Homeland Security chief: U.S. must watch out for copycat attacks

U.S. law enforcement authorities must be on the lookout for potential copycat attacks following this week’s massacre at a satirical magazine in Paris, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday.

Johnson said the attack in France — which left 12 people dead, including the magazine’s editor — highlights how the world has entered a new phase in which terrorists are using propaganda on social media to inspire violence in other countries. The government is responding, Johnson said, by tracking would-be terrorists on the Internet and those who are leaving Western countries to wage war in Syria and elsewhere.

Johnson said he instructed authorities in November to begin seeking more information about people who are traveling to the U.S. from countries that are exempt from federal visa requirements. Further, Johnson said he is traveling to Islamic cultural centers and other community organizations across the nation, encouraging them to build trust with local police and steer young men away from violence.

“Any time something like this occurs, you have got to be concerned about a copycatlike attempt,” said Johnson, who flew to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Thursday to review security procedures following a major gun-smuggling bust there last month. “So in the short term I suspect we are going to evaluate a number of things we need to do in this country. This is something we have been concerned about for some time now.”

“We need to be concerned about discrete attacks from people who may be lurking in our homeland,” he continued. “Our intelligence community does a pretty good job of detecting plots at their earliest stages overseas. … That is, I believe, one of our new priorities now in Homeland Security, in law enforcement and in the intelligence community of our government.”

Johnson did not share new information about the suspects in the Paris shooting case — brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, both Frenchmen in their 30s — but he predicted they would be apprehended and that details about their motives would emerge in the coming days. They are accused of gunning down staffers at Charlie Hebdo, a weekly magazine that had come under criticism for lampooning Islam. Two police officers also died in the attack.

“The picture is a rapidly evolving one,” Johnson said. “I suspect, given how things work, that these individuals will be brought to justice and they will be apprehended. I suspect we are going to know a lot more about them in the next hours or days to fill out the picture.”

Also Thursday, Johnson announced he had directed a committee to review airport security nationwide. His agency issued a press release after his visit, saying the Transportation Security Administration is considering or putting in place changes, including additional security screening for airport and airline employees.

Johnson visited Atlanta following allegations that two men smuggled more than 130 firearms on planes from Georgia to New York over the course of eight months last year. Law enforcement authorities say that one of the men, working as a baggage handler at the time, was able to help get the weapons on the planes by exploiting a gap in security. Not all airline and airport employees must undergo security screenings before entering secure areas at the Atlanta airport. Airline employees, however, do pass background checks before they are employed.

The gun-smuggling investigation in Atlanta has drawn sharp reactions from U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York and Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson. At a news conference Wednesday, Schumer called on the TSA to require airports nationwide to physically screen airline and airport employees before they enter secured areas.

A spokesman for the Atlanta airport said this week that authorities had expanded “random inspections” and increased police presence there. Johnson said he was pleased with what he heard Thursday from officials in Atlanta. He said he would assess Schumer’s request, while noting it would involve a “huge logistics issue, especially at an airport this large.”

“I believe that some level of scrutiny is appropriate for employees who work here and who don’t pass through the TSA screening at the gate facilities,” said Johnson, a Morehouse College alum who added he flew to Atlanta on a commercial airline to show support for the the airline industry and aviation security.