WASHINGTON
- President Obama yesterday ordered intelligence agencies to streamline how
terrorism threats are pursued and analyzed, saying the government has to
respond aggressively to the failures that allowed a Nigerian man to ignite
an explosive on a jetliner on Christmas Day.
Mr. Obama directed the Homeland Security
Department to acquire $1 billion in advanced-technology equipment, including
body scanners, for screening passengers at airports.
He said intelligence reports involving threats
would be distributed more widely among agencies. He instructed the State
Department to review its visa policy to make it more difficult for people
with connections to terrorism to receive visas, while making it simpler to
revoke U.S. visas when questions arise.
"We are at war," Mr. Obama said, releasing an
unclassified version of a report on the attempted attack. He pledged not to
"succumb to a siege mentality" sacrificing America's civil liberties for
security, but he called for expanding the criteria for adding people to
terrorism watch lists.
Declaring the "buck stops with me," the
President avoided blaming any particular agency or official for breakdowns
that allowed
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board the Northwest
Airlines flight to Detroit armed with explosives despite a series of warning
signs along the way.
"Ultimately, the buck stops with me," Mr. Obama
said. "As President, I have a solemn responsibility to protect our nation
and our people. When the system fails, it's my responsibility."
Nevertheless, the remedies he ordered in a memo to
Cabinet officials and security chiefs mostly were modest steps, and
intelligence officials defended the existing system as largely functional
and superior to the apparatus in place before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. Obama called on U.S. intelligence and
security communities to strengthen terrorist watch lists, especially the
nation's no-fly list, by expanding criteria for people to be included. The
President also demanded reviews that could lead to additional travelers
being subjected to time-consuming secondary security checks at airports, as
well as visa denials and revocations at consulates.
After the release of the report, Homeland Security
Secretary Janet Napolitano unveiled changes her agency is implementing,
including plans that were in motion before Christmas to deploy 300 advanced
imaging machines to airports around the country.
Ecclesiastes 5:8, “If
thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment
and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher
than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.”
"If liberty means
anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not
want to hear."
—Author George Orwell
“They're
setting up a Police State because our standard of living is
going to implode.”
—Alex
Jones
Daniel 12:4, “But
thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of
the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”
First the terrorists were Al Qaeda, then
it was Tim McVeigh, now it's Ron Paul supporters! First Amber's Law was
enacted to save little girls, now it's being used to turn in your
neighbor to police for owning guns. This is how tyranny operates!
WASHINGTON
- President Obama yesterday ordered intelligence agencies to streamline how
terrorism threats are pursued and analyzed, saying the government has to
respond aggressively to the failures that allowed a Nigerian man to ignite
an explosive on a jetliner on Christmas Day. 
