Free Republic

Did the 20-year-old Saudi national questioned in the Boston Marathon bombing probe visit the White House? As reported by The Right Scoop blog, the White House visitor log available online shows that an Abdulrahman A. Alharbi visited Dec. 8, 2009. The visit was listed as a group tour, however, and at that time, the Abdul Rahman Ali Issa Al-Salimi Al-Harbi who was questioned by authorities for two hours after the April 15 bombings was 16 years old. There are two entries on Oct. 14, 2011, for an Abdulrahman Alharbi with a different middle initial, S. The entries are also associated...

(TSA to Spend $50 Million on Uniforms) (CNSNews.com) - The impending sequester did not prevent the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from acting in late February to seal a $50-million deal to purchase new uniforms for its agents--uniforms that will be partly manufactured in Mexico. Soon after this new investment in TSA uniforms, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Americans that the lines are already lengthening at airports due to the sequester. "We are already seeing the effect on the ports of entry, the big airports for example," Napolitano told Politico on Monday. "Some of them had very long lines...

A multibillion-dollar information-sharing program created in the aftermath of 9/11 has improperly collected information about innocent Americans and produced little valuable intelligence on terrorism, a Senate report concludes. It portrays an effort that ballooned far beyond anyone's ability to control. What began as an attempt to put local, state and federal officials in the same room analyzing the same intelligence has instead cost huge amounts of money for data-mining software, flat screen televisions and, in Arizona, two fully equipped Chevrolet Tahoes that are used for commuting, investigators found. The lengthy, bipartisan report is a scathing evaluation of what the Department...

HONOLULU (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday it appeared the man suspected of trying to bomb a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas was a member of al Qaeda and had been trained and equipped by the Islamic militant network. Defending his administration's counterterrorism efforts amid scathing Republican criticism, Obama said he received preliminary results of the reviews he ordered into air travel screening procedures and a "terrorist watchlist system" and expected final results in the days to come. Obama, who is on vacation in Hawaii, had called for an immediate study of what he termed "human and systemic...

Arizona Treasurer Dean Martin sent U.S. Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano a bill for $1 billion Wednesday. As Arizona governor Napolitano had penchant for sending invoices to the Bush administration asking the federal government to reimburse Arizona for the costs of illegal immigration, border security and incarcerating illegal immigrants. “The cost of illegal immigration has exhausted the Arizona State Treasury,” said Martin. “In order to pay for the federal government’s responsibility of securing our national borders and incarcerating individuals who enter the United States illegally and commit crimes, the state has incurred hundreds of millions of dollars of debt to...

Last March, our newly installed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano explained, in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, her vision for fighting what was formerly known as terrorism. By calling these now "man caused disasters," she explained, we would "move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur." "Our policies will be guided by authoritative information. We also have assets at our disposal now that we did not have prior to 9/11. For example, we are much better able to keep track of travelers coming into the U.S. than...

The Pantybomber wasn’t the big joke. We are. On Christmas Day, a gentleman from Nigeria succeeded (effortlessly) in boarding a flight to Detroit with a bomb in his underwear. Pretty funny, huh? But the Pantybomber wasn’t the big joke. The real laugh was the United States government. The global hyperpower spent the next week making itself a laughingstock to the entire planet. First, the bureaucrats at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) swung into action with a whole new range of restrictions. Against radical Yemen-trained Muslims wearing weaponized briefs? Of course not. That would be too obvious. So instead they imposed...

"It came as no surprise to anyone who knows her that Napolitano handled the incident and its aftermath with aplomb. In the years I have known her, she has managed every challenge that has come her way with the same calm command that she showed in this instance. If there is anyone in the administration who embodies President Obama's preference for quiet competence with "no drama," it is Janet Napolitano."

It took a tough question from Matt Lauer, but after having laughably claimed that "the system worked," Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano has now conceded the obvious: that the security system that permitted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board NWA 253 with explosives "failed miserably." On Today and in other interviews this morning, Napolitano attempted to use her own ignorance as a shield. Each time she was hit with a hard question, her response was to the effect "yeah, we're wondering about that ourselves." She also continued to point the finger back at the Bush administration, repeatedly mentioning that the security procedures...

On Christmas Day, a gentleman from Nigeria succeeded (effortlessly) in boarding a flight to Detroit with a bomb in his underwear. Pretty funny, huh? But the Pantybomber wasn't the big joke. The real laugh was the United States government. The global hyperpower spent the next week making itself a laughingstock to the entire planet. First, the bureaucrats at the TSA swung into action with a whole new range of restrictions. Against radical Yemen-trained Muslims wearing weaponized briefs? Of course not. That would be too obvious. So instead they imposed a slew of constraints against you. At Heathrow last week, they...

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) on Tuesday became the first lawmaker to call on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to resign after the recent attempted airline bombing. The veteran member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee called for Napolitano's ouster in the wake of the attack on the Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day. Earlier this year, some Republicans called on Napolitano to step down after her agency issued a report warning of the dangers of right wing "extremists." Burton made his remarks on Twitter: Secretary Janet Napolitano should resign, saying ‘the system worked,’ undermines the confidence of Americans #redin #tcot