Security for Iranian President Khatami's Visit

Security for Iranian President Khatami's Visit

Laura Crimaldi says, "Grandstanding Gov. Mitt Romney has denied Khatami state police protection." (Laura Crimaldi, "Security beefed up for Khatami visit," Boston Herald, September 10, 2006) The argument to allow Khatami to speak at Harvard is a good one. Governor Romney's refusal to employ state police to provide security for Khatami's visit is correct.
Harvard, a private corporation, often invites unpopular speakers with little press coverage. The ignored issue is why should taxpayer funds be used to provide security? Harvard has an endowment of $26 billion, more than enough to provide their own security details. If there is insufficient funds to provide police protection to Boston neighborhoods flooded with violence why should the same police be provided to protect an advocate of violence?
If Cambridge police and Boston police have nothing to do why not do eliminate illegal weapons from the community? Why not learn to distinguish the good guys from the bad? Harvard could hire the hundreds of constables who seize autos from owners who don't keep up payments. Private security firms employ hundreds of former police officers to provide security for events like Khatami visit.

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Roy Bercaw, Editor
ENOUGH ROOM
Cambridge MA USA

Security beefed up for Khatami visit
By Laura Crimaldi
Boston Herald
Sunday, September 10, 2006

Cambridge police will be staging a perimeter around the Harvard University hall where former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami is scheduled to speak today, a police spokesman said yesterday. “We will address the outside with the perimeter and inside if need be. We have worked out a security plan with (Harvard) that’s not being released,” said the spokesman, Frank Pasquarello. “We have adequate coverage.”
Khatami will give a talk titled “Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence” at 4 p.m. at the Kennedy School of Government as part of a two-week U.S. visit personally approved by President Bush. Grandstanding Gov. Mitt Romney has denied Khatami state police protection, but that move has no effect on his stay because the State Department had already promised to provide the security.
A Boston Police Department spokesman yesterday confirmed it would assist the State Department during Khatami’s visit. “Diplomatic Security is doing the arrangements,” said State Department spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus. “We’ve been coordinating with the local authorities since the beginning.”