Obama For President!

A mere eleven months after taking office Obama promises to bring hope and change to the national security apparatus:

HONOLULU — President Obama was told Tuesday about more missed signals and uncorrelated intelligence that should have prevented a would-be bomber from boarding a flight to the United States, leading the president to declare that there had been a “systemic failure” of the nation’s security apparatus.
...

“A systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable,” Mr. Obama said.

He said he had ordered government agencies to give him a preliminary report on Thursday about what happened and added that he would “insist on accountability at every level,” although he did not elaborate.

...

The president’s withering assessment of the government’s performance could reshape the intensifying political debate over the thwarted terrorist attack. Instead of defending the system, Mr. Obama sided with critics who complained that it did not work and positioned himself as a reformer who will fix it.

Obama didn't actually blame Bush.  But he wanted to!

We've achieved much since 9/11 in terms of collecting information that relates to terrorists and potential terrorist attacks.  But it's becoming clear that the system that has been in place for years now is not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of the information we collect and the knowledge we have.

It's "becoming clear" that we have a problem with the system that has "been in place for years"?  No kidding.  And what bright light thought that the system was finished, rather than an evolving work in progress?

Grrr.  Well, rather than beat our collective heads against the wall, let's acknowledge the obvious - we have a President who is much more interested in reforming America than he is in protecting it.  So let's work with that!  Since Obama only wants to focus on health care reform, here is my suggestion for enhancing the health of all Americans - let's have a government plan to prevent airplanes from getting blown up over our cities.  Maybe we could call it the "public safety" option.  Just a thought.

PILING ON: Cheney goes animal on Obama, but the point I would hammer is made by Peter King:

Rep. Peter King of New York, ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee and a member of the Intelligence committee, said Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show: “I think that the administration has made a mistake by treating this terrorist as a common criminal, by putting him into the criminal-justice system. I wish they had put him into a military tribunal so we could get as much intelligence and information out of him as we could.”

I understand that President Obama and Attorney General Holder need to boost their self-esteem by imagining that they have bravely ended the Bush era abuses and regained the respect of the world but honestly - are we really letting this Nigerian terrorist lawyer up and refuse to chat with our intel services? 

Right, then, here is my second suggestion for health care reform - help prevent Americans from getting blown up by allowing our military and intelligence services to question enemy non-combatants without awarding them the legal protections available to American citizens.  These terrorists are arguably not even entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention, but whatever - send this guy to Gitmo II and let the military interrogators talk to him in compliance with the Army Field Manual.  Or, go Cheney on him.  But not interrogating him at all until his lawyer cuts a deal is daft.

Maybe the House can amend the Senate health care bill to incorporate these ideas.

Comments

[sylvia]

"is not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of the information we collect "

Well that is somewhat true. You can collect all the data you want, but you need someone to actually take it seriously.

I suppose it's kind of like the sex offender list. Too many people on it so no one is taken seriously on it. There needs to be a way to classify the offenders and a way to update the list and flag them in a timely manner. Someone who just came on might be more of a threat than someone who came on 10 years ago with no incidents. So really just a database problem when you come down to it.

[sylvia]

"are we really letting this Nigerian terrorist lawyer up and refuse to chat with our intel services? "

Well I have two thoughts about that. We could do the Gitmo thing with him, but if another Dem Prez comes along, the future legal case is ruined. So maybe better to be safe than sorry. That young guy will talk anyway, he is just a mule.

[Danube of Thought]

I wouldn't call this guy an enemy "non-combatant." He was carrying a bomb.

LUN for a great Shelby Steele piece nailing Obama to a T.

[barack hussain soetero obama]

President Kabuki.....all show, no go.

How many billions have they wasted?

[rse]

LUN is an interesting indication that Coakley would be more of the same if she wins in Mass.

It was always going to take a terrorist attack or near miss to get the attention of the muddle.

It takes a real obliviousness to lose Bob Herbert and Maureen Dowd in the same week on different issues.

