The go-fly list for terrorists
The go-fly list for terrorists
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
If America’s homeland security policies were subject to truth-in-advertising laws, the “no-fly” list would be known around the world by its right and proper name: the “go-fly” list. As in: Go right ahead, jihadists, and fly our planes. All aboard, evil-doers.
While grandmas and grade-schoolers and war heroes patiently pass through a gauntlet of wands, checkpoints and screening obstacles, the nation’s safety watchdogs are asleep at the wheel. They’ve mentally checked out at the check-in counter. And they’re in over their heads at federal counterterrorism centers, where “watch list” means putting the names of dangerous operatives into massive databases — then idly watching potential bombers waltz through our airports and onto our tarmacs.
The federal no-fly scheme was bypassed or breached easily by both the Christmas Day bomb plotter and the Times Square bomb plotter. In the former case, Nigerian terror operative Umar Abdulmutallab had been on the counterterrorism radar screen for his radical jihadi threats (which had been reported by his father to U.S. embassy officials in London). But the young, single, rootless Muslim extremist with suspicious travel patterns — ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! — did not meet the standards for watch-listing and didn’t even make it onto the second-tier “selectee list” of potential threats who can fly only after additional screening.
By contrast, beleaguered 8-year-old Mikey Hicks of Clifton, N.J., still can’t get off the selectee list after years of ridiculous harassment while traveling on family vacations.
In the Times Square case, Team Obama immediately pointed fingers at the airline industry — and Emirates airlines, in particular — for failing to check no-fly list updates. The hindsight cops at the White House are now touting ex post facto rules mandating that the airlines check no-fly alerts every two hours instead of every 24 hours.
But law enforcement officials themselves neglected to contact all airlines directly and red-flag the addition of would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad’s name to the government no-fly list. Moreover, despite paying cash for his trip to the Middle East and being listed on the Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list since 1999, Shahzad received no extra screening from the Transportation Security Administration (confirming once again the bureaucracy’s own inside joke that TSA stands for “Thousands Standing Around”).
The tourism industry certainly shares blame for putting travel profits ahead of national security over the years. But in this case, it was only thanks to airline industry compliance with a post-9/11 procedure requiring plane officials to send passenger manifests to the Department of Homeland Security that the feds caught up with Shahzad (whom they had lost track of in Connecticut) before he jetted off to Dubai.
President Obama has had plenty of time to address the enforcement lapses, database loopholes and technological delays of his predecessor. After the Christmas Day bombing debacle, he pledged to be proactive: “We will not rest.” But to this day, TSA still doesn’t check all domestic and international airline passenger manifests against the no-fly/go-fly list.
The data are only as good as the people entrusted to collect, process and use the information to protect national security. And without the ability to share and access the information across numerous agencies, the data are useless. Nearly nine years after Sept. 11, there is still no functional interoperability among an alphabet soup of national security and criminal databases — including NAILS, TECS, CLASS, VISAS VIPER, TUSCAN, TIPPIX, IBIS, CIS, APIS, SAVE, IDENT, DACS, AFIS, ENFORCE and the NCIC. The Senate raised questions about understaffed efforts to modernize some of these databases back in March. What are we waiting for? The next jihadi bombing attempt?
The warped priorities of the Obama White House imperil us all. A command-and-control government that squanders its time and our money taking over businesses it has no business running — health insurance, auto manufacturing, banking, student loans — is a government neglecting its most fundamental mandate: providing for the common defense.
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With our government today, it isn’t results that matter, it’s the intent that does. Good feelings are most important, regardless of what happens. Hiring incompetent people fills the bill.
Perhaps it will finally become evident to the workers/producers/taxpayers (if it is not to most of them already), and ?to others?, in this nation that the socialists hate America, and are our domestic enemies.
Period.
This administration has not ONE serious bone in their body about protecting and upholding the constitution and we the people. They give it all lip service, while creating ways to conquer us. Their enemy is us, not jihadists and criminals.
Hint… Hint… KaBOOM! This is going to catch them soon.
I cry for the lose of life that is to come from this MisAdministrations failure to believe in the death and mayhem all around them.
Un-freaking-believable!! I can set my crappy PC to update any number of programs automatically; why cant the government have a program that automatically downloads updates to its database? We dont have the money? For the love of God, the government spends money on one idiotic thing after another, I would think that this would be a good expenditure. And forget the data base. How about common sense?! A young, male, Pakistani, buys a plane ticket, to a Muslim Country, cash only, one way, shortly before take off, no luggage. Uhhh.. is anybody awake out there in la-la land???? But lets not hurt his feelings by having him think we are profiling him by taking him aside and asking him some questions. And while this evil scum was almost escaping, uber-dangerous blond-haired blue-eyed octogenarians were taking off their shoes and being wanded before they could get into the departure zone of the terminal. Liberal idiocy gives me vertigo.
