Lieberman: Give Homeland Security role in U.S. visas

[cal04]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60219D20100103?type=politicsNews%3FfeedType%3DRSS&feedName=politicsNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FPoliticsNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Politics+News%29

The Homeland Security Department rather than the State Department should handle U.S. visas overseas to meet security threats, the chairman of the Senate homeland security committee said on Sunday.

Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman raised the idea during a discussion on ABCs "This Week" of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound plane on Dec 25.

"I believe, incidentally, that we ought to take a look at taking the visa application and admission responsibility from the State Department. It doesn't really fit with foreign policy anymore," he said.

"And in an age of terrorism, I think the Department of Homeland Security ought to be handling visas abroad."

[MadMaddie]

1. Absolutely not! This is Lieberman trying to step into Hillary Clinton's

domain!

Fuck him, if he wanted to do this he could have done it in the last 3 years.

[karynnj]

7. I doubt it has anything to do with Hillary Clinton, it is just a power grab

One reason it makes complete sense for VISAs to be in the State Department is that foreigners go to our embassies (part of the State Department) to get them. Where is the infrastructure to do this in Homeland Security?

I expect that President Obama has asked the State Department to devise new procedures on managing VISAs. The fact is that one of the easily identified areas that need improvement discovered by this twarted attack is that we need a more proactive process to prevent suspicious people from having VISAs. (This is hind sight - not a criticism of HRC, but it needs to be handled.) No matter where VISAs are issued, it is obvious that a systematic process is needed to avoid the failure that happened here.

In addition to using ALL the intelligence before giving out VISAs, I wonder if the list of foreigners added to each of the "lists" could be sent (daily, weekly, monthly ??) to the State Department, which could then flag and further investigate whether existing VISAs should be revoked. It might be that the reason we have yet to see Hillary Clinton speak on this is that President Obama would prefer her not being out there until she can proactively announce a plan. (There was less that Napolitano could be faulted for and her position is the one that HAD to be out there. The problem is her too positive comment that then was twisted to mean more than she intended.)

For the DU and Daily Kos people calling out key Senators for not being out defending Obama, consider that some (like Kerry) have oversight responsibilities over the state department. There was a problem that the State Department got the information from the father and did not check to see if he had a VISA - they just passed it on. If Kerry were asked, I would guess that he would have to answer that needs to be fixed - defending the status quo would be stupid. I have faith that the Obama administration will make changes that insure this failure is systematically prevented in the future.

[pissedoff01]

2. "And in an age of terrorism, I think the Department of Defense ought to be policing our streets"

will be the next Lieberman idiocy.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

3. Handling "visas abroad?"

Well that's good, Joe. We certainly wouldn't want the state department handling domestic visas, whatever the fuck those are.

[leveymg]

4. State Dept. already uses the DHS list. DHS controls entry. What is the little sh-t driving at?

Why does the little sh-t still have a podium to spread confusion? Can he possibly be so ignorant (or deceptive) that he can't acknowledge that the decision whether to put someone on a No-Fly list is made by the Director of National Intelligence, a post that Lieberman helped create after 9/11?

[Bitwit1234]

5. This guy has to be put out to pasture.

[notesdev]

6. Oh come on!!

These guys have done such a 'bang-up' job (pun intended) with airline security, let's get their dirty little fingers in more pies, like a freaking dumbass. Good suggestion Joe!