As Promised, Another Farouktoria's 'Secrets' Revealed

ROBERT SPENCER: Flight 253 and the Failure of Counterterrorism

IOWAHAWK: NOT-TO-BE-MISSED PARODY

THE CIA WAS tracking a nameless man called "The Nigerian" whom it suspected of being a potential terrorist attacker to the United States as early as last August, but they didn't have a name for him.

The connection between the nickname "The Nigerian" and the person named Farouk Abdulmutallab was still not made, even after the 23-year-old's Nigerian father contacted the U.S. embassy (in Nigeria) in November to warn them of his son's radicalization.

Sometimes after that the CIA connected the dots enough to give "The Nigerian" his real name. Around that time, he was then listed on a large database watchlist of some 550,000 individuals, called TIDE (Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment). However, he was still not listed on America's NO FLY LIST (which would not have allowed him to board a plane to enter the country) which has only 4,000 names on it.

I cannot imagine that the CIA and American intelligence could have acted more slowly or recklessly in this grave matter. The fact that he was allowed to board flight 253 in Amsterdam is astounding. Again, it's a miracle that this airliner wasn't blown to smithereens on Christmas day over Detroit and with it hundreds of passengers.

It's time the Feds expand the NO FLY list by thousands, if not tens of thousands of names. We've been warned and warned and warned.

It's time for various federal agencies to share critical information to secure this country and its travelers.

It's time Congress and the president filled the head job at TSA with an American patriot qualified to head the agency who takes the threats of radical Islam and jihad seriously.

And finally, it's time that the U.S. government get serious about this--as commenter Tregonsee pointed out in a previous post--- and start profiling passengers---especially Muslims wanting to enter the U. S. from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for religious reasons--- to screen out the most likely terrorist suspects, instead of over-reacting by treating all U.S. citizens like criminal terrorist chattel on domestic and international flights.