What good are all these rules and regulations if this administration has no plans to enforce them. We keep hearing what they are going to do, but it never happens. Talk is cheap an in this administration it is really cheap.
I would have to agree if we were talking about terrorists and it’s as plain as the nose on our faces that these people are not terrorist intent on hurting anyone…
More on-topic than off-topic:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/monster-mosque-pushes-ahead-in-shadow-of-world-trade-center-islamic-death-and-destruction.html
Un-blanking-believable.
This has to be stopped.
My question is — they are throwing the responsibilty on the airlines but what does TSA do? Oh wait, strip serach little ole ladies, thats the ticket.
This administration makes up crises that aren’t there and ignores crises that are by calling them something different. It really is the Twilight Zone in Obama land.
I don’t think relying on stupid bombers, is a really good homeland security plan.
a.k.a GIGO, SNAFU, FUBAR, PEBCAK, OHSE!
Any others?
For those unfamiliar:
GIGO = Garbage In Garbage Out!
SNAFU = System Normal All @#$%ed Up!
FUBAR = @#$%ed Up Beyond All Reason!
PEBCAK = Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard!
OHSE = Operator Head Space Error!
so long as zero and the incompetence that the administration lives by is in office this country will not be safe. from zero on down there is not one that has the intellectual capacity to lead.
Why not? We rely on stupid politicians to run our Country!
Oh, I don’t think this is incompetence.
It is far worse than that.
This is contempt and hatred for America.
Remember “change”?
That’s what those now in power in Washington plan and want to do…”change” and destroy America.
And what does that say for the people that vote them in, and keep them there?
Well, when you have a political leadership whose head is full of his fathers great accomplishments (?) what is to be expected.
From Dreams of My Father : ‘I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race.’
From Audacity of Hope: ‘I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.’
Obama National Security Policy: Hope Their Bombs Don’t Work – Ann Coulter is right.
sbw999 said:
These are the types that when offered a dollar or a shovel to earn that dollar they grab the dollar. That is who votes for these knobs in Washington. Then you have the Liberals — but we all know the story behind that ilk.
How NewYorkers are accepting this?
My husband and I just returned from a trip to Texas. Well into the flight, you could smell nail polish (or remover), very strongly. Finally, the flight attendant made her way down the aisle asking if someone was doing their nails. Yes, a woman a few rows behind me was actually polishing her nails. The flight attendant asked her to please stop, etc. etc. Well, tell me how someone managed to get nail polish onto the plane in the first place (it is a liquid) and by the way, it’s also flammable. Great security we’ve got.
Wait, Rogue, you forgot:
“ID Ten T” problem (ID10T)
This is a common problem found in the IT and government field…
Because it was in a container less than 3 ounces, in a quart-size zip-loc bag.
Next question? Feel safer?
Because it fit into the little plastic bag. Unless the screener is used to doing their nails it would have passed through. Also if there is no metal in it you can pass through the detector with it in your pocket. You can put a small Swiss-Army-type knife in your pocket, and the detectors will not see that either. Feel safer now?
Target personal hygiene products, but refuse to profile terrorists.
Makes perfect sense to me
If this had been Israel’s policy, they would have been a smoking hole long ago.
Michelle:
You don’t understand. It is not PC to target Muslim terrorists. Rather, it is more important to have old people, children, etc. subjected to numerous searches as long as they are white.
Recently, I came back from a trip and the only people who were subjected a full body search were the first and last in line – the first who was a 90 year old lady and the last was a six year old child. This sure made me feel safe.
Dont’ we all feel much safer today!? Someone recently made a comment that it looks as though the terrorist have finally accomplished scaring the bajeebers out of us. Actually, not exactly – Obama has accomplished what 9/11 could not do!
I haven’t flown in almost 3 years. I feel pretty safe but I do keep vigilant on the government subway in Washington, DC. The government is pretty lethal to subway riders here in DC…
Another great column. I still find it appalling Michelle did not win the Pulitzer Prize.
