Al Qaeda recruits Europeans to train

Washington Times ^ | September 26, 2007

[3AngelaD]

Al Qaeda continues to recruit Europeans for explosives training in Pakistan because they can more easily enter the United States without a visa, the nation"s top intelligence officer said yesterday. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said European al Qaeda recruits in the border region of Pakistan are being trained to use commercially available substances to make explosives, and they may be able to carry out an attack on U.S. territory...

Europeans are being recruited specifically because they generally do not need visas to enter the United States, he said.

"Purposely recruiting an operative from Europe gives them an extra edge into getting an operative, or two or three, into the country with the ability to carry out an attack that might be reminiscent of 9/11," he said.

Adm. McConnell"s threat warning echoed what he told Congress in July at a time when he and the Bush administration were pressing Congress for swift passage of a new law designed to ease warrantless eavesdropping on overseas calls and e-mails. Adm. McConnell warned then that the existing law, which dictated when the government must obtain warrants from a secret intelligence court to eavesdrop, had become a dangerous blockade to spying on terrorists overseas.

Adm. McConnell told the Senate panel yesterday that half of "what we know" comes from electronic surveillance and that the outdated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had degraded those intercepts by two-thirds.

Under the new law, the government can eavesdrop without a court order on communications conducted by a person reasonably thought to be outside the United States, even if an American is on one end of the conversation — so long as that American is not the intended focus or target of the surveillance...

[3AngelaD]

It is just a matter of time until the visa waiver program results in another horrific, preventable tragedy. Due to our OWN LAWS, we can't keep them out, and our ability to keep an eye on them has been degraded by two-thirds. There is someone very wrong with this picture.

[b4its2late]

Very wrong.