Sassenach wrote:

What is the President's first responsibility? I would argue it is the safety and security of Americans. If our system misses someone who has taken to social media and vowed to wage jihad, I think it is reasonable to say that we can do better.

Perhaps, but I don't think you really appreciate the scale of the administrative challenge. I don't know how many of the visas issued each year are to Muslims, but given that you issued almost 10 million of them last year it's not unreasonable to suppose that it's several hundred thousand at least. How are your immigration officials supposed to vet the internet use of each and every one of these people ? Answer: they can't. They can't even do it properly for any of them. It would have to be farmed out to the NSA, and even then you'd need agents with a variety of language skills to check postings on 'social media' that might be written in farsi or pushtu or somali or arabic. This is a vast amount of work that would completely swamp the agency. Again, is this really the best use of resources ? Might it not in fact make your citizens less safe by diverting the energies of the security services from proper, targeted intelligence gathering ?

I agree that social media should be a source, but I defer to Sass on this given he works in Immigration and has pointed out the size of the task.

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:Of course screening can be improved. Continuous Improvement is the best way to proceed. And it needs to be adequately funded.

But that is not what Trump is saying. He is saying no Muslims at all for an undefined period.

That's not quite accurate. He said "until [they] know what the h___" is going on.

That sounds indefinite to me. Especially give who said it.

Erm, okay. It sounds to me like he would have someone fix it.

Just as many Governors were saying no Syrian refugees (who are much more thoroughly vetted than most people applying for normal visas). And in my view that is moral cowardice.

Tell that to the residents of San Bernardino.

And the point of that snark is what? Neither perpetrator was a Syrian, or a refugee. One was a US citizen by birth.

You give snark, you get it back.

Again, you want to paint what has been said in the worst possible way because it suits your agenda. Okay. The reality is that the security professionals who work for Obama have said that thorough vetting is not possible right now for the Syrian refugees. ISIS has said they want to infiltrate the refugees.

So, we should ignore what ISIS says, ignore what the professionals say, and just be "brave?"

That's one perspective.

Are Syrian refugees "more thoroughly vetted?" Is the Syrian government participating fully in that vetting? What databases do we have access to? How up to date are they? Please, do tell.

Well, given that many are fleeing the Syrian government and we are not friends with Assad, of course we are not likely to get much from them.

But the vetting for Syrian refugees takes well over a year, they have to have come through the UN camps. it is nothing like the checks for a marriage visa.

How will we find out criminal history? Terror ties? The same government that has no idea where 11 million visa overstayers are is to be trusted to screen these folks? With documents obtained from where? Again, what Syrian databases are available?

You suppose we should just trust the UN? Will the UN come and bury any who are killed? What is the UN's responsibility to the US electorate?

We ought to take more adults over 60. They are little/no threat. We ought to take religious minorities as their lives are more endangered.

Yazidis are (but they are mainly in Iraq). Christians (not that you probably think they really are Christian) and Alawites are not fleeing Assad because he allies with them. And they are not fleeing ISIS because there are few of them in the East of the country.

From your description, we should send them all back to Syria. It's roses and sunshine for religious minorities.

And the old guys might just be the preachers, you know?

Gee, why the snark?

None have done what you have done here and suggested areas to improve.

False. Looking at social media is one such suggestion--and it is common sense.

I don't think you read that in your zeal to insta-respond and disagree with me. I am giving you credit for coming up with an area to improve, where the likes of Trump and Christie have not. Sheesh.

Sorry, I misread it--multiple times.

And, assimilation is common sense. Multi-culturalism and a socialist state leads to the nurturing of those who will one day kill in the name of their culture, religion and god. It's happened in Britain, France, and other areas of Europe. Muslim enclaves develop, radical teaching is introduced, and violence ensues.

No thanks.

You do realise that France was actually following a policy of assimilation for decades? It didn't work because the "beurs" and the blacks are often treated like crap, but that was the policy: Speak French. No religion in schools. etc etc.

The US isn't France. We have a long history of initial difficulty followed by assimilation.

Neither does socialism have anything to do with it.

If people HAD to work, they would not be so quick to flee to foreign lands.

As for "enclaves" developing, this is natural with immigration and certainly is not something the US does not see for other groups of immigrants. Why do many major cities have a "Chinatown"? Don't you have majority latino districts in cities a long way from the Mexican border? Isn't Brighton Beach still full of Russians? Don't many people in the US identify as "[origin]-American", rather than just "American"?

