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Janet Napolitano Concedes Security Failure

by Jordan Yerman | December 28, 2009 at 08:15 am

191 views | 36 Recommendations | 1 comment

Janet Napolitano conceded that US Homeland Security measures failed, and that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab should never have been allowed to board Northwest Flight 253 to Detroit. Previously, Janet Napolitano said that security measures had worked properly. The only element that actually worked was that a passenger, Jasper Shuringa, stepped up and tackled the would-be suicide bomber.

Abdulmutallab had been put on a watch list in May after his father, a prominent Nigerian banker, reported concerns about his son's extreme religious views to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria.

Security experts also said airport "puffer" machines that blow air on a passenger to collect and analyze residues would probably have detected the powder.

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A. Tran

at 17:12 on December 28th, 2009

I'm relieved that Ms. Napolitano had come to her senses and realized that none of the passengers, especially, a foreign national were on the Department of Homeland Security payroll!

Obviously, it is not a reassuring signal to the American public and around the world that the Secretary of DHS claimed the system worked on one day and on the following day, changed her mind and declared it did not work.

It appears that the Secretary still needs to catch up on some reading materials about potential terrorist training or recruitment in Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan.

After all, she is the spokesperson for the Obama administration on Homeland Security.