CCTV’s Jessica Stone reports.
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Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the Trump plan is irresponsible “and will actually hurt our efforts at homeland security and national security”.
Less than a third of Homeland Security employees expressed confidence in leadership in this year’s survey, and 43.1% consider DHS a good place to work.
Secretary Johnson said that the Department’s new system reflects the challenges America faces in this “new phase” in the fight against terrorism. President Barack Obama addressed the nation Sunday night, with a reassurance that the administration was in control of the security situation in the country. Without communication between Malik, her husband Syeed Farook, and ISIS members overseas, it may have been harder for U.S. intelligence to identify the pair as potentially radicalized or planning an attack.
“We’ve replaced the color codes, the color bars with a system called NTAS, the National Threat Advisory System, which we have never used, because it depends upon a specific credible threat to the homeland”, Johnson told event attendees. The new effort will include an “intermediate” step, he said. At this time, there is no available evidence to show that the attackers were in direct contact with ISIS, although Tashfeen Malik posted to Facebook during the attack to pledge allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State. However president offered no new prescriptions on guarding against lone wolf attacks.
Johnson said that while a specific motive has not been determined in the California case, the threat from home-grown radicals or those inspired by foreign groups is a growing concern in part because such attacks may not be discovered in advance.
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But in September, an American general admitted, the US had trained only perhaps five Syrian opposition forces and it’s still an open question whether Arab allies in the region will send more effective ground forces. But lawmakers have consistently blocked such proposals.
