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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Federal lawmakers are investigating how a former Iraqi insurgent fighter was able to lie about his identity and still get through America's 'extreme' vetting process.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to find out why the terror suspect's pending arrest was allegedly spiked just over a week before the election. Trump had run on a tough-on-terror platform and had been critical of President Obama's refugee policy.
"When [Joint Terrorism Task Force] and the U.S. Attorney's office for the Western District of Texas sought to prosecute this refugee, the local law enforcement and prosecutors allegedly 'met resistance' from officials within the National Security Division's Counter Terrorism section in Washington DC," Committee chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said in a March 6 letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday March 09 2017, @02:28PM (10 children)
The only way you could 100% keep all bad guys from outside of the country from getting into the country is:
1. Ban all international travel to the US, from anywhere. Which also means banning all international travel from the US to anywhere, since otherwise an American citizen could go to a foreign country, swap passports with a terrorist lookalike, and the terrorist comes back to the US claiming to be the citizen who just left.
2. Build something more effective than the Berlin Wall along all US borders. Including all coastlines. Potentially important is that Trump's Mexican border wall isn't even up to Berlin Wall standards, and the Berlin Wall was not 100% effective.
3. Ban all international trade, because nobody wants to spend the money to really investigate cargo shipping containers and a bad guy could easily sneak into the country by hiding in a shipping crate.
And even after you do all that, with all the major disruptions and staggeringly huge cost those measures would entail, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of bad guys in America are native-born American citizens, and are bad guys for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with international terrorism and everything to do with things like "My girl better not be sleeping with another man!" and "Hey, I can get rich real quick by robbing banks." and "I need my drug fix."
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @03:38PM (1 child)
2. Build something more effective than the Berlin Wall along all US borders. Including all coastlines.
It's going to be great. [nytimes.com] Really really terrific. [csmonitor.com] Believe me. [inhomelandsecurity.com]
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Thursday March 09 2017, @10:54PM
Genius, take all the money from TSA for the wall as far as I'm concerned. Also man the wall with patriots.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 09 2017, @03:39PM (3 children)
3. Ban all international trade, because nobody wants to spend the money to really investigate cargo shipping containers and a bad guy could easily sneak into the country by hiding in a shipping crate.
This is technically incorrect. It would be pretty simple to use X-ray machines to scan all incoming shipping crates and look for humans, and given the level of X-ray radiation required to penetrate steel shipping crates, it probably wouldn't be good for any humans hiding inside either. There's already such scanners in use.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday March 09 2017, @04:22PM (2 children)
They're in use, but they don't scan all cargo (they passed a law saying that they were supposed to, but then they decided that was too expensive). And you can solve the x-ray problem with lead shielding. I didn't say this was going to be a pleasant trip, mind you, just that it was possible to make it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 09 2017, @04:36PM (1 child)
Two things with lead shielding: 1) you can just boost the X-ray power and penetrate that, or 2) since lead shielding isn't likely to be commonly used in containers, any that do can be flagged for manual inspection, at additional cost to the shipper or receiver. As for the expense of scanning, how expensive can it be once you have the machine in place? The only ongoing costs will be 1) electricity for the machine, 2) labor (having humans sit there and look at the images, which shouldn't take more than 1 minute per container I'm guessing; they certainly don't take anywhere near that long to look at the images of your luggage at the airport), and 3) maintenance costs for the machine.
I'm just pointing out that technical solutions can be employed to completely prevent people from sneaking into the country in shipping containers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @05:18PM
No matter how strict your guidelines, you are always at risk of one or more of them being accidentally overlooked. There is always a chance to get through.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @05:36PM
Yes, let's turn our country into a hermit kingdom, like NK. I hear it's completely safe over there.
(Score: 3, Touché) by NewNic on Thursday March 09 2017, @06:30PM (1 child)
You forgot the beaches. Perhaps we need pillboxes with .50 caliber machine guns at all beaches on both coasts. Or mines. Yeah, we could lay mines in the beaches.
In the real world, this administration is proposing reductions to the funding of the Coast Guard.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday March 10 2017, @04:04AM
No, I didn't forget them. My proposed wall specifically ran along all coastlines.
Oh, and based on that, going out onto the ocean in a boat for any reason has to be illegal too. Hope you didn't like seafood.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @06:46PM
The fact that one may get through is no excuse for not having a proper wall. Better, do 5 fences with 1000-foot spacing and sensors, or just lay a minefield.
Cutting down on identity theft would also help. If you can't do basic transactions in the USA, it's rather hard to survive undetected. (no job, no housing, no car, no medical care, no large purchases, no banking, no flights...)