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[jinju]

[Alyallen]

[cosmo]

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/commissioner/speeches_statements/archives/2005/bonner_asta.xml

Remarks by Commissioner Robert C. Bonner

American Society of Travel Agents Montreal, Canada

(11/07/2005)I�m delighted to be here at ASTA�s World Travel Congress.

The Al-Banna Story

Let me begin by telling you a story about a traveler named Ra�ed Mansour al-Banna.

Al-Banna was a passenger who was denied entry by U. S. Customs and Border Protection Officers at O�Hare Airport in July 2003, after arriving on a flight from Amsterdam�s Schipol Airport. He was a 30-year-old Jordanian national, who had a genuine Jordanian passport and a genuine and valid B1/B2 visa. He was not on anyone�s terrorist watch list.

He was interviewed by Customs and Border Protection�CBP�because he presented multiple terrorist risk factors, and after questioning by CBP Officers in secondary, we did not believe his stated purpose for entry. And for this passenger, we denied entry and detained him until the next flight back to the Netherlands the following day.

As is our protocol, al-Banna�s fingerprints and photo were taken, and the next day, he was escorted by armed CBP Officers onto the airplane.

This past year, CBP has denied entry into the U.S. of 493 such arriving passengers.

Often we don�t know for sure whether such an individual is actually a terrorist, but we now know that al-Banna was not only a terrorist, he was a suicidal jihadi terrorist seeking martyrdom.

After U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied him entry into the United States, he entered Iraq and joined the ranks of al Qaeda�s man in Iraq, al Zarqawi. Earlier this year, al-Banna drove a vehicle loaded with explosives into a Shi�ite City, about 60 miles from Baghdad, where he blew himself up, and murdered 132 innocent Iraqis. In terms of loss of life, that was the largest single terrorist attack perpetrated in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The identity of al-Banna may have gone unnoticed, except we have his hand. That�s all that�s left of him. He had one of his hands chained to the steering wheel of the vehicle. Evidently, even jihadi terrorists need to make sure they don�t change their minds.

What the Al-Banna Story Illustrates

This story illustrates what we are doing to keep terrorists out of the United States. But it also illustrates how, in the post 9/11 era�in this age of global terrorism�we are securing America�s borders without choking off the flow of legitimate international travel, so important to our economy

[jinju]

Big Bird,

you know we arent allowed to have socks on this board

[mindmetoo]

[mack4289]

Muslims tend to have Muslim names, true. But will terrorists tend to have Muslim names if they know such names will attract attention? Probably not.

The only factor that is not easily changeable for a terrorist crossing a checkpoint is strange behavior. It has to be hard to know you're getting ready to kill a lot of people and yourself and act completely normal.

[thepeel]

I think the ultimate question for you all is this:

Are non-mulims at the same risk of committing acts of islamic terrorism as muslims?

If the answer is yes, then we treat everybody like a potential islamic nutzo. If the answer is no, then we treat young muslim men as being more likely to be an islamic nutzo.

They ought to be asked a few more questions at an airport. Ultimately, no matter how much litigation c.a.i.r. and identity warriors throw at border police and the TSA, individual agents will exercise informed judgment. We can't really hope for much more.

[Alyallen]

[mack4289]

You can only judge whether or not someone is Islamic through appearance or name. If we start targeting people based strictly on those factors, the terrorists will stop sending guys who fit that profile. I bet terrorists love reading about us doing name and appearance based profiling because it's so easy to avoid fitting that profile.

Oh, and our border control is showing some prowess in keeping out the really dangerous people: guys who took LSD 30 years ago.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/14/news/legal.php

"Andrew Feldmar, a Vancouver psychotherapist, was on his way to pick up a friend at the Seattle airport last summer when he ran into a little trouble at the border.

A guard typed Feldmar's name into an Internet search engine, which revealed that he had written about using LSD in the 1960s in an interdisciplinary journal. Feldmar was turned back and is no longer welcome in the United States, where he has been active professionally and where both of his children live."

I'm impressed by that kind of thoroughness, even if it is for a stupid reason. Now if only the CIA would tell the FBI when they know there are terrorists in the US (http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050609-114826-5115r.htm).

[ddeubel]

BJWD wrote,

[thepeel]

No, it makes perfect sense.

If you want to stop muslim terrorism, you might want to take an extra peek at the muslims.

Unless you think we should raid mosques looking for white supremacist groups...

[Alyallen]

[thepeel]

Well, that depends on how you are going to define white. Those that tend to blow stuff up come from Arabia and Pakistan. People in Pakistan can be Caucasian, and Arabs look like Frenchmen, Spaniards and Italians. In fact, my ethnically Italian better-half is often mistaken for an Arab (she is "white Hispanic") by Arabs.

My Dutch-moroccan classmate is a spitting image of my brother who is as white as me.

Race isn't the issue.

The issue is an idea that very clearly, repeatedly and calmly instructs those who believe in it to kill those who don't. The end.

You're black, right? I understand (or try to) that you are sensitive to the idea of profiling as a police tool for a wide variety of legitimate cultural/historical reasons. This is one case in which we must use it.

If white supremacist Christians from Europe were blowing up hip hop bars in Atlanta, would you want border patrol to spend time treating a black dude from Kenya as possible a suspect for the next attack as Hans from Hamburg?

[Alyallen]

[thepeel]

I'm not saying muslims should be excluded from the labour force, or lose the right to vote.

My position is that being a young muslim man is part of the profile of a terrorist. It isn't the only part, but it is an important part.

Taken to the real world.. If a muslim man from saudi signs up for flight school in Arizona and pays in cash, should the FBI give him a good once-over? I would say yes. A big YES, in fact. That is 4 flags right there. This is not unreasonable.

A 60 year old woman named ali isn't likely to fly a plane into a building. She can be treated normally by the border police.