[Rob Crawford]

LUN for a great Shelby Steele piece nailing Obama to a T.

I dunno, DoT. Steele cops out by blaming Obama's emptiness on "whites".

I think that category is entirely too broad, to the point of being obscuring rather rather than revealing. Likewise with his statements about Cosby; there certainly are whites who have "blacklisted" Cosby for his statements on broken families, but there are also whites who nearly broke their necks nodding in agreement.

[Barry Dauphin]

Let Cheney interrogate him.

[Clarice]

Well, the Prez' vetters are no better than his security apparatus.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/12/another_obama_vetting_disaster.asp>Kick out the Clowns

[Clarice]

DoT, Steele knocks another one out of the park:
"He aspires to be "post-ideological," "post-racial" and "post-partisan," which is to say that he defines himself by a series of "nots"—thus implying that being nothing is better than being something. He tries to make a politics out of emptiness itself. "

[Danube of Thought]

Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtjfMjjce2Y

[narciso]

He's not a lone extremist, he trained with a cell or series of cells in Yemen, probably has another network of contacts in Britain, all probably under different chains of command

[brucet]

Mooslim boy with Marxist tendencies....and he got elected president.

What a joke. Pray for our country.

[PD]

The real emptiness is on the part of the voters who were hornswoggled by Obama and his campaign.

To those who weren't, it was obvious that Obama is standard hard left Democrat, and that he's all about the usual Democrat goal: The acquisition and maintenance of power.

[Jane]

Dot,

Look above you at that firefox toolbar that you downloaded. Do you see a circle with a paperclip in it?

Highlight something you have written:

Then click on the circle and paper clip and paste the link of the thing you want us to see. And then push OK.

It will blow your mind.

[Buford Gooch]

Rob, your comments are usually spot on, but you missed it this time. Steele accurately blames white people. Not all white people, but enough of us to cause this problem.

[I Won]

Those who would attack our country will face the full force of Joe Biden. Let me tell you something. They don't want to mess with Joe.

[Rob Crawford]

Buford:

As I said before:

"I think that category is entirely too broad, to the point of being obscuring rather rather than revealing."

I don't recall demanding an anodyne nothingness run for president, nor do I recall projecting my hopes on the blank slate of Obama. I do not deny there are many who did; but blaming "whites" for the emptiness of Barak Hussein Obama is akin to blaming "blacks" for inner city crime: too broad a category to be meaningful, helpful, or explanatory.

Narrow the category a bit and I think the result will be an enlightening observation; as it is, it's entirely too much of a cop out.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Not to interrupt with something on topic, this article is a nice explanation of what happens with intelligence once it gets to the intelligence agencies.

Have been a collector at one time, I can say this sure fits what I saw in analysis.

[Clarice]

Maybe so, but that is Ishmael's view on everything at the agency--trim out the fat and send everyone out to the field.

I can get information online in seconds and distribute it around the world in the same time. Why can't they?Maybe we should turn the whole thing over to the geniuses who run Amazon.

[Jack is Back!]

Re: Ishmael Jones' article that ChaCo provided at the above link. After you read this explanation do you stop and wonder if AQ knew all that. Knew that Nigeria was one section, London another, as is counter-terrorism. What makes Homeland Security, CIA, FBI, Obama and his cohorts think that they are dealing with neanderthal knuckleheads who can't ignite a shoe or groin bomb? They are dealing with a multi-faceted organization that so far has out thought all the agencies in terms of audacity. Plus we need to be lucky 100% of the time and they only need to be lucky once. And the way you are lucky 100% of the time is make sure the other guy is never lucky by making sure he doesn't have a heartbeat of sine wave of a brain.

[mockmook]

How about as soon as ANY red flag goes up on a person they are always subject to great scrutiny at airports (until that red flag is resolved, if it was "bogus").

