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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (39589)	8/1/2004 11:35:15 PM
From: Richnorth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Al-Qaeda's best weapon US panel pushes for high-tech biometric passports as way to halt infiltration by terror groups which can buy or doctor travel papers VIENNA - They are just little embossed rectangles in burgundy, forest green or navy blue, but they can lay a nation bare to a terrorist plot. The passport, capable of laying a nation bare to a terrorist plot. Passports, not box cutters or even jetliners, may be Al-Qaeda's most powerful weapons. Stolen and legitimate, doctored and untouched, they have enabled Osama bin Laden's network and other terror groups to plan and carry out attacks worldwide. In its final report, the US commission investigating the Sept 11 attacks touts high-tech biometric passports, still in the developmental stage, and better border guard training as key ways to tighten the United States' defences. But anti-terrorism experts, mindful of the ingenuity demonstrated by Islamic militants, say they feel humbled and helpless. Mr Michael Greenberger, who was a Justice Department official during the Clinton administration, says: 'Our databases are a mess. Change a person's middle initial and he doesn't show up.' The commission offers no argument. Its report says: 'Today, a terrorist can defeat the link to electronic records by tossing away an old passport and slightly altering the name in the new one.' Conceding it has only 'fragmentary' evidence of the travels of the Sept 11 organisers and hijackers, the commission's report nonetheless is packed with detailed accounts of how the terrorists got and modified the passports that got them into the US. A key panel recommendation points up the seriousness of the threat: 'Targeting travel is at least as powerful a weapon against terrorists as targeting their money. The US should combine terrorist travel intelligence, operations, and law enforcement in a strategy to intercept terrorists, find terrorist travel facilitators and constrain terrorist mobility.' That, experts say, is far easier said than done. 'If you have someone who is determined to evade immigration controls, they'll do it - or at least they'll have a good chance,' said Mr Alex Standish, editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest. Al-Qaeda and others have refined half a dozen simple yet highly effective techniques, the panel says. Among the most popular is obtaining stolen passports, which are available on a lucrative black market that stretches from eastern Europe to South-east Asia and South Africa. There are up to 10 million lost or stolen passports in circulation worldwide, according to Interpol data. Experts say they are being sold for as little as US$75 (S$129) each, although US passports can fetch $3,000 or more. -- AP straitstimes.asia1.com.sg