'ISIS in America' Cases on the Rise: Feds Call for Vigilance

Talk about burying the lead.

Way at the bottom of a Reuters story on recent statistics of ISIS-tied prosecutions in America was this tidbit:

"The Department of Justice charged 60 people last year with supporting or committing crimes because of their sympathies to Islamic State, the largest annual figure on record."

Catch that? "The largest annual figure on record" means the number of ISIS terrorists and ISIS wanna-be terrorists has risen under President Obama, to levels never before seen.

As if for comfort, Reuters then adds this:

"The number arrested this year has been less than last year's figure."

But here's the real question to ask: Why are terrorists and terrorist-wanna-bes sneaking into America and roaming suburban communities in the first place?

Common sense says a combination of open borders and the present administration's habit of drawing a moral equivalence between America and all-things-Sharia is part of the problem. But U.S. Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, speaking to reporters at the Justice Department this week, seems to suggest the American people might be to blame, at least in part, and the U.S. Constitution, in other part.

Read this, from the same Reuters story:

"U.S. Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said on Monday that more than 110 people have been publicly charged in federal court since late 2013 on counts related to the Islamic State militant group that has overrun much of Syria and Iraq.

"Carlin said the U.S. Justice Department needs the American public to be more proactive about alerting federal authorities when they witness someone showing support for foreign terrorist organizations, such as Islamic State, in remarks to reporters at the U.S. Justice Department.

"In more than 80 percent of the Islamic State cases that have been prosecuted since 2013, someone in the community of the accused person believed they had witnessed the activity for which the person was ultimately charged, according to Carlin. In more than half of those cases, the witnesses did not report anything to law enforcement authorities until after the charges were made.

"Many of the Islamic State supporters prosecuted since 2013 have been charged under 'material support' statutes that prohibit supporting designated foreign terrorist organizations ... Carlin said he is open to considering whether affiliation with a domestic extremist group could 'warrant a special penalty' for people already charged with committing a violent crime. Simply supporting a domestic group where some of the members have committed crimes should not be prosecuted, Carlin said, because it 'runs into our Constitution and our values.'"

The figures and findings are alarming enough. But read between the lines, and it gets even more alarming. What's Carlin saying, exactly?

On one hand, it appears he credits the American people with reporting suspicious behaviors, leading to prosecutions of ISIS-tied individuals. But on the other, he's calling on Americans to be more proactive in reporting suspicious behaviors, while saying the Constitution does not allow for feds to take proactive action themselves.

But this is simply a red herring argument – and one that doesn't exactly assure the White House is going to fight terrorism in any sort of successful way.

The real problem is this: America's borders are porous and Obama's policies are weak. And until those factors are properly addressed, hopefully by the incoming administration, America's safety from terrorism is far from secured.

First posted at PamelaGeller.com, here: http://pamelageller.com/2016/09/isis-in-america-cases-on-the-rise-feds-call-for-vigilance.html/