respond to statements separately
Kim-I believe the best way to engage in the fight against terrorist financing is to have a hybrid approach. While the United States should deny terrorist funding if it can be identified in it’s initial stages, it is also important to continue gathering intelligence on how the money moves. It’s almost a bit of a double-edged sword because if the financing is allowed to happen, there is no true guarantee the intelligence would allow for the prevention of any attack(s) where the funds could be used. It is everyone’s hope the money movement could be traced well enough where the planning could be halted, but who’s to know just how many individuals are involved and how much money has truly been stashed away outside of the reach of law enforcement?
The United States has been somewhat successful with countering terrorist financing with the introduction of the Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (Patriot) Act. The Patriot Act allowed for monitoring of possible terrorist organizations using techniques conducted for years to monitor domestic organized crime activity such mafias. The PATRIOT Act allows for a delay in advising suspects a search warrant has been executed if they are being investigated for possible terrorist activity. This piece of the Act alone is beneficial as the suspect might not have time to destroy any evidence or flee prior to capture. Information sharing between federal agencies, such as the CIA and FBI, is likely the piece of the Act that provides the largest benefit. Before September 11, 2001, these two agencies in particular were not keen on sharing information; in fact, some believe they worked harder to avoid the other from obtaining information regarding their investigations. In October 2001, Senator John Edwards issued a press release stating “we simply cannot prevail in the battle against terrorism if the right hand of our government has no idea what the left hand is doing.” The United States’ success in preventing another attack on our soil since September 11, 2001 would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, had the Patriot Act not been signed into law.
Kelly -According to the readings, Terrorist Organizations are funded by diaspora funding, donations made through charities, fraud, legal businesses ad money laundering and this is not a cheap activity to just go out and do. It is combining illegal activity like kidnapping but with peoples money and getting an income from this type if work. The U.S. needs to turn off terrorist funding and force them out of any access they have. They should have more of a hybrid approach because you need to stop funding but also find out how they doing this intelligent work and put a stop to it. Without funding terrorists are cutoff at the source and not able to go through with their illegal activity. With technology evolving terrorists will always find a way around the methods law enforcers and special agents put together. The article states that in the past the U.S. tried handling terrorist financing by block or freeze the assets suspected terrorists, but this way failed to gather the information about these people and what they were using the financial system for. The U.S. had trouble determining financial institutions and this suspicious activity. This goes to show that the U.S. has not been successful with countering terrorist financing and something needs to be done so it does not get out of control. The incident with the 9/11 attack, these terrorists were able to carry 300,00 of illegal money through the U.S. banks.
