Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Sunday, on the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, that the country is now safer against another such large-scale terror attack but acknowledged being “challenged” by lone radical Islamic terrorists – with active Federal Bureau of Investigation cases in all 50 states. Johnson said on ABC’s “This Week” that there is no credible evidence of an imminent terrorist threat to the United States – but there are still risks.
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Johnson also said the new wave of potential terror strikes is coming with little warning and in more undetectable ways.
“We’re in a relatively new environment now where we’ve got to be concerned about the traditional threat as well as this new threat”. Our government’s become pretty good at detecting and preventing something hatched from overseas…
“It goes to our resilience as Americans, as New Yorkers, as people of the free world – that we won’t let somebody else dictate what we do”, said Roger Parrino, a senior counsel for Johnson. But he said the prevalence of social media allows ISIS to reach lone wolves and “self-radicalized” actors in the USA who are capable of deadly attacks in their own right.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson on Sunday downplayed the possibility of a foreign power influencing the results of the presidential election, saying it would be “very hard” to do. The homeland security secretary said that over the previous year, his department has added security checks and other new mechanisms for vetting refugees – including men, women and children fleeing violence from Syria. “We’re determined to root out violent extremism and that’s what we look for”, Johnson said.
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“But we are concerned, to the extent elections system have a presence online, that that be secure”.