Those areas tend to change over time. As for identification, that is something that has been encouraged by some. In most cases, it's pretty ridiculous.

It takes a few generations for things to shake out and enclaves be broken down. Of course, what tends to help that process is a more welcoming society. Treating immigrants as if they the enemy is what makes them more likely to stick to their own company.

That hasn't stopped wave after wave of migrants here.

danivon wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:Fate:

the White House's Chanakkuh celebration was borderline anti-Semitic, if not over the line

I watched the first 5 or so minutes and I thought it was fine ... I have seen the commentary that suggests otherwise, but for some reason the video cut off. (I don't think that's a conspiracy.)

Well, you can see why with that notorious anti-semite Reuven Rivlin there.

Nothing celebrates a Jewish holiday quite like BLM rhetoric and this:

. . . we must do everything to ensure security for Israelis and justice for Palestinians as allies committed to a lasting peace for all people.

Ins'Allah, Ins'Allah, Ins'Allah, Ins'Allah.

Maybe it's not "anti-Semitic." I can go with just "meh" on Israel.

Do they bring in Islamic leaders who pray the existence of Israel during Islamic holiday celebrations?

Trump's speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition was anti-Semitic and cringe worthy.

Shh. This thread is now all about Obama. Ignore the title, or the early posts....

I don't care about Trump. Yes, it was cringe-worthy.

On the other hand, the actual President has been as anti-Israel as any US President possibly could be. It is one thing to trade in racial stereotypes and another to undermine the security of an ally.

danivon wrote:I agree that social media should be a source, but I defer to Sass on this given he works in Immigration and has pointed out the size of the task.

I reject the notion that this cannot be done. If it is that big, then find a way to narrow it. That's what all checks are about--you start at a fairly superficial level and go as deep as is required.

No one should be admitted to the US without a high level of confidence that he/she is not a terrorist.

Fate:

Do they bring in Islamic leaders who pray the existence of Israel during Islamic holiday celebrations?

Cute. B'ezrat HaShem

I reject the notion that this cannot be done. If it is that big, then find a way to narrow it. That's what all checks are about--you start at a fairly superficial level and go as deep as is required.

Let's just break this down a little and think about what would be required to make it work. The under-staffed and overworked immigration officials in say Ankara or Islamabad or Delhi (there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan) receive a visa application. What they get is an application form with some basic details, which would certainly include an address and details of any US sponsor, plus the applicant's passport. That's about it. Now it should be relatively simple to check to see if that individual is on a terrorist watchlist, I'm guessing there are systems in place which would automatically flag up something like that, or at least give them an alert without providing them with any classified information. Beyond that it gets more tricky though. You want them all to be vetted right down to their entire history of internet use. Now I suppose this is theoretically possible, but it certainly isn't something that could be done by immigration officials. The only agency which might conceivably have the power to attempt something like that is the NSA.

Even they might struggle if we're honest. They can probably get hold of the IP that's linked to the address provided on the application form, but that's all they'd have to go on to start with. In many countries the internet is more commonly accessed through internet cafes, so you're not going to find much about somebody's internet use unless you first know where they're logging on, which is again theoretically possible but would probably need a massive scale intel operation. Maybe they do log into the internet a bit from home and from this you can identify certain sites that they like to use, and from this you can identify certain patterns to their behaviour which might in turn flag up certain concerns, but again this is going to need a lot of legwork from trained intelligence officers. Chances are that in 99.99% of cases they'll be trawling through months or years worth of social media postings in pushto or arabic which are the equivalent of reading a teenager's facebook wall. Keep in mind that all this effort would have to be done hundreds of thousands of times a year and every man-hour spent on it is taking a trained intelligence officer away from his real job. Clearly this is not a good use of intelligence resources.

Now think about what happens if you do miraculously identify somebody who has been posting inappropriate material that flags up as a concern. Would the NSA actually want to tip that person off to the fact that they were now on the radar ? Would that be a sensible use of the intelligence you'd just acquired ? It's likely that this would be the last thing they'd want to try and do. Surely it's better to not intervene in the immigration process but instead monitor their activities going forward, find out who they associate with, which mosque they frequent, track all of the activities of their associated and so on. I'm willing to bet that the NSA would point blank refuse to take part in any scheme of the kind that you're proposing, and they'd be right to do so.

