If we could identify terrorists stashing money in our banks and financial institutions, we'd have a windfall of cold hard cash to help fund our war on terror and buy equipment for our troops in harms way.
Not long ago Rush was targeted due to bank withdrawals under $10,000. If we can monitor our own citizens for large withdrawals, why not the same scrutiny on foreign nationals who either deposit or withdraw large sums of money? After the initial deposit is made, a cursory investigation of foreign nationals should be required and funds frozen immediately if terrorist links are found.
Flight aborted after attack of feline terror
BRUSSELS A cat that escaped from its cage during a Belgian commercial flight this week managed to get into the plane's cockpit, where it scratched a co-pilot, forcing the crew to turn back and make an unscheduled landing.
The flight, from Brussels to Vienna, had been in the air about 20 minutes on Monday when "it was noticed" that a passenger's pet, a gray cat named Gin, had escaped from its cage, "although it is not yet clear how," the airline, SN Brussels Airlines, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Gin, a prized animal that travels to cat shows around the world, started wandering around the passenger cabin while its owner slept, an airline spokesman said.
The cat slipped through the cockpit door as a flight attendant served lunch to the pilots.
The scared animal was "very aggressive and scratched the co-pilot," the spokesman said.
The pilot decided to return to Brussels as a precaution, and the passengers departed later on another flight.
Geert Sciot, the airline's vice president for communications, told BBC News Online that the airline fully supported the captain's decision to turn back. Nobody, he told the BBC, could tell what an agitated cat might do scrabbling around amid the sensitive equipment in the cockpit.
The cat had been checked in Oslo in an internationally approved carrier, but the airline said it may change its procedures for pets. (AP, Reuters)
http://www.iht.com/articles/533390.html
I'm in favor of that kind of scrutiny for all foreign nationals but I don't want the feds poking around in my financial affairs. I also don't want the WOT to be used as an excuse for any sort of national I.D. card.
You VILL please to show me your PAPERS....immediately!
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON — The federal authorities, on heightened alert over the prospect of another al-Qaida attack, are conducting a terrorism investigation into an illegal immigrant from Pakistan found with videotapes of downtown buildings and transit systems in four Southern states and of a dam in Texas, officials said Tuesday.
Officials acknowledged that they have no direct evidence linking the suspect, a former Queens, N.Y., resident named Kamran Shaikh, to terrorism. But they said they remained keenly interested in determining why he filmed the extensive videos, which included audio narratives in Arabic.
“These were not your normal tourist videos,” said a senior law enforcement official in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation. “This could turn out to be something legitimate and innocent, but it’s raised our suspicions, and we think there’s something else going on here. We don’t like the look of it.”