[Clarice]

A small group of dedicated thugs has a distinct advantage against any large mostly immobile force. Get a well armed swat team and you can (and they have) rob a number of banks in a short period of time. If they are careful and lucky they won't even be caught.

A small grou of smart people working together in a single office room where everyone knows what everyone else is doing (and needn't bother, therefor, with correspondence and meetings to communicate) can take on a beat a much larger force. (I've been in such a group and we did it.)

[jimmyk]

what happens with intelligence once it gets to the intelligence agencies

Except that in this instance, it seems that the information did get disseminated, just no one did anything meaningful with it. See, for example, this article (may require subscription) and the LUN

[Clarice]

The notion that a larger, better financed operation will always beat a smaller , less well-financed one is dead wrong. Quick moves and responses are the things, not conferences, working papers, dealing with bruised egos, deciding who to cc on memos, all that bureaucratic time wasting carp.

The CIA was something when it was the samll, creative and utterly inventive OSS. Now, it's the Post Office.

[rsg]

The Prophet Obama is tanking........what a shame.

:)

[Cecil Turner]

Except that in this instance, it seems that the information did get disseminated, just no one did anything meaningful with it.

That's at least part of the rub. There's no real down side to putting someone on a list for extra screening . . . which in this case was all that was needed. The system ought to be spring-loaded to include anyone even slightly suspicious; and apparently it goes the other direction.

Here's a must-read on why privacy concerns hamper using the lists (essentially, minimal information causes excessive false-positive rates). But the real issue is that we're prioritizing political correctness (i.e., not profiling) over security.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Maybe so, but that is Ishmael's view on everything at the agency--trim out the fat and send everyone out to the field.

I don't buy that solution, but the description is only too good.

I can get information online in seconds and distribute it around the world in the same time. Why can't they? Maybe we should turn the whole thing over to the geniuses who run Amazon.

Well, the analysis problem is sort of inherently hard, but this example is a good one. The information comes in to the Africa area specialists, unless it's routed to counter-terrorism first; the processing there all sorta-kinda filters down to NCTC, where it should go into TIDE, and so on and so forth. The point is that getting data across bins is where they fall down, but we don't incent people for cross-agency communications. In fact, because of compartmentalization and need-to-know, we do the opposite.

CIA was supposed to solve that problem: all collections would come to one agency, and the DCI, or rather the DDI, would mangle it under one organization to get results.

Of course, then that meant when something was done well, it always went up to the POTUS as CIAs work, so immediately FBI, DIA etc started getting things carved out.

So now we've got the DNI, but as far as I understand it, DNI doesn't have analysts, so what we get is one more layer of bureaucrats filtering what the DDI provides.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

There's no real down side to putting someone on a list for extra screening . . . which in this case was all that was needed.

not until we hear that Teddy Kennedy or Jay Leno or something is on the list. The more false positives they hit, the more people get pulled aside, and the more complaints come in. Eventually someone who is a big contributor, or a media star, or a Senator's cousin gets pinged, and trouble gets made.

Or the list gets long enough that all flights are delayed for extra security checks.

See, this is a classic problem in security: if you make things really secure, you make them unusable.

[dick]

Until the various airlines run the names by the database you might just as well not even have the names in the database. It should be automatic that all the names get cross-referenced before the flights take off. How long would it take on a computer to run 200 names against a database, no matter the size of the database. Privacy considerations be damned, we are talking about lives here, both the passengers on the plane and the people on the ground where the plane could land.

As someone who worked in the intelligence field while in the service and as someone who worked for over 40 years in the computer field after the service, this to me is a no-brainer and should be the automatic reflex action.

[MayBee]

Eventually someone who is a big contributor, or a media star, or a Senator's cousin gets pinged, and trouble gets made.

Currently, a number of people get pulled out randomly (or "randomly") and given extra screening. There's no reason for the media star to know whether he was pulled out randomly, or because he was on a list.
Other countries aren't nearly so squeamish about this, so it is completely doable. In Asia, you could tell when you were standing in line who was going to be pulled aside for extra screening.

