Thread: We're Still Not Prepared (Detailed)

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/12 ... _recom.php

Report on 9-11 Commission Recommendations Shows We're Still Not Prepared
By Michael Cutler

I received a copy of a special report from Bruce DeCell, a founding member of the 911 Families for a Secure America. Bruce is a former member of the NYPD whose young son-in-law was among the thousands of innocent human beings who were slaughtered in the ruthless, savage attacks that were carried out against our nation on September 11, 2001. The report was prepared by the CRS, the Congressional Research Service, the division of the United States Congress that, as its name implies, is responsible for gathering information to help our Senators and members of the House of Representatives arrive at reasonable decisions.

The report, in its entirety, addresses a broad spectrum of issues that were addressed by the 9-11 Commission in its efforts to delineate the failings of our government to prevent the attacks of September 11, 2001. It is critical to understand that this report is of tremendous importance because the point to the work of the 9-11 Commission was not to engage in a "witch hunt" to point a finger, but rather to make certain that areas of vulnerability could be found and appropriate remedial steps taken to help prevent future attacks and devastation.

I have copied the section that deals with my own area of expertise below. I have highlighted particular sentences in the copied document below, to help illustrate points that I have been making for quite some time where our government has, incredibly, still refused to act or, in some really bizarre situations, has actually gone in the opposite direction, making our nation, in my judgement, more vulnerable than ever before! Let us briefly consider the ways in which the government and our "leaders" have failed and continue to fail the citizens of our nation.

The President and politicians who favor a guest worker amnesty program are ignoring the fact that the sheer numbers of applicants for any such program would preclude any sort of quality control. I believe that we could wind up with more than 20 million applications for any such guest worker amnesty program. Simply stated, there is no way that the few thousand employees of ICE and USCIS who would be tasked with implementing such a program would be able to conduct true background investigations of all of those applicants. At present, there are a multitude of stories being published nearly every week that deal with corruption and ineptitude at USCIS even without the potential avalanche of applications that would result from a guest worker amnesty program. Most recently the news has covered a report concerning how more than 110,000 immigration files were lost and in the rush to keep up with the ever-growing backlog of applications, USCIS conferred United States citizenship upon as many as 30,000 aliens whose files could not be reviewed because they were lost! This happened in just this past year, I suspect that this sort of madness has been happening in past years as well. The only thing worse than no security is false security. By providing aliens with official identity documents where their true identities are unknown and unknowable, our government would create a national security nightmare for our nation! Terrorists would be able to acquire brand new "clean" identities that would render the various terrorist and "No Fly" lists worthless. Simply running fingerprints and names through a computer database would not alert our officials to a person who was lying about his or her true identity. This approach to "solving" the problem of not knowing who is here is no solution at all- it would exacerbate this critical area of vulnerability confronting our nation.

The President is pushing for the expansion of the Visa Waiver Program at a time when the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission call for in-person interviews of aliens who apply for visas! I guess that by reducing the number of aliens who need to have visas because of the Visa Waiver Program, the President believes he could cut down on the workload of our consular officials who determine whether to issue visas to aliens. This is absolutely insane! The visa requirement can and must be seen as a component of national security- yet the President wants to eliminate this additional layer of security at a time that he and his administration continually remind us that we are waging a war against terrorists who want to kill us!

The 9-11 Commission recommended the construction of a fence along the Mexican border and yet many members of the Congress are now talking about eliminating the fence project as a part of a national security strategy. The government has failed to hire the additional law enforcement personnel to enforce the security of the borders and to enforce the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States. The 9-11 Commission noted the need to have a system, based on bio-metrics, to effectively track the arrival and departure of aliens entering the United States. Yet the departure side of US-VISIT is years away from being implemented, more than 5 years after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The 9-11 Commission recommended that the driver's licenses issued by the 50 states of our nation possess real integrity we see that the acceptance of this concept is still problematic in a number of states. Any state that fails to abide by the recommendation of the 9-11 Commission and follow the Real ID Act creates a national security vulnerability for the entire nation.

A couple of years ago, I testified before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims at the behest of Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, the then ranking Democrat on that critically important subcommittee. The topic of the hearing was the need to enhance penalties for aliens smugglers and those who are involved in producing fraudulent immigration-related documents and/or arrange fraud schemes in order to enable aliens to circumvent our nation's borders and immigration laws. She drafted legislation to deal with these threats to our nation's security. These efforts will achieve little in the way of meaningful success if we do not have an adequate number of special agents at ICE who are dedicated to enforcing these critical laws and who also receive the critical training that they need in order to maximize their potential for success. The outreach program to cultivate intelligence in various communities around the United States where various criminals and terrorists may be hiding requires the cultivation of informants. This is most easily done as and adjunct to law enforcement activities. Again, this requires that ICE has an adequate number of special agents and support personnel. Something as mundane and commonsense as providing foreign language training for these agents is not being addressed. Before the creation of DHS, all immigration law enforcement personnel were required to successfully complete a Spanish language training program. I have often recommended, at various Congressional hearings that this requirement, that was eliminated when DHS was created, be implemented once again and that this training be broadened to include additional languages such as Arabic, Farsi and Urdu as well as Chinese and other such "strategic languages." I recommended at hearings that all ICE special agents be given ongoing training to identify altered or counterfeit identity documents inasmuch as those sorts of documents are truly the linchpins that hold the immigration system together.

