WASHINGTON — In late September, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was in Canada to visit his counterpart and other cabinet officials. It was a month before a tragic and shocking shooting in Ottawa, and Johnson remembers, “I walked within 20 feet of the War Memorial where the member of the military was shot.”
When he heard the news that Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, 24, was gunned down there, and the gunman was involved in a shooting in the Parliament building, it stuck with him.
Sitting in his DHS office mid-morning on Oct. 31, surrounded by framed photos and other reminders of the pivotal role the U.S. plays in international security, Johnson explained his concerns in an exclusive interview with WTOP.
“I look at what happened in Canada, in Ottawa and Montreal, and I see that as something that could, on a moment’s notice, be copycatted here,” he said in a very measured fashion.
Just days before the attack on the war memorial and Parliament Hill, two Canadian Forces members were struck by a motorist in a mall parking lot near Montreal. It was later determined that lone-wolf suspects in the two incidents deliberately launched the attacks with terroristic motives.
Those events, said Johnson, were “the reasons why we ramped up the Federal Protective Service (FPS) at federal installations here in the United States.”
The FPS is responsible for the protection of more than 9,500 federal facilities owned or leased by the General Services Administration. Around 1.4 million occupants and visitors use those facilities each day.
Johnson said that the Ottawa incident “resonated with me because, through the two days I spent up there, I got to know a number of members of their government and their parliament really well on personal level.”
But beyond empathy for his Canadian colleagues, he was deeply troubled by the possibility that such an event could happen in the U.S.
The Canadian attacks worried Johnson and other U.S. national security officials because, throughout the reign and heyday of al Qaida, Canada had never been attacked. It wasn’t for lack of trying, though — several plots had been foiled.
The attacks seemed to coincide with a wave of anti-Western propaganda and beheadings by terrorist organizations, and that was also troubling.
“The reasons for this action are self-evident: the continued public calls by terrorist organizations for attacks on the homeland and elsewhere, including against law enforcement and other government officials, and the acts of violence targeted at government personnel and installations in Canada and elsewhere recently,” Johnson said in a statement announcing the extra security.
The terror organization The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) joins al Qaida, the Taliban and other violent extremist groups around the world calling for attacks on the homeland. Worse yet, recent evidence indicates that these groups are seeking to radicalize people living in the U.S. and instruct them to launch attacks.
Johnson’s concern about copycats has become reality. Police officers in New York and D.C. have been attacked in separate incidents in recent weeks by men wielding axes. While there’s no proof that one attack triggered the other, law enforcement officials who spoke to WTOP on the condition of anonymity worry they are related.
Johnson also is concerned about the exodus of American citizens who left to train with extremist groups in Syria during the civil war and may now be poised to return to the U.S. There are only between a dozen and several dozen such Americans, but the FBI and DHS and their domestic and international partners are keeping a close eye on the movements of those they can find.
Those who’ve disappeared into the shadows are also a problem for Johnson, as well as those migrating from countries with which the U.S. shares relaxed travel policies.
But those policies are stiffening. On Nov. 3, DHS said in a statement they had “made significant changes to the way those seeking to travel to the United States from countries in our Visa Waiver Program (VWP).”
People traveling from those locations will be required to provide additional information — additional passport data, contact information, and other potential names or aliases — in the travel application submitted via the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).
Johnson says, however, “I don’t think that what happened in Canada is an occasion for us to say we need added border security in the north. They are our next-door neighbor and our good friend. I do think what happened in Canada is an occasion for us to be aware that there is real potential for something happening here in the United States in response to calls from overseas.”
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