I suspect there is good reason it is not the Asia to WestCoast routes that are used for attempted bombing runs.

[narciso]

Ishmael's complaint is the same that Gerecht had a decade ago, not enough enough operators actually in the field. It's also the complaint of Tom Stafford, the heroic CIA man in Direct Action, that novel by John Weisman, (2005) which seems very prophetic, even though it was set in 2003, around the time of Christmas Air France flights

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Currently, a number of people get pulled out randomly (or "randomly") and given extra screening. There's no reason for the media star to know whether he was pulled out randomly, or because he was on a list.

Until he's pulled twice, three times, four ... or else he doesn't get pulled any more often than anyone else, which means you might as well just screen randomly and not keep a list.

This is actually an issue with a lot of profiling schemes too: after a while, people figure out what the profiles are, whether you're looking for drug mules or WMD BVDs.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

How long would it take on a computer to run 200 names against a database, no matter the size of the database.

200k log n for data base of length n and some constant k.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I don't necessarily disagree that more guys in the field are needed, but it doesn't sound like that was the issue this time. The information had been collected. What happened afterward was a failure in the analysis phase.

[Cecil Turner]

Or the list gets long enough that all flights are delayed for extra security checks.

If they checked the entire (550,000) list, they'd still check less than 1% of those travelling. (Based on the top ten's 2008 traffic.) The actual checks can't be the long pole in the tent . . . identifying those to be checked might be.

[Neo]

I find it ironic that the "load in his pants" terrorist decided to wait until the plane was about to land in Detroit. Given the shape of Detroit, waiting till just before landing probably meant that less life and property were at risk .. the most "high value" target at risk was the plane and it's occupants. If the plane had gone down in Detroit, it would probably have been considered "urban redevelopment by other means."

[Rob Crawford]

What happened afterward was a failure in the analysis phase.

Analysis or correlation? If the various reports were never connected to one other (the "dots weren't connected"), then analysis wouldn't help.

I have some ideas on an interesting system for making the correlations, and maybe collecting the information in a better way, but haven't fleshed them out.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Analysis or correlation? If the various reports were never connected to one other (the "dots weren't connected"), then analysis wouldn't help.

That's a terminology clash. in intelligence, "analysis" is all the stuff that happens after collection.

[narciso]

Eight years hasn't changed the culture enough,Assuming that the Yemen tip came from a covert operator, whereas the Nigeria came from more overt sources, they should have been able to integrate the various data streams, but they didn't

[Rob Crawford]

That's a terminology clash. in intelligence, "analysis" is all the stuff that happens after collection.

Understood.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Ceclil, that's true with this list, but how long would it continue to be true if we operated on the assumption that adding someone to the list has zero cost?

Think of it like an antivirus scanner — mathematically, they're very similar. It is a theorem ("Cohen's Theorem") that no program can be 100 percent effective at detecting viruses and malware. So antivirus software looks for indicators, signatures, that indicate some probability a virus is present. If the rules are very inclusive, you catch more viruses, but also get more false positives. But if you get too many false positives, you get annoyed and stop paying attention. On the other hand, eliminate all the false positives and you miss viruses.

Well, when you add someone to the wath list, you're adding a "signature" to your set of rules; that signature matches some number of people. Ideally the number is 1, but since we don't have serial numbers tattooed on our arms, it's likely to be rather bigger. Some people will be matched by false positives, some people will be on the list for the wrong reasons. Make the list too big, the rules too loose, and false positives swamp the signal.

[Ignatz]

--How long would it take on a computer to run 200 names against a database, no matter the size of the database.--

Don't know the answer to that particulary but when I sell a gun the name of the buyer goes to the BATF's NICS system and usually within a minute or two the name is compared to a data base of all people prohibited from buying a gun; anyone convicted of a crime which penalty is at least one year or anyone previously judged insane or confined to a mental hospital. That's got to be way more than 550,000 people.
Legally they have three days to complete the check, but very seldom does it take more than a few minutes.
I'm pretty sure if they pulled their heads out they could come up with something similar for terrorists.