They don’t need “extra staffing” at the government level. Every time I enter a new object into my computer at work, there is a red-flag alert if the object meets certain watch criteria. Make the airlines install one of those checks into their own passenger processing. Your name shows in red and you’re a young man of Middle Eastern descent (as opposed to an 8-year old white boy)? You don’t board. Sorry, Guys. Blame it on your jihadi Muslim brothers. Let them use the pressure of their peers to modify the behavior. We certainly seem to have very little impact.
A pass through security, wear a burka!
This bho won’t defend our southern borders, why think he will defend us from the rop type flying? This bho is more concerned about the evil tea party people!
L
Reagan spoke of a people who have a government versus a government that has a people. In actuality we have neither. What we now have is a Party that has a government that has a people. The Party is everything. The implications of this have barely begun to be understood by the man in the street. By the time he does figure it out, my guess is it will be far too late.
What is a common characteristic of terrorists other than being associated with someone named Mo? They are Democrats. As such, they are Party members and will be given far more deference than the average “citizen,” whatever that is. And the thought that the government, taking it’s orders from the Party you recall, will actively seek to protect it’s people against “man-made disaster causers” (fellow Party members in other words) is simply laughable.
Did you hear the one about the Arab who was upset with the Airlines regarding his pet camel? He was told he couldn’t fly United!
Haven’t heard/seen the non-advertisement use of that term since the early 70s, when I saw it as the caption under a drawiing of two smiling geese in a conjugal situation….
I honestly believe and wouldn’t be at all surprised if the crew leading this country wants us to be hit or attacked.Then they will be able to not let a good crisis go to waste.
Silly wabbit, Pulitzers are not for conservatives.
BOHICA
Can’t disagree.
That would merely be another instance of the use of the Cloward-Piven strategy.
By the way, where’s Obama? He is generally in front of his telepromters and news cameras at least once a day talking at the American people. Where’s he been all week.
Misscheryl,
This bho was just on the tube talking about the stock market crater. I never listen, but that was the jest of it.
L
We are not safe. This government doesn’t make us safe. They use our tax dollars to punish us.
Obama just had a press conference to claim credit for job numbers. Scolded wall street. and went inside.
How about Times Square Mr. President? What are you going to do to protect Americans Mr. President? The guys on Wall St. aren’t the only threats to America in NY. There are people actively trying to kill us. What about that Mr. President?
President either blames Bush, or Goldman Sachs, or Wall St. . . but not our ENEMIES.
Pakistan is successfully attacking us because Americans are ignorant. They don’t know the MO of the military in Pakistan. They don’t know how they fight proxy wars in Kashmir.
In Kashmir they have said for 20 years that they don’t support or train the separatists actually or financially, but they support what they are doing philosophically.
What happened to AQ hero Times Sq bomber? Well Taliban claimed credit initially. Then they arrested a lot of terrorists, got them all together to discuss the strategy (because they need our tax dollars). Then come out and publicly change their story to say ‘we didn’t train him but we support and encourage him philosophically’.
Am I teaching here? Am I gettin through? can I get a hallelujia, Amen, or I SEE THE LIGHT?!
Seriously, I don’t know why I pay federal taxes. They are going to use the tax dollars to make me less safe and punish me if they want to.
Obama had better pray to whatever God he believes in. He’s in trouble and he doesn’t even know it. His only hope is divine intervention that unemployment doesn’t go to 20%. He hopes it will get better. It won’t due to anything he might be doing. He’s going to be amazingly hated and blamed.
While the TSA agents are capturing, snickering, and joking about full body scanned passengers, the others are diligently looking for anyone who doesn’t look, act, or talk like a Muslim.
Don’t wear a cross, carry a Bible,or mention tea or you will be pulled out of line and scrutinized very closely.
After the shoe bomber, we all had to remove our shoes. After the 2006 transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives, we all had to put away our liquid products over three ounces. Now after the underwear bomber…
The Liberal mind set is; Battle the imagined, and ridicule the serious threats. As evidence; “Global Warming”, and “Terrorist Assaults”
Way ahead of ya, “Commando” it is!
My boys be free and unfettered, just the way the TSA girls like it!
There truly is a dearth of competent people in this administration!
God save us all!
This is at most planned, intentional incompetence.
These America-haters want to “change” America, and an orchestrated crisis – Cloward-Piven strategy – is one way to bring about the “change” they desire.
Amen to that!
The only solution is to PROFILE.
Face it, had it not been for Shazad’s mistakes, an alert t-shirt vendor, some NYPD cops, and a few guys at the FBI, our buddy Faisal would be back with his homies in Pakistan. The searches, stupid regs, and long lines have done nothing to stop any attempts at terror attacks.