Well, we need to come up with a solution that makes sure that people coming from areas like Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan are reasonably vetted. If someone has a Facebook page espousing war against the US I would like to think we would not give them a visa. It plays into the hands of guys like Trump if we throw up our hands and say we really cannot properly vet people . I am guessing we would want to narrow things down a bit by using criteria that substantially narrows down people people we look at more carefully. Age could narrow it down considerably. Also you can query people at least about their internet use. What sites do you visit? Who do you correspond with ? Where do you go to get on the internet? Do you go to sites that support ISIS? Bring your computer and we'll take a look at your internet use . Give us copies of your last 3 months email correspondence. What mosque do you go to? How do you feel about ISIS? How do you feel about US support of Israel? What do you think about suicide bombers? Are they martyrs? Do you think Israel should exist? How should non- believers be treated in a Muslim country? What are opinions on Osama Bin Laden? What were your reactions to 9-11? The attacks in San Bernardino? Give me a list of all of your friends and their phone numbers . Names of important members of your mosque and phone numbers. Names of your teachers at your school and phone numbers.

Ask question after question and see the responses you get. Look at their demeanor , see if their answers sound natural or rehearsed. See if they need to think carefully about answers. Such questioning would not take a lot of time. It isn't mostly about our searching their backgrounds it's about their convincing us that they are not a threat.

Sassenach wrote:

I reject the notion that this cannot be done. If it is that big, then find a way to narrow it. That's what all checks are about--you start at a fairly superficial level and go as deep as is required.

Let's just break this down a little and think about what would be required to make it work. The under-staffed and overworked immigration officials in say Ankara or Islamabad or Delhi (there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan) receive a visa application. What they get is an application form with some basic details, which would certainly include an address and details of any US sponsor, plus the applicant's passport. That's about it. Now it should be relatively simple to check to see if that individual is on a terrorist watchlist, I'm guessing there are systems in place which would automatically flag up something like that, or at least give them an alert without providing them with any classified information. Beyond that it gets more tricky though. You want them all to be vetted right down to their entire history of internet use. Now I suppose this is theoretically possible, but it certainly isn't something that could be done by immigration officials. The only agency which might conceivably have the power to attempt something like that is the NSA.

I'm with you, so far.

Even they might struggle if we're honest. They can probably get hold of the IP that's linked to the address provided on the application form, but that's all they'd have to go on to start with. In many countries the internet is more commonly accessed through internet cafes, so you're not going to find much about somebody's internet use unless you first know where they're logging on, which is again theoretically possible but would probably need a massive scale intel operation. Maybe they do log into the internet a bit from home and from this you can identify certain sites that they like to use, and from this you can identify certain patterns to their behaviour which might in turn flag up certain concerns, but again this is going to need a lot of legwork from trained intelligence officers. Chances are that in 99.99% of cases they'll be trawling through months or years worth of social media postings in pushto or arabic which are the equivalent of reading a teenager's facebook wall. Keep in mind that all this effort would have to be done hundreds of thousands of times a year and every man-hour spent on it is taking a trained intelligence officer away from his real job. Clearly this is not a good use of intelligence resources.

But, you've missed an important element: I did not cal for a complete, exhaustive vetting of every single aspect of the life of every single person.

I'm using Tashfeen as an example. She gave a bogus address. If we can't check that, then the whole process is a sham and we should either shutter our borders or shutter our government.

After that red flag, THEN a complete review of her life was absolutely in order.

Now, how many who apply for a visa use a bogus address? I suspect that would be a tiny fraction of the overall applications.

Now think about what happens if you do miraculously identify somebody who has been posting inappropriate material that flags up as a concern. Would the NSA actually want to tip that person off to the fact that they were now on the radar ? Would that be a sensible use of the intelligence you'd just acquired ? It's likely that this would be the last thing they'd want to try and do. Surely it's better to not intervene in the immigration process but instead monitor their activities going forward, find out who they associate with, which mosque they frequent, track all of the activities of their associated and so on. I'm willing to bet that the NSA would point blank refuse to take part in any scheme of the kind that you're proposing, and they'd be right to do so.

See above.

