Congress Must Stop Kicking U.S. Security Down the Road
Conn Carroll /
Last week the Senate approved a 60-day extension of the Patriot Act as part of the 2010 defense appropriations bill. As Heritage scholar James Carafano writes in The Washington Examiner, it is far past time for Congress to grant counterterrorism law enforcement officials the proven tools they need to protect out country:
Arrested in 2006, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed were recently sentenced on a slew of terrorism-related charges. Theirs is a textbook case of domestic radicalization. They spent hours online chatting and watching videos produced by terrorist groups.
Then they started to mimic their “heroes.” In 2004, they began practicing paramilitary techniques, training with paintball guns. Then the pair started reaching out to others interested in Islamist-inspired violence.
On the Internet, they hooked up with a group in Canada and took a bus there to spend a week with their new friends. One of the Canadians was later arrested as part of the “Toronto 18,” a cell that planned to bomb the parliament building in Ottawa.