Instead of implementing the recommendations that would make sense, we have heard all sorts of statements from all too many politicians who appear more concerned with recklessly opening our borders and providing incentives for more illegal aliens to run our nation's borders and move money out of the United States in the name of "free trade!" This is not acceptable. In the days and weeks after the attacks of 9-11 many of our political leaders stood before the cameras and microphones, expressing outrage and indignation that "No one connected the dots!" They demanded answers. The 9-11 Commission has provided the answers, but apparently the answers were ones that they did not want to hear. They are more than willing to ignore the findings and recommendations of the Commission and of the experts who have stepped forward. This imperils our nation and our citizens and is not acceptable!

I have said this before but I believe it is worth repeating: Our nation rightfully celebrates the determination and success of the "Greatest Generation" that lead our nation through the darkest days of the Second World War. Those men and women preserved our nation and our way of life. They made many sacrifices and, indeed, many of the members of that generation died or were wounded on the battlefields of World War II. If our politicians do not get their act together and make the tough decisions, secure our borders against criminals and terrorists and do the other things that are essential to win the war on terror, those of us alive today may earn a different title, "The Last Generation!"

Lead, follow or get out of the way!
------------------

Border Security and Immigration
Terrorist Travel

Commission Concerns and Recommendations. The 9/11 Commission issued several recommendations that directly pertain to immigration law and policy. These recommendations focused primarily on targeting terrorist travel through an intelligence and security strategy based on reliable identification systems and effective, integrated information-sharing, including the expansion and consolidation of the border-screening systems. More specifically, the 9/11 Commission concluded that targeting travel is at least as powerful a weapon against terrorists as targeting their money, and recommended that the United States combine intelligence, operations, and law enforcement in a strategy to intercept terrorists, find terrorist travel facilitators, and constrain terrorist mobility.

Congressional Response. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (ITRPA) of 2004 (P.L. 108-45 included several provisions aimed at targeting terrorist travel. The Act calls for the accelerated deployment of the biometric entry and exit system to process or contain certain data on aliens and their physical characteristics (see discussion below). It required an in-person consular interview of most applicants for nonimmigrant visas between the ages of 14 and 79, and also required an alien applying for a nonimmigrant visa to completely and accurately respond to any request for information contained in his or her application. The Act also expanded the pre-inspection program that places U.S. immigration inspectors at foreign airports, increasing the number of foreign airports where travelers would be pre-inspected before departure to the United States.

Moreover, it required individuals entering the United States (including U.S. citizens and visitors from Canada and other Western Hemisphere countries) to bear a passport or other documents sufficient to denote citizenship and identity. The Act required improvements in technology and training to assist consular and immigration officers in detecting and combating terrorist travel. It (1) established the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center, which included an interagency program devoted to countering terrorist travel; (2) required the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Director of the National Counter Terrorism Center, to establish a program to oversee DHS’s responsibilities with respect to terrorist travel; and (3) established a Visa and Passport Security Program within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security at the Department of State.

In the 109th Congress, the REAL ID Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-13, Division B), among other things, required DHS to: conduct a study on U.S. border security vulnerabilities; establish a pilot program to test ground surveillance technologies on the northern and southern borders to enhance U.S. border security; and implement a plan to improve communications systems and information-sharing between federal, state, local, and tribal agencies on matters relating to border security. DHS was also required to submit reports to Congress regarding its implementation of these requirements. The Secure Fence Act (P.L. 109-367) required DHS to deploy double-layer fencing to 850 miles of the U.S. international border with Mexico.

Terrorist Screening and Watch Lists

Commission Concerns and Recommendations. The 9/11 Commission concluded that the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement community missed several vital opportunities to watch-list and screen several conspirators involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In addition, the Commission recommended that U.S. border security systems be integrated with other systems to expand the network of screening points to include the nation’s transportation system and access to vital facilities. Despite problems with high-profile misidentifications, the Commission also recommended that the controversial “No-Fly” and “Automatic Selectee” lists maintained by the DHS’s Transportation Security Administration be improved without delay.

