NSA Surveillance and the decline of the War on Terror

Without a doubt we are seeing the Global War on Terror decreasing overseas, and in many ways at home as well.  As President Obama attempted to calm the storm by calling for greater transparency and opening up aspects of surveillance techniques to public debate, many Americans still fear that we are living in an Orwellian novel of 1984.  The reality simply is that such a move would counter and defeat the premise of surveillance at its most basic level - that good surveillance should go unnoticed until it demands a response by the entity conducting it.  Basically, until there is actionable and operational intelligence, surveillance is a tool to aid in building  enough information to prosecute a case.  Much of the hyped up cases discussed by the media are framed by a bunch of "what ifs" that simply have no backing. 


The programs in question are not some randomly concocted fantasy by power-hungry tyrants in a cubicle.  Despite what liberals and conservatives think of our president, previous and present, the "big government" portrayals of both President Obama and his predecessor have no basis in this argument.  Neither one of them has been a federal agent, or an analyst, or may not even speak another language.  The men and women who fill these positions in our government have taken a sworn oath to protect and defend our country and Constitution.  With the exception of one, Edward Snowden, their work sits protected by a layer of oversight and personal accountability to protect all of the information that they collect and receive until such a case can be made to act on it. 


The NSA surveillance program is simply a means to an end.  That being said, no criminal case has ever been built off of such a technique.  This is similar to let's just say, license plate readers on local law enforcement vehicles or a polygraph.  These are tools that can trigger and help determine the path an officer takes in the merits of an investigation, but if taken to court with the data either one of those tools delivers, has absolutely no basis and will get laughed out of court.  A person can be driving a stolen vehicle, but if it's an old lady who bought it from a shady car dealer, she can't go to jail.  You can pass a polygraph but still be guilty of a crime in question.  Unless there is evidence for the crime in question though, there is no case. 


Government surveillance is in place for a reason.  It works.  There have been no known instances where anyone has complained that the government has collected too much information and gone on a dumbfounded witch-hunt.  Is that because the programs our so secretive?  Or is it because the government has properly separated actionable and useful intelligence amongst the millions of intercepts that are conducted annually?  In the coming weeks as we assess government's responsibility with personal information, it is my hope that the critics will have an open mind to understand how useful most, if not all the developed programs, have been in keeping the U.S. safe. 


Just a side note, our enemy is constantly developing strategies to bypass having communications filtered through by the in question programs.  Take into consideration that the Mumbai attacks that occurred in November 2008 were planned by individuals who corresponded through a single e-mail account and would not send e-mails, but rather save them as a draft.  Through one user name and one password, the cell was able to communicate and avoid triggering a red flag in a means of communication that may have been monitored.  One must wonder with the information Edward Snowden revealed, how many people may die in a future attack due to him revealing information.  Without a doubt, our enemies are presently, if not already revamping techniques to avoid detection. 

The risk of making terrorism a criminal matter

We are a nation at war. The near bombing of Northwest 253 on Christmas day serves as a stark reminder that this is not some foreign conflict, but rather one that essentially contains many fronts that all arrive on our streets eventually. It is the men and women in law enforcement and the intelligence community that are tasked with a difficult duty of allowing no margin for error. As witnessed in the Christmas day incident, it took just one lapse in the system to jeopardize the lives of nearly 300 people aboard that plane.


We face an enemy that is by all standards, an anomaly. Without an Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida will still live on. Without Al-Qaida, the war against jihadists will still remain. There is no domino effect in this to eliminate the motivations of this enemy.


While the intelligence community is under scrutiny for its shortcomings with the Christmas day plot, there is a much greater vulnerability in our system that is inadequate at handling terrorism cases. With the Obama administration's move to put terrorists like Abdulmutallab or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in American courtrooms, the natural pattern will be that they will end up in American jails eventually. This ultimately may benefit the spread of the jihadists and will most certainly place severe strains on the corrections system.


One does not need to look far to see the impacts of housing jihadists among general population prisons. In the UK, a study by the Quilliam Foundation found severe lapses inside jails that housed radical Islamists. Among those listed:

"Prominent pro Al-Qaida ideologues such as Abu Qatada have been able to smuggle messages out of prison to their supporters"

"In 2008 and 2009, two of the most prominent Arab jihadists imprisoned in the UK released pro-jihadist propaganda and fatwas from within Long Lartin prison"

"..a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, produced written pro-jihadist tracts from within prison aiming to refute criticism of Al-Qaida, while Abu Qatada issued fatwas from within prison which legitimised jihadist attacks worldwide"


In 2006, Belmarsh jail in the UK was reportedly "taken over" by a Muslim gang called "The Muslim Boys." The group reportedly attacked those who failed to convert to Islam with everything from hot water to razor blades attached to brushes. Guards also fell victim to attacks during the group's weekly "religious meetings." At the services being held, guards sat idly by not understanding a word said by Al-Qaida members housed in the jail. There was significant concern that the group may have been capable of using such a time to discuss plots. One official stated,

"We can't even tape the service and get it translated because it is against human rights. It's frightening."

