Exclusive: New York: A New Haven for Terrorists?


Author: Peter Gadiel

Date Published: 2007-09-27


 

New York governor Eliot Spitzer recently announced he will relax rules for illegal aliens seeking driver’s licenses. What is he thinking? FSM Contributing Editor Peter Gadiel reminds us that such schemes have been tried elsewhere – with disastrous results.

 

New York: A New Haven for Terrorists?

 

By Peter Gadiel 

The bin Ladin lieutenants who are planning the next set of 9/11attacks must be very happy  because the odds of “successfully” carrying out their next plot and committing mass murder in the United States have just improved enormously. Last Friday, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer announced that he would make available to future terrorists the same tools which the 9/11 Commission noted were essential for the success of the conspiracy that killed my son and three thousand others six years ago. Those tools were U.S. drivers’ licenses.  

Certain facts about terrorist operations are beyond dispute, and as the 9/11 Commission noted, one is that terrorists cannot function without I.D. The sixty-three authentic U.S. driver’s licenses the 9/11 terrorists held (from Virginia, Florida, Maryland and other states) permitted them to blend in as ordinary U.S. citizens; permitted them to rent cars, open bank accounts, rent hotel rooms, obtain credit cards, etc. They used them when purchasing flying lessons. And on the morning of 9/11, their U.S. licenses were the “valid ID” that got them on board the planes they used as missiles. 

Those authentic, U.S. issued drivers licenses were the tools that allowed the terrorists to hide in plain sight among millions of other illegal aliens and to obtain all the goods and services they needed to plan, rehearse, finance and carry out their attacks. Because of the 9/11 attacks, in 2002 then-Governor George Pataki and his DMV Commissioner Ray Martinez began to implement strict rules that would prevent future terrorists from obtaining New York licenses. The result was that today the New York driver’s license is one of the most secure in the nation.   

Last Friday Gov. Spitzer announced that he will undo all of that work. He will relax the rules in such a fashion that terrorists would be foolish not to come to his state for their nice, fresh, authentic U.S.-issued IDs. Of course, Spitzer denies that he will issue licenses to terrorists; he’s only going to provide them to half million to one million illegal aliens who live in the state. But remember that even the people who favor immigration, groups like the ACLU and La Raza, admit that illegals are “undocumented”, which is another way of saying that their true identities are unknown and thus that any illegal alien may be a terrorist or violent felon. In other words, the man applying for a driver’s license at a Manhattan DMV office with Mexican ID documents identifying him as Juan Corona from the village of Cuicatecos, State of Oaxaca, may in fact be Mohammed Atta from Saudi Arabia planning the next 9/11.  

Gov. Spitzer says, in effect: “Trust me. When those half million to one million illegals show up at a DMV offices we’re going to be able to examine every one of their identity documents from Syria, Somalia, Mexico, Russia, Senegal, Pakistani, or the other 140 nations in the world and confirm that they are authentic. We are going to examine those foreign documents, birth certificates, drivers licenses, expired passports, baptismal records, hairdressers licenses, college grade reports, whatever, and make sure they are the real thing. Not only that, but despite the fact that these license applicants sneaked into our country in violation of federal law, I can assure the people of New York that none of the half to one million are going to use a New York drivers license to board a plane, hijack it and fly it into Rockefeller Center or rent a truck, fill it with explosives and blow it up in Times Square.” 

New Yorkers should bear in mind that Tennessee and North Carolina have experimented with allowing illegal aliens to get licenses and abandoned the practice. Licensed illegals caused extremely high numbers of highway deaths and injuries while driving drunk, and of these most had had cancelled their insurance to avoid paying premiums, leaving their victims to pay the bills and lose their livelihoods – if not their lives. Those states also became magnets for organized gangs bringing illegals from other states to DMV offices, providing transportation to and from their (illegal) residences in other states as well as phony “proof” of residency in North Carolina or Tennessee. 

The damage in Tennessee was so severe that Gov. Phil Bredesen, who in 2004 had won passage of legislation to license illegals, did a complete about face two years later. And the same legislature that passed the former bill to license illegals repealed the law in 2006. 

The Governors of Tennessee and North Carolina are not the only politicians to be burned by their support for licensing illegal aliens. Mr. Spitzer should remember the fate of former California Governor Gray Davis, another politician willing to trade American security for political support from the illegal alien lobby. Davis’ political career was terminated by angry voters because he signed into law a bill giving licenses to illegals. 

The people of New York should send a message to Mr. Spitzer that they will not tolerate their state becoming the source of identity documents for people who, at the very least, have violated numerous immigration laws and who, by their presence in the millions, provide concealment for the unknown violent felons and terrorists among them who are hiding in plain sight. 

If the governor follows through with his plan, when there is another 9/11 it is likely those involved will have obtained New York drivers licenses. In that case Spitzer will have on his hands the blood of the victims. Those New Yorkers who fail to instruct their governor that they oppose this madness must accept their share of the responsibility. 

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FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Peter Gadiel is the president of 9/11 Families for a Secure America.

 

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