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| Malaysian Flight Mystery Reveals Loophole in Passport Checks - ABC News Posted: 09 Mar 2014 10:02 AM PDT While investigators hunt for clues as to what brought down Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, the revelation two passengers possibly used stolen European passports not only raises the specter of terrorism but also points to a huge vulnerability in aviation security, current and former officials told ABC News. Interpol, the international police cooperative, maintains a massive database at its Lyon, France headquarters with 40 million records of lost and stolen travel documents such as passports, officials said. And though 160 nations provide those reports, only a handful of them actually tap the freely accessible archive regularly to check on travelers at their airports or have the capability to do so, Interpol sources said "I'm not sure that [Malaysian authorities are] screening for stolen passports at all over there at this point," one senior law enforcement official familiar with the system told ABC News. In a statement posted online today, Interpol said that prior to the takeoff of Flight 370, no country had checked with them about the Austrian or Italian passports possibly used by two passengers on the flight. If anyone had, Interpol could have told them that the Austrian passport had been reported stolen in 2012 and the Italian in 2013. "Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol's databases," Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said in the statement. And because no one asked, Interpol said it has no way to know how many times the stolen passports may have been used before Flight 370. RELATED: Malaysian Jet May Have Turned; Suspicious Passengers Checked Malaysia would hardly be alone in failing to check travelers' passports. Interpol reported that last year passengers were able to board planes more than a billion times around the world without having their passports screened against Interpol's databases. A senior American law enforcement official told ABC News that while there is concern that terrorists could have used stolen passports to board the downed plane, fraudulent passports are most commonly used "for illicit criminal stuff like smuggling or drug trafficking and human trafficking," or by people who buy them "for work verification purposes." Still, another former senior U.S. law enforcement official with close ties to Interpol cautioned that the lack of coordination over stolen passports could be a strong advantage for terrorists in particular. "An individual who's going to sacrifice himself could easily use a stolen passport to get on a plane with explosives smuggled in their checked luggage and just sit there until it blows the plane to bits," he said. The stolen passport check is a security hurdle that Interpol chief Noble said many in the international community should have cleared by now. "Now we have a real case where the world is speculating whether the stolen passport holders were terrorists, while Interpol is asking why only a handful of countries worldwide are taking care to make sure that persons possessing stolen passports are not boarding international flights," Noble said. |
| Rand Paul wins CPAC presidential straw poll - New York Daily News Posted: 09 Mar 2014 10:08 AM PDT Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky came out the favorite for the second straight year among Republican conservative activists voting for the candidate they would like to see in the White House next. Paul, a potential 2016 White House contender, won 31 percent in the annual straw poll taken at the Conservative Political Action Conference. His closest competitors were Texas Senator Ted Cruz, with 11 percent, and conservative neurosurgeon Ben Carson with 9 percent. The straw poll was announced at the end of a three-day conference that typically draws many young conservatives. Organizers said one in two of the 2,459 people who participated in the poll were between 18 and 25 years old. Paul was one of four potential Republican presidential candidates to address the annual conference on Friday, along with Texas Governor Rick Perry, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. The Kentucky lawmaker drew a rousing response when he accused President Barack Obama of running roughshod over personal liberty with programs like the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance. He asked attendees to "imagine a time when the White House is once again occupied by a friend of liberty." Paul sounded a similar note on Saturday when he thanked them for their support. RELATED: SEN. RAND PAUL SUES OBAMA OVER NSA SURVEILLANCE "The fight for liberty continues, and we must continue to stand up and say: We're free and no one, no matter how well-intentioned, will take our freedoms from us," he said in a statement. Florida Senator Marco Rubio came in a close second to Paul at last year's conference but has since suffered among conservatives for his support of immigration reform. He trailed this year with 6 percent of the vote, behind New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's 8 percent, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's 7 percent and Santorum's 7 percent. RELATED: RAND PAUL SLAMS BILL CLINTON'S 'PREDATORY' SEXUAL BEHAVIOR Organizers said 25 candidates were on the ballot, but there were still a number of write-ins, including former Governor Jeb Bush of Florida and the late U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, who served from 1923 to 1929. |
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