At a separate prison, Whitemoor, a similar report in May 2008 found almost identical concerns amongst staff who reported that the nearly 200 Muslim prisoners had become "more of a gang than a religious group." Both reports addressed fears that jihadists housed inside the facilities were actively recruiting members from within the prison population.


The simple fact is that prisons are made up of a diverse community that are all commonly linked by their criminality. The potential to exploit anger of a common criminal towards the American justice system by a jihadist remains. If these people enter back on the streets after being indoctrinated with a hatred for a government that put them in a jail and a belief that Islam calls for them to wage jihad on America, we are adding to the enemy rather than containing it. This is not a question of denying people rights, but rather doing what is best to stop the spread of radical Islam. By treating jihadists as separate militants and isolating them from a general population, we are eliminating their potential to breed more militants. Without containment the jobs of all those involved in the fight on terrorism expands even greater, allowing the potential for more Abdulmutallabs to slip through the cracks.

Feds investigate Denver man in most recent terror probe

It's been one week since news reports began to circulate around a series of terror raids in Queens, New York. Details surrounding the investigation seem to be rather tight-lipped and the tone of the officials willing to discuss the case suggest that this plot was hot and the members were active. The level of the plot has been paralleled to that of another 9/11, but the intended target remains unknown to the general public. Security has been beefed up at airports and transit hubs surrounding New York.


The investigation is centered on Najibullah Zazi, a 25 year-old male reportedly of Afghan descent. Many terror officials are intrigued by the use of an Afghan as opposed to the preference of Arabs, Pakistanis, and Africans by Al-Qaida. More than a dozen individuals have been linked to this cell and are being monitored by authorities.


As the news reports come out, it is difficult to determine who decided that now was the necessary time to intervene. While this was reportedly a FBI investigation, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly is believed to have pressed for the raid after Zazi's weekend visit to Queens. It is interesting to note that terror investigations have evolved a long way since pre-9/11, when the feds rushed to accuse a suspect rather than use them as a means of obtaining information. The level of surveillance on Zazi most undoubtedly developed a substantial amount of good information on the network and could pay off if the plot was disrupted.

The Threat Within

Since the September 11 attacks in the United States of 2001, the concept of terrorism was conceived in people's minds that the enemy was some foreign radical element living off in some mountains half-a-world away. The reality is that the enemy is something that could be already inside the United States legally. There are several circumstances where intelligence officials warn that Al-Qaida has trained individuals who, as CIA Director Michael Hayden stated, "wouldn’t attract your attention if they were going through the Customs line at Dulles with you when you’re coming back from overseas.” This warning is one that we seriously need to understand to comprehend the growing threat.

My personal greatest fear is of a "lone wolf" threat as many dub it. The "lone wolf threat" is based on the premise that an individual with no foreign assistance or links is the attacker. This concept allows a person to take up arms without having traveled to a camp in Pakistan or Afghanistan. There are a number of people operating inside the United States who sympathize with Al-Qaida. The New York Times published an article last year discussing the significance of the internet and the jihadist movement. My concern lays in the fact that these people are blatantly promoting violence and terrorism as a form. These websites are developed not as a means to express freedom of speech, but rather to develop the next wave of jihadists. The fact that anybody believes that terrorism in any context is acceptable is one that should be of significant concern.

The proof of such a threat is not very far from recent foiled plots. If you look at the case of the two students arrested in South Carolina or the Liberty City 7, these are examples of how anybody can become a jihadist. Both cases involve people who haven't traveled to play with firearms and monkey bars in Afghanistan terror camps. These people had to first accept the fact that their cause was more important than any other price. Then they accepted jihad as a personal responsibility. The evolution of the terrorist mind is one that is taken for granted. Once a person identifies with the cause, law enforcement should be allowed to utilize all means necessary to make sure that these individuals will not become the next 9/11 hijackers or 7/7 bombers. Juries must understand that the acceptance of terrorism as a means is just as dangerous as the actual act. Once the public accepts this, then we can take pride that we are actually stopping terrorism. Until then, the message of violence that these people promote will continue to grow and create acts of terror.