Congressional Response. In the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-45, Congress included several watch list related airline passenger prescreening provisions that require that airline passengers, among others, be prescreened against the consolidated terrorist watch list database. Another provision requires the Administration to report to Congress on (1) the criteria used to place persons on terrorism-related watch lists, and (2) the privacy and civil liberty implications of the further use of the “No Fly” and “Automatic Selectee” lists. These and other aviation security provisions are described below under “Transportation Security.”

Related Administrative Response. Under Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6 (HSPD-6), the Bush Administration elevated and expanded terrorist identification and watch-list functions by establishing a consolidated terrorist watch list database. Undergirding these screening processes is a consolidated Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), which under HSPD-6 has been established and maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) — a multi-agency effort administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Among other things, the TSC provides support to:

-- the Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs by issuing terrorism-related security advisory opinions for visa issuance purposes;

-- the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) Customs and Border Protection in evaluating potential matches between terrorist lookout records and persons entering the United States at international ports of entry; and

-- nearly 750,000 state and local law enforcement officers to whom limited TSDB lookout records have been made available through the National Crime Information Center.

In April 2006, the DHS Privacy Office issued a report assessing the impact of the “No Fly” and “Automatic Selectee” lists on privacy and civil liberties. The report cited concerns about the quality of the information of those lists, as well as the underlying intelligence. The report also noted allegations about profiling on the basis of race, religion, or national origin, but reported that it could not substantiate those allegations. In regard to the criteria used to place individuals on terrorist watch lists, it is unknown whether the Administration reported to Congress on this matter. Nevertheless, the Privacy Office report stressed that those criteria could not be made public without: (1) comprising intelligence and security, or (2) allowing persons wishing to avoid detection to subvert those lists. In addition, in late September 2006, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on efforts to reduce the adverse effects of terrorist watch list screening, outlining measures that DHS and the TSC had taken to reduce and alleviate misidentifications. It also noted that while the total number of misidentifications is unknown, their frequency, which is estimated to be in the tens of thousands, remains a serious concern.

Biometric Screening System and Data Systems Integration
Commission Concerns and Recommendations. The 9/11 Commission called for the expeditious implementation of “a biometric entry-exit screening system, including a single system for speeding qualified travelers.” With respects to biometrics, the 9/11 Commission noted the following: “Biometrics have been introduced into an antiquated computer environment” and that “replacement of these systems and improved biometric systems will be required.” The 9/11 Commission also recommended the integration of the various border screening systems with the US-VISIT system, including frequent traveler programs such as NEXUS and the Secure Electronic Network for Travelers’ Rapid Inspections (SENTRI).

Congressional Responses. In an effort to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (P.L.108-45. Previously, Congress passed legislation that mandated DHS to implement entry and exit controls and integrate immigration-related databases and data systems.

Congress first mandated that the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) implement an automated entry and exit data system that would track the arrival and departure of every alien in §110 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA; P.L. 104-20. Several provisions in the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act (Border Security Act; P.L. 107-173) and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, however, required the immediate implementation of an automated entry and exit data system and called for enhancements in its development, including a requirement that biometric identifiers be used in all visas and other travel documents and that the entry and exit data system be interoperable with other law enforcement and national security databases. Congress, however, first required the entry and exit data system be interoperable with other law enforcement systems in the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (PATRIOT Act; P.L. 107-56). The PATRIOT Act was also the first time Congress required the development and certification of a technology standard that has the capacity to verify the identity of persons applying for a visa or seeking to enter the U.S.

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 called for the Secretary of DHS (Secretary) to develop a plan to accelerate the full implementation of an automated biometric entry and exit data system and to submit a report to Congress on the plan by July 17, 2005. The Act required the entry and exit data system to collect “biometric exit data for all categories of individuals who are required to provide biometric entry data.”

The Act also required the integration of all databases and data systems that process or contain information on aliens by December 2006. The Act required the integrated data system to be an interoperable component of the entry and exit data system. The Act further required the Secretary to fully implement the interoperable electronic data system as specified in the Border Security Act. In addition to the integration of the entry and exit data system with other databases and data systems, the Act required the Secretary to develop and implement a plan to expedite the processing of registered travelers through a single registered traveler program that can be integrated into the broader automated biometric entry and exit data system.

Standards for Identification Documents
Commission Concerns and Recommendations. The 9/11Commission recommended that standards should be set “for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as drivers licenses.” The 9/11 Commission noted that fraudulent documents are “...no longer just a problem of theft,” and that ports of entry are “the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they are...” Additionally, the 9/11 Commission recommended the elimination of the “Western Hemisphere Exception,” whereby U.S. citizens returning from countries in the Western Hemisphere, and some citizens from designated Western Hemisphere nations, are not required to show a passport when entering the United States (but they are required to demonstrate citizenship). In doing so, the 9/11 Commission advocated for ensuring that all individuals presenting themselves for entry into the United States present biometric passports or other identification allowing their identities tobe securely verified.