By the way, all schools closed in Los Angeles today because of terrorist threat. LAUSD is a huge school district.http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

freeman3 wrote:Well, we need to come up with a solution that makes sure that people coming from areas like Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan are reasonably vetted. If someone has a Facebook page espousing war against the US I would like to think we would not give them a visa. It plays into the hands of guys like Trump if we throw up our hands and say we really cannot properly vet people . I am guessing we would want to narrow things down a bit by using criteria that substantially narrows down people people we look at more carefully. Age could narrow it down considerably. Also you can query people at least about their internet use. What sites do you visit? Who do you correspond with ? Where do you go to get on the internet? Do you go to sites that support ISIS? Bring your computer and we'll take a look at your internet use . Give us copies of your last 3 months email correspondence. What mosque do you go to? How do you feel about ISIS? How do you feel about US support of Israel? What do you think about suicide bombers? Are they martyrs? Do you think Israel should exist? How should non- believers be treated in a Muslim country? What are opinions on Osama Bin Laden? What were your reactions to 9-11? The attacks in San Bernardino? Give me a list of all of your friends and their phone numbers . Names of important members of your mosque and phone numbers. Names of your teachers at your school and phone numbers.

Ask question after question and see the responses you get. Look at their demeanor , see if their answers sound natural or rehearsed. See if they need to think carefully about answers. Such questioning would not take a lot of time. It isn't mostly about our searching their backgrounds it's about their convincing us that they are not a threat.

I don't disagree with most of this.

Look, if Israel can screen people effectively (and they do), why can't we?

There are many arguments, but it boils down to this: would terrorists like to get into Israel? Yes. Why do they have relatively few incidents given their proximity to so many Islamic extremists?

Because they have the temerity to profile the actions of people instead of objects. Objects don't kill without people to utilize them.

freeman3 wrote:By the way, all schools closed in Los Angeles today because of terrorist threat. LAUSD is a huge school district.http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

Could it be a hoax? http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... e-homeland

It probably is--why give notice? But people are on edge I guess.

dag hammarsjkold wrote:Where are the so called moderate Muslims? In my opinion, if they exist, they are losing. They don't seem to be as media savvy as their counterparts.

The problem is that the media is not as interested in moderation as they are in extremism and hysteria. Which is why ISIS and Trump make headlines.

You want moderate Muslims? How about 70,000 clerics from India - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 68191.html

"70,000 Indian Muslim clerics issue fatwa against Isis, the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other terror groups. Clerics said the terror groups were 'not Islamic organisations' and said they were a threat to humanity"

fate

Look, if Israel can screen people effectively (and they do), why can't we?

Do they? Is this effective?
There have been 74 terror events in Israel this year so far, and 49 deaths. Since 9/11 more than 600 Israelis have died in what are termed terrorist events.
This is of Israelis I presume.The database I sourced doesn't say whether it includes Palestinians killed by Israelis settlers in attacks..

You may be referencing the Israelis security at airports which is often deemed, and by track record proven, to be effective. But within Israel?

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrori ... elsum.html

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:Fate:

the White House's Chanakkuh celebration was borderline anti-Semitic, if not over the line

I watched the first 5 or so minutes and I thought it was fine ... I have seen the commentary that suggests otherwise, but for some reason the video cut off. (I don't think that's a conspiracy.)

Well, you can see why with that notorious anti-semite Reuven Rivlin there.

Nothing celebrates a Jewish holiday quite like BLM rhetoric and this:

. . . we must do everything to ensure security for Israelis and justice for Palestinians as allies committed to a lasting peace for all people.

Ins'Allah, Ins'Allah, Ins'Allah, Ins'Allah.

Maybe it's not "anti-Semitic." I can go with just "meh" on Israel.

Maybe you don't get my reference. Reuven Rivlin is the President of Israel. When it comes to Judaism, he tends to identify with the Orthodox. He was the first to say "Ins'Allah".

If you want to assert that the head of state for Israel is an anti-semite, then go ahead. If you accept that he may not be but think he would gladly participate in an anti-semitic Hanukkah event, then again, go ahead.

Do they bring in Islamic leaders who pray the existence of Israel during Islamic holiday celebrations?

Don't know. But at last year's Iftar dinner Obama supported the existence and defence of Israel:

On the growing conflict between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza, the President staunchly defended Israel's right to defend its borders.

"No country can accept rockets fired indiscriminately at citizens," Obama said. "And so we've been very clear that Israel has the right to defend itself against what I consider to be inexcusable attacks from Hamas."

- http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/14/polit ... r-mideast/

I see what you mean with your assertion that he's as anti-Israel as any US President could be. Nowhere near as positive as when Eisenhower was neutral during the clashes between Israel and Nassers' Egypt.

Trump's speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition was anti-Semitic and cringe worthy.

Shh. This thread is now all about Obama. Ignore the title, or the early posts....

I don't care about Trump. Yes, it was cringe-worthy.

Well, take it to a thread about Obama then. You've started enough of them. This one was about Trump.