Homeland Insecurity

Are we winning the "War on Terror"

• The July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate Statement showed that Al Qaeda has fully reconstituted itself in Pakistan's northern border region.

• Only one person has been convicted of engaging in a terrorist act since 9/11, Richard Reid the shoe bomber.

• Tom and Nancy Kubbany were denied a homeloan because Tom's middle name is “Hassan”, the name of one of Saddam's son's who were on a terrorist watch list.

• Businesses have been served with more than 100,000 “national security letters” which permit the FBI to demand records on customers without a court order or individualized basis for suspicion.

• In February of 2005, the FBI admitted that it had not yet identified a single Al Qaeda sleeper cell in the U.S.

• The Justice Department claims to have charged more than 400 people in “terrorism-related” cases. However the Inspector General has said those figures are inflated and the New York Times and Washington Post found that only 39 of the convictions were for a terrorism crime. Many of the cases involved minor non-violent offenses like immigration fraud, credit card fraud or lying to an FBI agent.

• Immigrants have been targeted by “War on Terror” investigations. After 9/11, Bush called in 80,000 foreign nationals for fingerprinting, photographing and “special registration”. 5,000 foreign nationals were held in preventive detention. However, as of 9/07, not one of some 93,000 people has been convicted of a terrorist crime (what is possibly the largest ethnic profiling since the internment of Japanese and other Asian Americans during WWII).

• Foreign Policy polled more than 100 foreign policy experts (evenly across the political spectrum). 91% felt that the world is becoming more dangerous for the U.S., 84% said we are not winning the “war on terror”

• In 12/05, the 911 Commission gave the Bush Administration failing or near-failing grades on many of the most basic domestic security measures

• Why We're Losing the War on Terror:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070924/cole_lobel

Chemical Security in the U.S.

• The NYPD was involved in an investigation where they posed as a water company and ordered chlorine from an online supplier. The online supplier delivered chlorine to Brooklyn with no questions asked. The NYPD then urged the Department of Homeland Security to step-up their efforts to track the sale and distribution of chlorine.

• DHS currently has fewer people devoted to chemical security nationwide than we have securing a single neighborhood in Baghdad.

• DHS' chemical security regulatory authority is temporary and sunsets in 2009.

• Chemical supply chains also need to be addressed. The shipping of hazardous chemicals on freight rail lines and highways that flow through major metropolitan areas needs to be addressed to prevent these as terrorist targets.

• A Deadly Dance on Chemical Security Regulation: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/11/chemical_security.html

• Preventing Toxic Terrorism: How Some Chemical Facilities are Removing Danger to American Communities: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/b681085_ct2556757.html

• Toxic Trains and Terrorist Threat: How Water Utilities Can Get Chlorine off the Rails and Out of American Communities: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/chemical_security_report.html

• NYPD Warns of Chlorine Terror Risk: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iEV-RYkZ8ug64FLvt3tuxf8o_6QgD8UPLRDG0

Spending Priorities: Domestic Security

• More per day is spent in Iraq than per year in the U.S. on basic domestic security measures.