Terror database gets plenty of hits

In this morning’s Washington Times:

The Terrorist Screening Center has detected more than 40,000 people trying to gain entry into the U.S. who either associated with terrorist groups or were known terrorists themselves, and the database is only going to get better, says the agency’s chief.

“The country is undoubtedly much safer today as a result of the work at the Terrorist Screening Center,” said Director Leonard C. Boyle, who added that his agency is working to fix problems with the database identified by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General.

Mr. Boyle told The Washington Times that a memorandum of understanding was signed last month by very “high ranking members” in all federal law-enforcement agencies to assist the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) — the nation’s primary center for helping government officials identify and apprehend terrorists — in removing names that should not be there and increasing the accuracy of the names that should.

“We can more directly determine whether a person who is on a watch list should be on the watch list,” Mr. Boyle said of the memorandum, which took effect immediately, although he did not provide a copy of it. “This memorandum of understanding is to be principally responsible to redress the determination.”

As of April 2004, the database contained more than 700,000 entries. The list is developed through the intelligence community responsible for foreign targets being placed on the list, while the FBI is responsible for placing domestic terrorist threats to the list.

It is not certain, however, how many of the more than 40,000 actual terrorist hits were stopped from entering the U.S. by the agencies accessing the database.

Although the FBI’s worldwide screening center was successful in detecting positive terrorist matches worldwide, the center is not responsible for stopping their entry into the U.S.

Perhaps after he finishes propping up a phony story about Rush Limbaugh, Congressman Mark Udall (D-CO) will introduce a resolution praising the efforts of the Terrorist Screening Center.

Cox&Forkum, editorial cartoonists extraordinaire, leave the stage

Cyberspace loses one of its brightest stars

Cox&Forkum's Final Bow

Allen Forkum and John Cox have announced they will no longer produce editorial cartoons. Allen writes:

For better or worse, I’ve always had to approach the editorial cartoon work as a “part time” career. I never quit my “day job” as co-owner of a small newspaper publishing business. The editorial work, though intellectually rewarding, is not very rewarding financially. Furthermore, researching the cartoons, writing/designing them, managing the blog, publishing the books, marketing them, and running the business side all take an enormous amount of time.

All of that comes with the territory, of course, and John and I have done pretty well over the last six years. We’re fairly well known on the Internet, we have a few newspaper and magazine clients, we’ve self-published four books, and we’ve made some money, if not a living. But lately, for reasons I won’t go into here, I can no longer afford to divert so much time and attention away from my publishing business and other personal concerns, such as my family.

I also want to stop focusing so much of my creative energy on negative aspects of daily life. There’s still an ideological battle to be fought, not to mention an actual war, and I will stay engaged in some form and medium. But at this point, anything seems more appealing than immersing myself in the sewer of daily politics.

That said, I imagine we won’t be able to resist creating an occasionally editorial cartoon. And if we do, we’ll post it here.

In an interview, John and Allen elaborated a bit about their decision.

Dear John and Allen:

You have enlarged my vision of the world and inspired me to weigh in on issues many times.

While we had no better friends than you two during our efforts to remove The Center for Hate America First from sacred ground, you were right there with us in the battle of ideals more times than we could count. We will greatly miss checking in each day at Cox&Forkum for your thought provoking work.

Thank you for all you have done. Best wishes in all your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Tim Sumner