Hizballah spy case shows US security agencies' background checks are a joke

"Terrorists Among Us," from Investor's Business Daily (thanks to all who sent this in):

Homeland Security: You'd think U.S. security agencies would be extra cautious about hiring after 9/11. But the case of the Hezbollah spy shows background checks are a joke.

Nada Nadim Prouty, a Lebanese national, infiltrated both the FBI and CIA — even though she lied on her application about being a U.S. citizen. Both agencies failed to catch the fraud in their security checks.

Prouty went on to access secret files about Hezbollah to tip off family members linked to the Lebanon-based terror group, something investigators failed to turn up in their original background check.

[...]

What's more, the feds have known since 9/11 that terrorists and their sympathizers have been trying to spy on U.S. agencies.

During a 2002 Virginia raid, they seized an Arabic document outlining a plot to conduct espionage operations against the government, according to Paul Sperry, author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington."

"We should be able to infiltrate the sensitive intelligence agencies or the embassies in order to collect information," the document says. Unfortunately, our "sensitive intelligence agencies" have not made it very hard for them to put agents in place. Thanks to sloppy background checks and political correctness, a number of them have penetrated the government, including:

• Abdurahman Alamoudi, who worked for the State Department and Pentagon, where he created the military's Muslim chaplain corps — even though he was caught on tape supporting terrorists at anti-Israeli rallies. He's now behind bars for terror, exposed as one of al-Qaida's top fundraisers in the U.S.

• David Hossain Safavian, who got a high-level White House job despite records showing he lobbied on behalf of Alamoudi. Safavian is serving an 18-month prison term for lying to federal investigators.

• Faisal Gill, who omitted the fact he worked for Alamoudi in his application for a high-level Homeland Security Department job, where he obtained top secret clearance before being suspended.

• Ahmad Al-Halabi, whom the Air Force assigned to Gitmo as a translator even though he previously had been under investigation for making anti-American statements. Halabi later pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information and lying to investigators.

• Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, another Gitmo translator who was hired as a contractor even though his girlfriend was investigated for stealing a classified Army laptop. Mehalba later was convicted of stealing secret documents from Gitmo.

• Sadeq Naji Ahmed, whom the Transportation Security Administration hired as an airport screener after the Air Force kicked him out for making statements supporting Osama bin Laden and praising the 9/11 attacks. Ahmed worked almost a year before TSA found he previously had his security clearance revoked.

• Warith-Deen Umar, hired by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to minister to Muslim inmates, even though he praised the 9/11 hijackers as Allah's "martyrs." Despite reports Umar gave extremist sermons, the government gave him outstanding evaluations.

Prison officials fired Umar only after the press exposed his al-Qaida sympathies. Only last year they started taking serious steps to tighten the vetting of Muslim employees.

Read it all.