Can’t scrutinize middle-eastern young males. They all get free passes to board. That’s not likely to change unless our government grows a spine in the course of the next few elections.
The best chance of us catching someone wishing to do harm on a plane is if that person is a 65 yr old white female carrying a plate of brownies.
Unemployment is 20% in the Central Valley, CA! There are other areas in the once Golden State where it is the same as ours. However, the entitlement immigrants and the bleeding heart liberals have a chokehold on the state, thus sane people will have an uphill battle in the elections.
Don’t believe the numbers Ah’nold is hawking. He had been quoted lately that a lot of money is coming in because investors ‘favor California for being a green state’. Where those funds are is a mystery. Worse is where he is investing/wasting them. Hah! If CA were a fish, it would have green gills – dead for sometime – already!
Their mindset is… whatever the MAJORITY favors.. do the EXACT opposite.
Majority doesn’t want Obamacare
force Obamacare on them.
Majority doesn’t want amnesty…
force amnesty on them.
Majority wants the borders secure…
keep the border wide-the-f$&k open.
Majority are tired of race-baiting tactics used on them.
Keep calling them racist bigots to shut them up.
Majority wants smaller government…
Government instead takes over most of industry and creates bloated bureaucracies and fills them with gubmint employees who can’t find their a$$es with both hands.
I could go on and on and on…
and a flashlight!
Good post!
Hat tip to the Russians. Sometmes you just have to love them.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100507/ap_on_re_eu/eu_piracy
This is going to be a back breaking finger pointing session that will have to be seen to be believed.
“Barack Obama began shutting down Bush-era terrorist investigations last year including the investigation of Faisal Shahzad.We all know what happened next.Last week Faisal almost blew a hole in the middle of Times Square.The only thing that saved the people of New York was Faisal’s incompetence.”
From the article;
http://biggovernment.com/jhoft/2010/05/06/breaking-obama-administration-removed-faisal-shahzad-from-terror-surveillance-list-before-attack/
Typical Cyborg response? They should move the governor’s mansion to Fantasy Land.
They they will, but I am hoping they will miss that revolver on my hip.
Lol. You beat me to it!
That’s called tyranny. Hmmm. I seem to remember a war we fought a couple hundred years or so ago against that…
Encore coming soon???
It’s almost ironic that although tax payer money funds the numerous federal agencies charged with keeping us safe, it’s the public’s vigilance and dedication to “see something, say something” that is credited with preserving our safety.
All the federal computer database programmers and billions of dollars have reassigned to a far more urgent task: implementing the requirements of the health care and education loan reform act:
- enforcing the minimum mandated federal health care policy requirements
- new 3.8% capital gains tax on all real estate transactions
- 1/1/12 every business in the country must start issuing 1099′s to every person and business to whom $600 or more was paid for products or services during the course of a year.
Own a business and bought supplies at Home Depot worth over $600? Gotta file a 1099 on Home Depot. Wanna guess how many 1099′s will be filed and need to be processed by the IRS?
Kinda tricky how reforming health care and education loans yielded the requirement that essentially every business transaction in the country must now be documented with the federal government. This administration certainly doesn’t want any business transaction to slip by unnoticed or untaxed…gotta have priorities you know.
I’m sure that was an unintended consequence…but then again Pelosi did say that we’d need to get the bill passed to see what was actually in it – didn’t she.
Team O-Bama-Lama-Ding-Dong is so reflexively anti-military, they can’t even muster the mental energy to process the word “defense”. No wonder they can’t “provide for the common defense.”
IMHO….
Ya damn skippy an encore is coming soon!
The writing is on the wall.
Well said Michelle!!!
Your last paragraph is the money shot. If only our present
administrationregime were able to understand.…and for the acronym folks here: I thought the computer diagnosis one was PICNIC = “problem in chair, not in computer”.
I would unload my pistol, put the ammo in a second box and carry it aboard. I feel so much safer now than in the sixties. Except for that time the stewardess shorted my drink…..
The most dangerous situation you can be in is not when you have no security. It is when you think you are secure and you are not.
When you have none, you are afraid and therefore vigilent, if nothing else. You also think about what you will do it attacked.
When your attitude is “the system worked” and “the border is just as secure as it was in 2003,” you are complacent and thus a fat, ripe, juicy soft, easy target that will not react effectively when struck.
Janet Incomenato with her “deer-in-the-headlights stare actually believes what she said. And she is our Head of Homeland Security. I think ALL of us who post here feel no security with that woman in charge and therefore will be ready!!
