What a Stinking Mess! 400k on Watch List 4k N Fly!
I just watched an interesting Senate Hearing on CSPAN regarding the Christmas Day Underwear Bomber. The Senators did a pretty good job of grilling Janet Nepalatano and the others on the panel.
During the testimony it was revealed that although their are 400,000 names of people identified as “terrorists or suspected terrrorists” on the “Terrorist Watch List”, only 4000 of these individuals have been placed on the no fly list! The obvious question was asked and answered; why not simply place all of these names on the Terrrorist Watch List on the No Fly list!
The Answer was stunning! The Bureaucrats said they look to Congress to help them decide what is the appropriate level of risk and where to draw the line! They said that they have not merged this list because of the civil rights concerns of these “terrorists and suspected terrorists” on this list!
This sparked a rather reveling debate!
Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) gave a rather lengthy, drawn out position regarding the civil rights of individuals and how important it was that every person’s civil rights be preserved. He then asked Sec. Napalatano and the the other witnesses about the involvement of Civil Rights Specialists within their own departments, in determining both who was placed on a no fly list and whether their privacy rights were taken into consideration regarding the types of screening the individual was subjected to!
Mr. Akaka was assured that their are civil rights advocates within every department ensuring the civil rights of such people are preserved!
There was a pretty spirited debate over those (Democrats) who want to preserve the civil rights of every individual, versus those (Republicans) who want to preserve the right to life of other Americans!
They drifted into the topic of why the Underwear Bomber was arrested and read his “rights” and immediately provided a lawyer, rather than turned over to the military and the CIA for interrogation and intelligence.
The witnesses revealed that the Obama Administration has authorized only those interrogation techniques authorized in the US Army Field Manual! This sparked questions about whether Alqaeda this manual was public, which they were told that it is!
Then came the following questions;
1) Isn’t it reasonable to assume that Alqaeda trains it’s agents as to what to expect and how to resist these techniques, if they know what they are.
2) Doesn’t it make sense to not have they enemy know what to expect if they are captured and interrogated!
2) Weren’t there many “classified techiques” (code for enhansed interrogation) not in the Army Field Manual, that the CIA was using up until the Obama Administration. The answer was ” yes, but we feel we can get just as good results, without them! ”
Some of the Senator’s questions went unanswered with the response that the panel would rather address the question in closed session. I couldn’t help but think that one of the reasons the watch list and the no fly list isn’t being merged (and the watch list isn’t widely distributed) is so known and suspected terrorists are able to enter the country, without knowing they are being watched!
Without the types of ”classified interrogation techniques” (formerly called enhansed interrogation techniques) used by the Bush Administration, our FBI, which seems to be our lead agency now, is using tried and true criminal investigation techniques, such as surveillance of suspects!
The difference between surveillance of an Alqaeda suspect and surveillance of an organized crime suspect is that, while both may lead you to more individuals within their organization, the mafia doesn’t present the same level of threat to the public. They don’t do things like blow themselves up with an airplane full of men, women and children!