How Do You Stop Jihadi Ideas?

"To get a visa to the United States, Malik—who reportedly pledged her allegiance to ISIS in a Facebook post during Wednesday’s attack—had to go through an in-person interview, biometrics, and checks against terrorist watch lists. The review included her workplaces, travel history, and family. The process is supposed to be especially rigorous for people from extremist-infested countries such as Pakistan, where she was born. Then, to get a green card, she had to go through additional national security background checks using data from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. She passed both screenings, most recently in July. Now Pakistanis are trying to blame Saudi Arabia for radicalizing her while the Saudis claim to have no information linking her to militants.

Farook was born in Chicago and grew up in California. Since the attack, investigators have discovered that he had contacts with people “associated” with the Nusra Front (a Syrian al-Qaida affiliate) and Somalia’s al-Shabab. But investigators anonymously concede that all of these contacts are years old, “not substantial” (for example, liking a Facebook page), and not with anyone of “significant investigative concern.” As of Friday night, no one has found a connection to ISIS. The bottom line, according to FBI Director James Comey, is that “we have no indication that these killers … are part of a network.”

And that raises a question. If you can’t stop ideas from crossing borders—if you can’t surveil every node of every network, peer into every soul, and know in advance who’s becoming radicalized—then you have to look for some other, more material transaction to monitor or control. The most obvious such transaction is the acquisition of weaponry. In the ideal world of the National Rifle Association—a world in which guns are freely available and our sole method of regulating their use is through mental health treatment, or sometimes through criminal background checks—anyone with a clean record can buy all the guns and ammo he wants, without raising any alarms. Including Syed Farook.

I’m a skeptic of gun laws. The weapons used in San Bernardino were apparently purchased legally, under California’s relatively strict laws, and then modified illegally. Rounding up most of the guns in this country would be logistically impossible, and enacting mandatory registration would be an enormous political challenge.

But if you’re not willing to pursue some kind of gun registration or gun control, then you’re left with the psychology of the shooter. And what San Bernardino just demonstrated, in the grisliest way, is that we’re even less capable of tracking psychology than we are of tracking guns. So if you want to blame radical Islam, go right ahead. And tell us how you’d monitor the flow of radical Islam from Syria to California. And if you can’t answer that question, then ask yourself whether you love liberty so much that you’re willing to defend the right of everyone, including aspiring jihadists, to stockpile and bear unregistered arms."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/12/syed_farook_and_tashfeen_malik_may_have_been_inspired_to_kill_what_it_means.html

This is an extremely difficult problem. There is no easy or clear solution.

Walt