Homeland Security

Now this has to be a big relief to Eli, Butch, Gronk, Victor, and the rest of those studs. Not to mention Belichick and Coughlin. Shoot, even the commish has got to feel like a big weight has been lifted off his shoulders. Big Sis Napolitano, herself, has done a walkthrough of the stadium where they will be playing the Super Bowl on Sunday.

At a House Homeland Security Committee hearing Wednesday morning on the domestic threat of al Shabaab, Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.) warned that the Somali terrorist organization could carry out a terrorist attack in America and that it should not be underestimated.

The Washington Post ran a cover story in Saturday's issue about New York Republican congressman Peter King, the chair of the House Homeland Security committee.

Despite concern from the left about the potential for Rep. Peter King's Homeland Security Committee hearings would unfairly "[single] out an entire community, such as Muslim Americans," this morning's hearing with Department of Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano and Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, focused primarily on the efficacy of the government's counterterrorism efforts with regard to homegrown Islamic terrorism. But for a brief five minutes, Democrat Bennie Thompson, the ranking member on the committee, brought the focus to what he considers a great threat to homeland security: anti-tax groups.

When it comes to homeland security, President Obama’s first year in office was a nightmare. In September, Nidal Malik Hasan, a radicalized Army major, murdered 13 defense department employees at Ft. Hood, Texas.

Little did Director of National Intelligence James Clapper know that when he and two of his Obama administration colleagues sat down to discuss the terror threat with ABC’s Diane Sawyer earlier this month that his appearance would be the source of controversy.

Not so long ago I arrived at Dulles airport, outside Washington, after a very protracted journey from Russia, including a layover in Germany. Like most transatlantic voyagers, I was weary, only approximately awake, and felt vaguely unwashed. Standing for a long time in a long line to present my passport to customs officials, I observed that an unusual number of my fellow travelers appeared to be elderly—that is to say, older than myself—and I could only surmise that the rigors of modern air travel were especially taxing for them.

Late last month, EU Home Affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmström announced the resumption of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP), under which American counterterror investigators have consulted and analyzed selected data on international bank transactions originating in Europe. (Note that it was not the Obama administration that announced the resumption of the program.)

On Sunday morning, Janet Napolitano twice suggested that the attempted attack in Times Square was a "one-off" event during an interview with ABC News. ABC's Jake Tapper had asked Napolitano directly about the possibility of international involvement, given the similarities (superficial, at least) between the crude bomb discovered in the Nissan Pathfinder in New York City and those used in attempted bombings in London and Glasgow in 2007. "Well, right now, we have no evidence that it is anything other than a one-off, but we are alerting state, local officials around the country, letting them know what is going on."

Calling the attempted attack a "one-off" wasn't directly responsive to Tapper's question. But it's clear that Napolitano, who also described the bomb as "amateurish," wanted to downplay the seriousness of the attack.

Faisal Shahzad, a 30 year-old naturalized American citizen from Pakistan, has been arrested as the chief suspect behind the failed car bomb attack on Times Square this past Saturday.  The good news is, of course, that the bomb was fairly unsophisticated (showing a low-level of expertise), it failed to detonate (sparing the lives of New Yorkers and tourists), and the man believed to be responsible for assembling and deploying the car bomb was apprehended in short order. Authorities were able to pinpoint the would-be terrorist in impressively little time.

It is not all good news, however. Law enforcement and intelligence officials failed to stop the perpetrator from placing his bomb in the first place. We were simply lucky that onlookers weren’t killed. If this was truly the work of a rogue individual, a “one-off” event as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano suggested on Sunday, then that failure would be somewhat understandable. As law enforcement and intelligence professionals have repeatedly lamented, it is exceedingly difficult to stop a “lone wolf” terrorist.

Neither the determination of al Qaeda, nor the tactic used in this incident seem particularly shocking or new. Perhaps this kind of thing has something to do with a news search for "Napolitano" today bringing up three calls for her resignation.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION is incessantly criticized, and not only from the left, for a variety of safety measures it introduced in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks.