DHS Emails Reveal U.S. May Have Terrorist “Hands Off” List

[Magda Hassan]

DHS Emails Reveal U.S. May Have Terrorist "Hands Off" List

MAY 09, 2014
The Obama administration appears to have a terrorist "hands off" list that permits individuals with extremist ties to enter the country, according to internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents obtained by a United States Senator.
It's unimaginable that any government would do this, but it seems like the Obama administration is constantly breaking new ground. The disturbing details of this secret initiative were made public this week by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who has obtained DHS electronic mail discussing what could be a terrorist "hands off" list. The exchange includes a 2012 email chain between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) asking whether to admit an individual with ties to various terrorist groups. The individual had scheduled an upcoming flight into the U.S., according to an announcement issued by the senator.
The person was believed to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a close associate and supporter Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, according to the mail exchange obtained by Grassley's office. The terrorist suspect had also been in secondary inspection "several dozen times of the past several years," the agency emails reveal, but had not undergone a secondary inspection since 2010. This seems to imply that the suspect has been on the U.S. government's radar for some time.
It gets better. The DHS emails also reveal that this particular terrorism suspect has actually taken legal action against the U.S., presumably because authorities violated the hands off policy. The subject "has sued CBP twice in the past and that he's one of the several hands off passengers nationwide," according to the DHS emails obtained by Senator Grassley's office. The documents go on to say that the terrorist's records were removed and that the DHS Secretary (at the time Janet Napolitano) was involved in the matter.
This is pure insanity and the senator has tried for months to get answers from DHS. In February he wrote a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson saying this: "I'm puzzled how someone could be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, be an associate of [redacted], say that the US is staging car bombings in Iraq and that [it] is ok for men to beat their wives, question who was behind the 9/11 attacks, and be afforded the luxury of a visitor visa and de-watchlisted. It doesn't appear that we'll be successful with denying him entry tomorrow but maybe we could re-evaluate the matter in the future since the decision to de-watchlist him was made 17 months ago."
The agency's response, dated April 10, apparently frustrated the senator enough to make the whole thing public this week. DHS let CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske get back to Grassley. His letter says the agency does not have the authority to ignore information that renders an individual alien inadmissible because CBP does not have the discretionary authority to admit an inadmissible alien. "Accordingly, CBP does not have any list or other mechanism which would render an individual free of the grounds of inadmissibility or from any other inspection requirements, including secondary inspections," Kerlikowske writes.
He goes on to pass the buck to another agency, the Department of Justice (DOJ). "The Terrorist Watchlist is maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, which was created by the Attorney General and is administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigations," the CBP commissioner writes. "All questions related to the watchlist should therefore be referred to the Department of Justice for response." Kerlikowske also offers to provide the senator with a "more detailed briefing on the particular case cited in your letter, in the appropriate setting." That means nothing will be put in writing so as to avoid any sort of future incrimination in the event the scandal blows wide open.


http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2014/0...ands-list/

[David Guyatt]

Having "your" own terrorists on the payroll is so de rigour these days don't you know...

[Peter Lemkin]

Having "your" own terrorists on the payroll is so de rigour these days don't you know...

Yes, sadly, I do know.....and so few of my fellow citizens have a clue. This Senator will have a 'job' of some kind done on him if he tries to push this issue far.....::::::bowtie::::::

This would be a sad 'joke' if it wasn't so deadly serious! Fascism r U.S.!

::dictator:: Tension as a strategy, anyone?! ::dictator::

[Tracy Riddle]

You can't have your patsies on a terror watch list. I read something about this Boko Haram group (don't remember where now) - that they are well-funded and most of the time don't act like genuine Islamic fundamentalists. They sound like a fake group that the US can use to justify "intervention" in Nigeria.

[Peter Lemkin]

Speaking of patsies not on the 'watch' lists, all of the so-called 9-11 'hijackers' [patsies all, I believe] easily got visas into the USA, where they were watched and at times lived or interacted with both FBI and CIA informers, connected-persons, and off-the-shelf 'companies' and groups. Many of them got their visas from one special visa office - one special CIA/State Dept. intelligence-related visa office. I'm sure it was not a coincidence that this all occurred. And that is just one example - if a very important one.


CIA ORDERED VISA'S FOR 9/11 HIJACKERS: US CONSULATE WHISTLEBLOWER



Mike Springman- The former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia blows the whistle on the 9/11 hijackers.
"former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah is Michael Springman"
Thirteen of the 15 Saudi hijackers were issued visas to the United States, 10 of them at the US Consulate in Jeddah, according to US officials
Officials told to back off' on Saudis and Bin Laden before September 11
15 Hijackers Obtained Visas in Saudi Arabia
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed secured a visa in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
MICHAEL SPRINGMAN:
In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high level State Dept officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These were, essentially, people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained bitterly at the time there. I returned to the US, I complained to the State Dept here, to the General Accounting Office, to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and to the Inspector General's office. I was met with silence.
In one case, two Pakistanis apply for visas to attend a trade show in the US, but they are unable to name the trade show or city in which it will be held. When Springmann denies them a visa, he gets "an almost immediate call from a CIA case officer, hidden in the commercial section [of the consulate], that I should reverse myself and grant these guys a visa." Springmann refuses, but the decision is reversed by the chief of the consular section. Springmann realizes that even the ambassador, Walter Cutler, is aware of the situation, which becomes "more brazen and blatant" as time goes on. On one occasion Springmann is even told, "If you want a job in the State Department in future, you will change your mind."
Mike Springman US consulate and foreign service official
Springman went public (after internal efforts failed) to expose the State Dept/CIA conduiting terrorists into the US

[Magda Hassan]

Homeland Security Still Dodging Questions on Terrorist "Hands Off" List

By James Henry on May 28, 2014

The Department of Homeland Security did not answer Sen. Chuck Grassley's questions about a secret list of people with ties to terrorism who are allowed to enter the U.S. Was it an oversight?

The recalcitrance of America's national security agencies toward their Congressional overseers has become the rule rather than the exception. There are plenty of recent examples to choose fromstarting with the CIA's "slow-walking" to the Senate Intelligence Committee the report on its use of torture, to the NSA chief's outright lying to Congress about the scope of domestic surveillance.
Grassley, who's never been shy about using his oversight powers to question agencies about overreaching or abuses of authority, is getting the same kind of dodge now. The Iowa Republican, in his capacity as the ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson in February to explain the existence of a secret "hands off" list that surfaced in an e-mail exchange among Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials.
As we reported, Grassley specifically wanted to know why a member of the Muslim Brotherhood with indirect ties to Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad couldn't be barred from the U.S. by border agents.
Fool Me Twice
Johnson didn't respond by the March deadline Grassley gave, leaving the task to CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske, who wrote back in April. He denied the list existed and said he didn't know about the specific case.

Sen. Chuck Grassley

Grassley didn't buy that, so he asked the agency to brief his staff. CBP officials dutifully went to see Grassley's staff on May 20, but warned beforehand that the briefing would be limited in scope. Since national security has become the bureaucratic trump card for keeping things secret, what happened next is no surprise.
"The briefing on Tuesday yielded next to nothing," Grassley spokeswoman Beth Levine wrote in an e-mail to WhoWhatWhy.
The CBP officials did try to explain how Kerlikowske could say there was no "hands off" list, even though officers in his agency referred to something resembling one in the e-mail exchange. The answers the Customs and Border Protection personnel gave were "unpersuasive," Levine said.

Transparent? Or Invisible?
So Grassley's staff is pursuing a "more detailed briefing" to get a real answer, Levine said.
We've seen this plenty of times before: agencies unable or unwilling to explain why people with glaring red flags are allowed in and out of the country. That was the case with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was free to travel despite being on two terrorist watch lists, and those of several suspicious Saudis prior to the 9/11 attacks.
And as we reported here and here, both Grassley and Massachusetts Congressman William KeatingRepublican and Democrat respectivelyhad some pointed questions for the FBI after the Boston Marathon bombing, many of which are unanswered a year later.
From Grassley's Statement for the Record on the Judiciary Hearing on Oversight of the FBI last week:
Leaving these questions hanging in the wind creates a perception that the FBI is hiding something. While I don't believe this to be the case, I also don't understand why Director Comey, who promised transparency in his confirmation hearing only a year ago, would allow this to occur.
Grassley's DHS inquiry appears to be headed down the same long road of stonewalling and silence.
Again we ask: who else is on that listand what are they doing here?
http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/05/28/securit...-off-list/

[Albert Doyle]

In February he wrote a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson saying this: "I'm puzzled how someone could be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, be an associate of [redacted], say that the US is staging car bombings in Iraq and that [it] is ok for men to beat their wives, question who was behind the 9-11 attacks, and be afforded the luxury of a visitor visa and de-watchlisted.

This non-democratic entity, Homeland Security, now publicly considers questioning who was behind 9-11 as being a terrorist act meriting listing.