Originally Posted by
bionicarm
http:///forum/post/3197561
I agree with you 100% it is wrong, but did you read through the first link I cited:
In the case of Umar Abdulmutallab, national security officials said, the information from the embassy about his father’s concerns, while considered important enough to enter in TIDE, the raw intelligence database maintained by NCTC, was regarded as insufficient to cause the Terrorist Screening Center to enter Abdulmutallab in its master database, known as the "Consolidated Terrorist Watch List," a national security official said. That list contains the names of around 400,000 individuals against whom U.S. agencies have already collected enough information to constitute "reasonable suspicion" of terrorism. Because Abdulmutallab's name was not entered into the consolidated watch list, the official added, it also was not included on two more limited subsets of the master list—a list of "selectees" who are supposed receive extra screening if they try to travel by air (this list includes about 13,000 names) and the Screening Center's even more limited “no-fly list,” which contains just under 4,000 names.
“You get a lot of info every day,” said one official close to the process. “Some of it is bad. Someone cannot just go into the data base and then go onto a 'no fly list'." For example, the official said, the TIDE data base contains the names of Irish Republican Army partisans who were involved in militant and possible violent activity in the past, but who are not regarded as any kind of threat to transportation today.
Although intelligence officials did not regard the report from Abdulmutallab’s father as sufficiently weighty or detailed to move his name from TIDE onto a database that could have restricted or banned him from air travel, one national security official said that because the father had called attention to his son’s possible involvement in Yemen, one or more U.S. intelligence agencies did begin some kind of effort to further investigate the son’s Yemeni connections. At this point, it is unclear how far such inquiries progressed before the younger Abdulmutallab boarded Delta/KLM flight 253 on Christmas Day, except that no information was reported around U.S. intelligence agencies which reached the “reasonable suspicion” threshhold that could have led to more screening or a “no-fly” order affecting his travel plans.
Once it reached Washington, the embassy cable about Umar Abdulmutallab was also entered into Visa Viper, a State Department database used to track foreigners who apply for U.S. visas, a national security official said. Abdulmutallab had been granted his most recent multi-entry U.S. visa in June 2008, which was not due to expire until June of 2010. The VIPER entry based on Alhaji Mutallab’s warning to the embassy included a notice that if or when Umar applied for an extension or renewal of his existing U.S. visa, then the case should be thoroughly examined in light of the father’s concerns about the son, said the official. But this did not constitute an explicit instruction either that his current visa should be revoked or that any application for a fresh or extended visa should be denied. It is not clear whether the people who operated the TIDE database were aware that Abdulmutallab had a valid U.S. visa at the time the report on him from Abuja reached U.S. intelligence.
I read it and still find it unacceptable. Err on the side of caution. We may not get lucky next time. We have a hard enough time getting main stream Muslims willing to snitch off these guys. When you have what seems like a very credible man warning about his own child I would think that should be a priority.
I heard the same story about the guy who supposedly didn't have a passport. If that turns out to be true suspension of direct flights to or from Amsterdam would be my short term solution. Wonder what that would cost them over say a 30 day penalty period.
