Friday, February 3, 2017

The Bigger Haystack

What's being missed in "Bowling Green massacre" story is what was reported at the time: In 2011, the FBI arrested two Iraqi refugees who were caught in a sting sending money to Al Qaeda (not planning an attack in the US). In 2013, ABC News reported: "Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan."
That FBI belief led to reviewing the cases (identity, affiliation, etc) of 58,000 Iraqi refugees in this country. How many more arrests of suspected terrorists by the FBI or any law enforcement occurred? Zero are reported, six years later. It would appear that the vetting was already, shall we say, extreme - an error rate of 0.0017 %. And remember, the error was caught by domestic law enforcement, and before any harm occurred.
Meanwhile, the new policy is leading to large numbers of false positives: doctors, patients, prominent news producers, five year US citizens, the former Prime Minister of Norway. Rule of thumb: if you increase the size of the haystack, the chance of missing the needle goes up.