THE BORDER REPORT

I wrote this story last year, but a quick look at FBI archives shows that not a thing has changed. Seven years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, the prime suspect in the vox populi still hasn't been charged.

Did Osama bin Laden engineer the attacks? If so, why hasn't an indictment ever been handed down?

Here's what the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list says

BIN LADEN IS WANTED IN CONNECTION WITH THE AUGUST 7, 1998, BOMBINGS OF THE UNITED STATES EMBASSIES IN DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, AND NAIROBI, KENYA. THESE ATTACKS KILLED OVER 200 PEOPLE. IN ADDITION, BIN LADEN IS A SUSPECT IN OTHER TERRORIST ATTACKS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

CONSIDERED ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

It's worth noting that the Wanted poster was created in June 1999 and revised in November 2001.

Meanwhile, for all the talk about higher walls with Mexico, seizing the laptops and cellphones of U.S. citizens entering the country and tracking our out of country traveling habits, the Homeland Security Department is expanding its visa waiver program to new countries this year. The visa waiver program allows nationals of a foreign country to quickly enter the U.S. for short-term stays. The list included countries like the U.K., France, Spain and Belgium; this year its expanded to Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia, South Korea, using little more than an honor system (airline records) to determine who leaves when. In 2007, 13 million visitors came into the U.S. through the visa waiver.

The Government Accountability Office admonished Homeland for the lax restrictions earlier this year, but GAO's like a nagging aunt, as much as they wave their finger, Homeland pretty much ignores their recommendations.

So seven years later, we're right back where we started; lax inspection at the ports of entry, little idea who's coming, who's going (I'd argue less idea), and the only suspect, the man who was waved in front of our face as the guilty party, still stands unaccusedd by the U.S. Justice Department.

It's like we forgot, or maybe we don't care anymore.

-- Michel Marizco