little curious that the apparently all the members of what was apparently a fairly mainstream society have been put on a US watch list. Its difficult enough getting through US border control at the best of times, never mind having your name potentially put on a list of potential terror suspects! I guess things need to be kept in perspective, but it does seem a little odd.
UCL were reported to say that no details other than the student names and their email addresses had been passed on. Their student Union said the following.
The police asked the student union to provide details of members of the UCL Islamic Society and the Royal Free and UCL Medical Islamic Society between 2005 and 2008. The union provided the names and email addresses of student members only.
Another contributor to medical educator had the following thoughts…
We certainly won’t be spamming any of our customers with junk or sending out any other sort of unsolicited mail. I can’t help but wonder what sort of spam you might get from the CIA. Could be quite fun really. They are now off our list of potential sponsors for the coming year…
Read to read the whole article here from the Independent, and commented on elsewhere in British Newspapers.We’d be interested in any comments from medical students in the UK or abroad about this.
Medical Educator promises not to pass on your email addresses to other companies/ organisations or third parties, there’s no special box to tick, we just wont do it. This includes the CIA, unless they make us!