Unsolicited Terrorism Tips to the U.S. Government
Adding them all up, the U.S. government "receives between 8,000 and 10,000 pieces of information per day, fingering just as many different people as potential threats. They also get information about 40 supposed plots against the United States or its allies daily."
All of this means that first-time suspects and isolated pieces of information are less likely to be exhaustively investigated. That's what happened with underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Intelligence agencies had heard that a Nigerian was training with al-Qaeda, received information about a Christmas plot, and read a couple of intercepts about someone named Umar Farouk (no last name) before Abdulmutallab's father walked into a U.S. embassy to report him. No one ever figured out that these seemingly unrelated pieces of intelligence referred to the same plot, so intelligence agencies didn't pour enough resources into investigating it.
As I wrote in 2007, in my essay: "The War on the Unexpected":
If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security.
Posted on November 18, 2010 at 6:13 AM • 26 Comments