San Bernardino

So, what in the vetting process does work?

Did they interview her family members or neighbors? Media reports say they were concerned about her radical views. (Excluding her sister apparently.)

What's more efficient checking social media posts?

Seems to me there has to be a way to scan these posts in an automated way, and have people check anything that raises a red flag.

But, this one case has exposed multiple flaws in the visa/green card process.

The sister of the shooter's sister-in-law got residency via a sham marriage to the gun buying, Muslim convert, neighbor.

She never lived with him, she lived with her sister and brother-in-law. His own mother was shocked to learn he was married. His friends weren't aware he was married.

So, what is working with our process?

 

There appears to be broad consensus here that we should focus only on radical Muslims, and not on moderate Muslims.

Now, I take some issue with this because I don't think we're very good at differentiating between the two -- no one, including Farook's fellow Mosque attendees had any idea he was radicalized, for instance -- but also because I don't think there's any agreement in what the terms mean.

So, in an effort to have an honest conversation, let's see if we can agree what a moderate Muslim is or isn't.

Can you believe is a strict literalist interpretation of the Koran and still be defined as moderate?

 

If you don't believe in the State of Israel's right to exist, can you still be defined as a moderate Muslim?

 

I'm not an expert on the process, so I can't extrapolate off the top of my head.

I DO know that we issue a few hundred thousand immigrant and nonimmigrant visas every year and 99.999 percent of them were not given to known or suspected terrorists.

 

Because 99.999% of the applicants aren't suspected terrorists.

The whole point is to identify the few that are.

If the process isn't equipped to that, then it isn't a good process.

 

I don't think there's any way we can know this for sure.

That's a pretty big part of the data puzzle that we need to put together before trying to "fix" the system.

How big is the haystack and how many needles are already in it?

 

So she wasn't a radicalized terrorist?

 

Why is it so easy to make administration officials look entirely clueless? How on earth were people like this put in a position of such great responsibility? She doesn't appear capable of running a fund-raiser raffle much less doing anything to keep our country safe.

 

It seems YF is wanting a perfect system that is by any reasonable expectation impossible to achieve.

So it is really about managing risk.

Can we do things that lower risk that also work inside the framework of the laws the country currently has and not do things that many people would consider "un-American" and I think that the answer is yes.

But it also seems that the investment needed to make things marginally safer is money that the country doesn't want to spend.

So a lot of this is hot air and keyboard warrioring.

 

He doesn't want that system. He wants the excuse.

 

Perfection isn't attainable. But getting within a couple of galaxies of perfection is. At least it will be once this administration is history.

 

I really have no idea what this means.

But would anyone be willing to bump up their income tax rate a point or two to pay for a terrorist detection system that still may not catch every possible terrorist?

I think the thing people have to realize is that most people who come to the U.S. want to be here. They didn't cross an ocean to blow this shit up.

They want a least portions of the American lifestyle which I think includes the security that America provides.

They want to keep their religion but that isn't any different than any other immigrant to this country across the ages.