Most Visitors Still Not Screened, Report Says
More than three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush administration has failed to create a unified U.S. fingerprint database because of agency infighting, meaning that most visitors to the country still are not fully screened for terrorist or criminal ties, the Justice Department's watchdog warned yesterday.
Continued bureaucratic clashing -- the very behavior the Bush administration pledged to end after the attacks -- "creates a risk that a terrorist could enter the country undetected," Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said in his fourth report on the problem.
 
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Despite some improvement, the Justice, State and Homeland Security departments are at an impasse over such basic issues as whether two or 10 fingers should be printed at U.S. borders and which law enforcement agencies should have access to immigration information.
"Progress toward the longer-term goal of making all biometric fingerprint systems fully interoperable has stalled," Fine's report concluded.
The review found that, without an integrated system, the watch lists used to screen certain visitors at the borders contain only a small portion of the 47 million records in the FBI's fingerprint files -- the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System -- and that these incomplete lists are prone to error.
Current Homeland Security plans call for fingerprint checking against FBI files of less than 1 percent of the estimated 118,000 daily U.S. visitors whose prints should be checked, or fewer than 1,180. But, by the end of 2005, officials expect to check only about 800 people a day against the FBI database.
"The likelihood of missing a criminal alien or terrorist is increased" without the expanded use of the FBI files, Fine said.
Pelosi Warns Against Ethics Panel Ouster
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said it will be a "stain" on Congress if House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) replaces the chairman of the House ethics committee after the panel admonished House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).
Rep. Joel Hefley, a Colorado Republican, "presided over the ethics committee's three bipartisan and unanimous rebukes of Majority Leader Tom DeLay," Pelosi of California said in a written statement. "It is our responsibility to uphold a high ethical standard -- removing a chair of the ethics committee for upholding that standard would be a stain on the House of Representatives."
The Washington Post reported that Hastert is considering replacing Hefley with Rep. Lamar S. Smith of Texas, who once led the panel and who contributed to DeLay's defense fund.
Reports on Lobbyist Spur Inquiry Request
Democracy 21, a nonpartisan watchdog group, has asked the House ethics committee to investigate whether lawmakers and their staff members who were feted by lobbyist Jack Abramoff violated House rules.
Citing a Dec. 26 article in The Washington Post, Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer wrote to the committee that "it is apparent from published reports that Jack Abramoff was using his luxury skyboxes and his restaurant, as well as other financial means, in an effort to curry favor and gain influence with House members and staff."
Wertheimer urged the panel to determine whether lawmakers or staffers "received financial benefits from Abramoff in violation of ethics rules."
-- Compiled from reports by
staff writer Jeffrey Birnbaum
and news services