[MayBee]

Make the list too big, the rules too loose, and false positives swamp the signal.

How is that worse than flooding the system with having to over-screen everybody in the name of equity?

[Cecil Turner]

. . . that's true with this list, but how long would it continue to be true if we operated on the assumption that adding someone to the list has zero cost?

The obvious problem is that they're searching on less than 1/30 of the list (based on reported 14k screening list and a 4k no-fly list out of a 550k terror interest list); guaranteeing a 96+% miss rate out of the data we have. It's nonsensical. Obviously as you add people to the list the incremental cost in time and effort goes up . . . but at the current point, the cost for an addition is for all practical purposes zero.

The point from the above link is also very telling. The failure to include stuff like birthdates (a privacy issue) on the screening data grossly inflates the false positive rate. Ditto for the excessive concern that somebody with some political pull might get screened. It's a great indicator of how serious we are about it (which is to say: not very). Maybe with a couple downed airliners that'll change. If so, it's hard to see why we're waiting for impact.

[narciso]

You don't have to tell me twice Charlie, on that score. It does beg the question exactly
how these lists are compiled though.

[Danube of Thought]

Jane, if you still have my e-mail, please contact me (your addy didn't survive the transfer to the Mac). I have the thing with the paperclip but need some help. Thanks.

[Jane]

Done Dot!

[pagar]

The TSA is checking their list right now.
Not the list of who might be planning to harm America.
The list of bloggers who blogged about the new security rules for air travelers.

" the Transportation Security Administration is going after bloggers who wrote about a directive to increase security after the incident."

LUN

[narciso]

I saw that Pagar, I'm not surprised really, I should be, but I'm not.

Now the way I figure it, is that Awlaki is effectively the head of the Shura council for AQ in AP, along with Wuhayshi, his Zawahiri.
Al Shehri and Al Harbi, are like the No 3, & 4, KSM and Zubeydah, the operational planners, they in turn have subordinates who in turn run the likes of AbdulMutallab, and the other 25 Western born or educated trainees

[Clarice]

And we had Al Harbi and sent him to SA for art therapy. Right?

[pagar]

Gateway Pundit has some interesting news on those "art" students.

"eric-holders-firm-may-have-represented-undie-bomber-mastermind-before-his-release"

Might give new meaning to "They were released Under Pres Bush"

[daddy]

"The president’s withering assessment..."

Yay, Our President`s back to being "withering."

Remember last month when he asked General Petraues "withering" questions about Afghanistan? I do, and nothing makes me more sanguine about the security of our nation than when our President is "withering".

So perhaps we could get him to do some more "withering" stuff this vacation to buck us all up.

I`d suggest "withering" snorkeling. Or perhaps he could continue reading that Harry Potter vacation book with a "withering" glance, or swigging bottled water at a 4,000 dollar a night estate with a "withering" gulp.

Whatever, as long as he`s "withering" this vacation and not "dithering" this vacation, you can rest assured citizens, the country`s in good hands.

　

[narciso]

Daddy, did you decide what book to take with you, btw, speaking of Futurama, I think Zapp
Branigan would be a fine role model for this administration, I refer of course, to the episode where Zoidberg's species launch and invasion.

[narciso]

I found this on AT, about the pipeline, in the LUN

[daddy]

Narciso,

Somebody gave me ">http://www.amazon.com/Book-Genesis-Illustrated-R-Crumb/dp/0393061027/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262236209&sr=8-1"> R Crumb`s GENESIS Illustrated for Christmas, so　I`m about to hop on the bus for noodles here in Narita Japan, and that`s what I`m toting under my arm. I should probably be shot. Later.

[Thomas Esmond Knox]

How is Eric Holder's legal action against the CIA guys going?

Must be good for morale.