{"id":233144,"date":"2010-01-26T17:52:11","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T22:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com\/?p=9650"},"modified":"2010-01-26T17:52:11","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T22:52:11","slug":"dhs-let%e2%80%99s-capitalize-on-%e2%80%9crenewed-urgency%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/233144","title":{"rendered":"DHS: Let\u2019s Capitalize On \u201cRenewed Urgency\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Janet<\/p>\n

Janet Napolitano<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The “urgency” felt by other nations about terrorism may have “dissipated over time” since the 9\/11 attacks, but the recent Christmas Day attack has “renewed” that “sense of urgency,” and now is the time to take advantage of it, according to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.<\/p>\n

Napolitano, just back from a weekend of meetings overseas with her European\u00a0 counterparts, said there is now an unprecedented “consensus” among European countries that something needs to be done to boost security at airports and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

“One of the differences [now] is urgency and international recognition that the terrorists will look for any gap they can find in the system,” she told reporters in Washington on Tuesday. “Now we need to use this as an opportunity, as a catalyst as it were, for international efforts.”<\/p>\n

Napolitano said that, before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up a U.S.-bound flight over Detroit, the international community had agreed to work together to fight terrorism, but the consensus was “not at the level we are talking about.”<\/p>\n

There is a “recognition by these nations that there were passengers from [at least] 17 countries on Flight 253, all of whom would have perished if Abdulmutallab had been successful,” according to Napolitano.<\/p>\n

But she said preventing attacks like the failed Christmas Day bombing requires a different approach than stopping attacks like the 9\/11 plot, which she described as “a large-scale conspiracy involving the takeover of airplanes and then flying them as weapons into buildings.”<\/p>\n

The Christmas Day plot \u201cwas a very different kind of thing from a detection, information-sharing [and] passenger-vetting type of environment,\u201d she said. \u201cSo that is why it is necessary to use December 25 as the catalyst in saying, ‘Nations of the world, we all have an interest in this. The international aviations system is international in every respect. It is only as strong as its weakest link. We need to get together this year, right now, and move to get the agreements that have been discussed for years.'”<\/p>\n

She said governments around the world — including those of the Netherlands, England, France and Germany \u2013- have recently initiated steps to add whole-body imaging, more K-9 teams and other security measures at their airports.<\/p>\n

“When [the] system has its weak links, we must address them without delay,” she said.<\/p>\n

Asked whether the privacy laws of European countries could be an obstacle to U.S. security and information-sharing efforts, Napolitano said the United States and European countries can reach agreements “in a way that deals with their privacy issues.”<\/p>\n

“Discussions we had in Europe were not only [about] getting information but standardizing the kind of information that we get,” she said, adding that discussions she had over the weekend focused on being able to identify passengers ahead of time and being able to \u201crun passenger lists against the terrorist watch list, the no-fly lis, and the like.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said there\u2019s only so much the U.S. government can do without help from international partners.<\/p>\n

“Our department, despite its name, is not solely responsible for this effort,” she said, adding that it\u2019s a military, intelligence, law enforcement and \u201cdiplomatic\u201d effort.<\/p>\n

She said the role of DHS is to protect air travelers, prevent illegal entry, enforce immigration laws and utilize local law enforcement as “force multipliers.”<\/p>\n

“We don’t do screenings at international airports, just as we don’t prepare the no-fly list — we receive the no-fly list,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

However, according to one U.S. official, DHS now has greater ability to recommend that authorities in other countries interview specific passengers before allowing them to board planes.<\/p>\n

Before the Christmas Day attack, DHS was able to recommend \u201csecondary screening\u201d for people on the \u201cno-fly list\u201d and \u201cselectee list.\u201d But DHS was unable to recommend \u201csecondary screening\u201d for people on the broader \u201cTIDE\u201d database, which has nearly 500,000 names on it. That has now been changed, according to the U.S. official.<\/p>\n

Napolitano alluded to this change on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“One of the things we have done is taken a particular part of the State Department’s database … which is where had that [information] been available in Amsterdam [before the attemped attack] Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would have been pulled aside for secondary questioning, or we would have recommended to the Dutch that they pull him aside for secondary questioning,” she said. “We have now pushed that particular kind of information out internationally.”<\/p>\n

Asked whether DHS itself has a “renewed sense of urgency” about terrorism, Napolitano insisted that terrorism has always been her department\u2019s “top priority.”<\/p>\n

“The attempted attack on the 25th of December was a powerful illustration that terrorists will stop at nothing to kill Americans and that counterterrorism remains our top priority,” she said. “This administration is determined to thwart those plans.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Janet Napolitano The “urgency” felt by other nations about terrorism may have “dissipated over time” since the 9\/11 attacks, but the recent Christmas Day attack has “renewed” that “sense of urgency,” and now is the time to take advantage of it, according to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Napolitano, just back from a weekend of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4536,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4536"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}