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CNY Congress Member in the Middle of Anti-Terror Policy in Washington

katko.house.gov

  Congress member John Katko says, like people across the world, he was sad to hear about the attacks in Paris this weekend.  But unlike others, he was not shocked.

“An element of me said ‘this is exactly what we thought was going to happen’, based on the vulnerabilities we knew about Europe when we went over to visit them firsthand”

Katko was part of the Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel. The groupreleased a report in Septemberthat found that the U.S. has not done enough to stop people from traveling overseas to join ISIS and that security weaknesses, especially in Europe, are allowing potential foreign fighters to move between countries easily.

“A lot of times they don’t even check passports when coming in from one country to another, so they really don’t monitor travel very well.  We had the tragedy of 9/11 to teach us the lesson; I don’t know if this is ong to b enough to teach Europeans the lesson.” 

He says that these weaknesses don’t only affect European countries.

 “Why is it a problem for us?  We have visa-free waivers travel between most Western European countries and the United States, so someone could come back from fighting over there and be radicalized, hop on a plane coming to the United States.  It may have already happened and we’ve got to do better with that.”

Katko says that ISIS uses Internet dark spots to recruit Westerners. They send out recruitment videos and then when someone expresses an interest they use outlets like Snapchat and Spotify to give the person more details. Katko says they don’t have the technology to monitor communication through these outlets.

“When we find out about an ISIS terrorist plot here, we act pretty well.  We don’t wait.  But what we don’t know is what scares me and that’s the big threat here.  When you go dark on the internet, when we don’t know how many people are actually going over to Europe, tht’s the stuff that’s pretty scary.”  

Katko says that because of his position on the task force, House leaders have asked him to come back to Washington to talk about how to deal with the recent events.  He says these attacks have helped create more interest in his airport and northern border security bills, which have been not yet  been approved by the Senate.

HOW THREATENED SHOULD CENTRAL NEW YORKERS FEEL?

Central New Yorkers might be wondering how much threat should people here feel after the terrorist attacks in Paris.  Congress Member Katko served on a task force on curbing terrorism…and says there’s heightened concern, if not an imminent threat.

“While there’s no red-light threat right now from ISIS, there’s a general threat that’s cause the threat level in the United States to rise probably to its greatest level since 9/11.  We have to take it serious; we have to have a multi-pronged approach.”

Some of that approach is in place.  Katko says airport employees helped ISIS get a bomb on a plane in Egypt.  A recent bill signed into law in Washington helps U-S airports close that loophole.

Credit syrairport.org
Policies for both passengers and employees at Hancock airport might improve security, says Katko.

“Making sure the non-secure areas of airports have good terrorist response practices in place.  They don’t nationwide right now.  I just talked to folks at Syracuse’s airport and they’re in the process of implementing that plan now.”  

The other threat might come from independent actors, such as some of the French Nationals that helped ISIS with the Paris attacks.  Katko says the possibilities of recruiting over the internet are very real here in the U-S.

“If someone is sitting in their basement and their best friend is their cat, and they hate the world, and they see this on the internet, come fight for the Caliphate, or better yet, stay here and do harm, they’ll go to the secure areas of the internet.  If they want to go over there to fight, they’ll teach them how to get there without being detected.  And if they want to do some violence here, they’ll teach them where to go to get guns, how to make a bomb from going to Walmart and getting the goods, that kind of stuff.” 

Katko calls the Paris attacks and the Russian airline bombing “game changers” that require more response – in sharing of intelligence and in greater vigilance here in the U-S.  

katko_paris_web.mp3
Rep. Katko answers questions about how concerned people in CNY should be, airport security and other approaches that need to be taking to reduce terrorism.

Chris Bolt, Ed.D. has proudly been covering the Central New York community and mentoring students for more than 30 years. His career in public media started as a student volunteer, then as a reporter/producer. He has been the news director for WAER since 1995. Dedicated to keeping local news coverage alive, Chris also has a passion for education, having trained, mentored and provided a platform for growth to more than a thousand students. Career highlights include having work appear on NPR, CBS, ABC and other news networks, winning numerous local and state journalism awards.