Social Security Data a Major Source in Terrorism Probes

Bin Lateef said that he has never had links to terrorist groups -- only that he went into business, raised a family and bought a home in O'Fallon, Mo., near St. Louis. "This is the only country in the whole entire world that would give me the opportunity to do what I did," he said.

William Wynne, Bin Lateef's lawyer, said, "This guy has a tattoo on his forehead that says 'productive citizen.' "

Bin Lateef pleaded guilty to felony charges of lying to federal authorities and of misusing a Social Security number. Deportation proceedings are ongoing. Prosecutors declined to comment on his case.

Like many other Social Security referrals related to homeland security prosecutions, Bin Lateef's is classified by the Justice Department as anti-terrorism.

In his report, McNulty, the deputy attorney general, signaled that investigators would continue to rely on Social Security and other government statutes not directly related to terrorism.

"There has been some criticism of our use of nonterrorism offenses, such as false statement charges, immigration fraud, and use of fraudulent travel documents, in terrorism cases," McNulty wrote. "Yet the appropriate charging of such offenses is so important to our disruption of terrorist plans that the Department has urged prosecutors to undertake initiatives to increase their use of these statutes."

Roig and Kriva were Medill School of Journalism fellows in the News 21 program of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education.

See video of Sohaib Bin Lateef discussing his case at www.washingtonpost.com/fedpage.