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Times Square Bomber on DHS Watch List Since 1999; Likes Everybody Loves Raymond

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Wednesday, 05 May 2010 19:55

Written by Justin Credible

America needs to be in a place to be able to stop these attacks before they happen; not figure out what when wrong after the fact.  It's now been reported that the Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list, the Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS), between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash equivalents to the United States.  The clues were there, so how did this Islamic terrorist slip past the system?

TECS is a huge database shared by 20 federal agencies, but has recently been called inefficient by Senators Lieberman and Collins.

"Current functionality does not allow interoperability among databases, fast searching of information, modern interfaces for users of the system, or sufficient security to protect critical terrorist travel data."

This is another example of the administration failing to protect its citizens.  America has been extremely lucky that the past two terrorist attacks in the last four months have failed.  But our luck will run out.  What's unclear is how we've ended up in these situations where so many signs have pointed to a problem and they don't get answered.

There seems to be much more information about Faisal Shahzad than the administration is willing to share with us at this time.  As nice as it is to know he's a fan of the smash-hit television show Everybody Loves Raymond (which we know is a lie because nobody likes that show), we need to find out how deeply seeded Shahzad was in the Taliban and exactly how he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.  Mirandizing this terrorist within hours of his arrest doesn't help get this information.

Justin Credible is a contributing editor for Habledash.

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