Congressional Response. In the 108th Congress, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (P.L.108-45 required the establishment of new standards aimed at ensuring the integrity for federal use of birth certificates, state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards, and social security cards. States may receive grants to assist them in implementing the proposed birth certificate and driver’s license standards.83 In the 109th Congress, the REAL ID Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-13, Division B) addressed this issue more directly, and while the Act does not directly impose federal standards with respect to states’ issuance of driver’s licenses and personal identification cards, states nevertheless appear to need to adopt such standards and modify any conflicting laws or regulations in order for such documents to be recognized by federal agencies for official purposes.

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 also addressed the “Western Hemisphere Exception” by requiring individuals entering the United States (including U.S. citizens and visitors from Canada and other Western Hemisphere countries) to bear a passport or other documents sufficient to denote citizenship and identity as of January 1, 2008. In the 109th Congress, the fiscal year (FY) 2007 DHS Appropriations Act (P.L. 109-295) extended this deadline to the earlier of two dates: June 1, 2009; or no later than three months after the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of State certify that a series of implementation requirements have been met.

Other Immigration Concerns
Commission Concerns. Reforming the enforcement of immigration law is an underlying theme of the recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission. The 9/11 Commission concluded that the key officials responsible for determining alien admissions (consular officers abroad and immigration inspectors in the United States) were not considered full partners in counterterrorism efforts prior to September 11, 2001, and as a result, opportunities to intercept the September 11 terrorists were missed.

They further recommended that the U.S. border security system be integrated into a larger network of screening points that includes our transportation system and access to vital facilities, such as nuclear reactors. In addition, they maintained that the Department of Homeland Security, with proper support from Congress, should complete a biometric entry-exit screening system, including a single system for speeding qualified travelers, as quickly as possible. They also expressed the view that the U.S. government cannot meet its own obligations to the American people to prevent the entry of terrorists without a major effort to collaborate with other governments.

Congressional Response. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-45 included many immigration-related provisions aimed at addressing broad immigration enforcement concerns raised by the 9/11 Commission. The major features of these immigration-related provisions are summarized below.

Grounds for Alien Exclusion, Removal, and Relief from Removal. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act made any alien deportable who has received military training from or on behalf of an organization that, at the time of training, was a designated terrorist organization. It also made the revocation of a nonimmigrant visa by the State Department grounds for removal. The visa revocation, however, is reviewable in a removal proceeding in cases where visa revocation provides the sole ground for removal. The Act made inadmissible and deportable any alien who (1) has ordered, incited, assisted, or participated in conduct that would be considered genocide under U.S. law; (2) committed or participated in an act of torture or an extrajudicial killing; or (3) while serving as a foreign official, was responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom. The Act also required the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study evaluating the degree that weaknesses in the current U.S. asylum system have been or could be exploited by aliens involved in terrorist-related activity.

Allocation of Additional Resources to Improve Enforcement. The Act authorized the Secretary of State to increase the number of consular officers by 150 per year from FY2006 through FY2009 above the number of such positions for which funds were allotted for the preceding fiscal year. It also increased the numbers of border patrol agents by not less than 2,000, in each year FY2006 through FY2010, and required a number of agents equaling at least 20% of each year’s increase in agents to be assigned to the northern border. The Act also increased the number of ICE investigators by not less than 800 in each year FY2006 through FY2010, and required an increase in the number of beds available for immigration detention and removal operations by not less than 8,000 over the same period. Further, the Act established a pilot program to test advanced technologies to improve border security between ports of entry along the northern border of the United States. It also required the Secretary of Homeland Security to submit to the President and Congress a plan for the systematic surveillance of the southwest border of the United States by remotely piloted aircraft, and to implement such plan as a pilot program.

In the 109th Congress, the REAL ID Act required DHS to develop a pilot program to increase the use of ground-surveillance technologies, including video cameras, sensors, and motion-detection technology, to monitor the northern and southwestern borders. The Secure Fence Act (P.L. 109-367) required DHS to deploy double-layer fencing to 850 miles of the U.S. international border with Mexico.

Penalties for Immigration-Related Fraud and Alien Smuggling. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act increased criminal penalties for alien smuggling in certain circumstances and required the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop an outreach program in the United States and overseas to educate the public about the penalties for illegally bringing in and harboring aliens.
December 14, 2006 11:15 AM Print

The Real ID Act is a joke. It is nothing more than a National ID and tracking system that will illegally track all law abiding Americans.