I meant to say Janet Incompenato!
They locked down Times Square again. Suspicious package. The MSM is probably all excited about the possibility of a right wing extremist tea-partier, or a racist anti-Obamacare maniac.
Michelle, we have been saved by the citizens on the last several ISLAMIC ATTACKS, not by our gubmint. They are looking for teaparty members and children, while all other rational people are looking for YOUNG MUSLIM MEN WITH BEARDS AND WOMEN IN BURKAS. Obama, Pull your head out of your (_!_) and start applying a tiny bit of common sense to your idiological philosophy. 8 year olds don’t build bombs, and if the FBI doesn’t continue it’s persecution of “militias” such as the goobers in Michigan and the cult killed in Waco, Citizens will continue to vote as opposed to shoot. For every caucasian terrorist, the world has seen 1000 muslim terrorists. Racial profiling my butt, just common sense.
Even when informed in advance a test is coming, the TSA misses 70 percent of knives, 30 percent of guns and 60 percent of (fake) bombs that are meant to look like bombs. They miss all of the test bombs when they don’t look like bombs – like the shoe and underwear bombers. The whole agency is useless security theater.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/airport_passeng.html
We waste way too much money on useless, intrusive government services.
I flew to Chicago and back, and to DC and back, then found the breadknife with an 8-inch blade in the bottom of my briefcase I had forgotten was there. Feel safer?
Translation – He will blame Bush for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan quicker the next time.
He told the truth. He didn’t rest. He golfed and played hoops in the gym.
happyscrapper said:
Isn’t her name Janet Incontinentano? I have been graphing her reactions on the Severity/Depends scale and it looks just like a Hockey Stick. Pretty much flat during her Governance of Arizona but as soon as she was chosen as head of DHS it is on a infinite trend up.
off topic…anybody heard of Agenda 21 or seen this video??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzEEgtOFFlM&feature=related
It’s time to modify our terrorist early warning system:
I believe the system ought have another level akin to an ‘Amber Alert’ when an ID’d perp(s) are on the loose in connection with terrorism.
When Shahzad’s name became known while he was on the loose and before he was found on an Emerates jet about to leave, there ought have been a ‘911 Alert’ so that every U.S. border agent, TSA agent, airline, train, bus company and news/media org had his name, picture or description.
We do that when a child is missing to alleged kidnap. We ought do that when an alleged terrorist is loose who may have info about other terrorist plots or terrorists.
We didn’t have a jet blow-up over Detroit on Xmas day and a bomb go off in Americas busiest intersections (Times Sq) only due to sheer luck.
America needs more tools to deal with our luck that is bound to run out sooner than later.
___‹^›__‹(•¿•)›__‹^›___
The entire concept of a “No Fly” list is fundamentally flawed as it’s based off the logical fallacy of “Enumerating Badness”.
Instead, let’s have a “Cleared to Fly” list. If you want to fly in (or into) this country, you should have to go through a periodic background and security check first.
That’s very generous of you Michelle. I’d say that they are not neglecting our defense – they are at war with us so they couldn’t care less who else is on their side helping them to destroy us. While they are sucking away our Liberty and wealth on one side – the jihadists are bombing us on the other.
Maybe we should consider voting jihadists into office in order to keep the progressives in line? We know the republicans damn well ain’t doing it..
Absolutely and… after you are so approved, you go down to your friendly neighborhood TSA office to get your photo taken. A random number, not associated in any way with your name or address, etc, is then assigned to that photo in a federal computer database. The only other place that that number exists is on a swipe card that they give to you. Leaving other information out helps make the system HACK PROOF. It would be impossible for anybody looking at photos in the database to determine a name or any other piece of information about that person because the information is simply NOT there to be had.
When go to the airport you get into the fast moving pre-approved line where you swipe your card and your picture is displayed to a security agent who can see that you are that same person – and that is ALL they need to know. They do NOT have to look any further at your license or your passport or, most especially… in your carry-on bag or in your underwear.
You get keep your toenail clipers and your K-bar knife so, if any jihadist got past the non-pre-approved line, they will have a lot less of a chance getting past YOU and other TRUSTED passengers on the aircraft. Flight 93 might have made it home safely if only a few of the mostly all good passengers had had some sort of weapon on board.
Which I meant to end with … every single good person who died on Flight 93 was a victim disarmed by the federal government.
I flew to Naples, FL, and had my bag searched upon departure. I am petite, blonde & green-eyed. Maybe they think I’m married to a jihadist.