WASHINGTON – The computer system used by U.S.
immigration officers to check terrorist
watchlists has been on the blink for much of the past
week, and technicians dispatched by the Homeland
Security Department cannot seem to diagnose the
problem, let alone fix it, WorldNetDaily has learned.
Some 40 ports of entry across the country have
reported chronic delays in accessing law enforcement
data and even 24-hour system outages, officials say.
"A virus may have migrated to our system," said one
official.
Indeed, the department has distributed a virus alert
to port directors. A fast-spreading virus – dubbed
the MSBlast, or LovSan, worm – has infected other
government agencies, including some Federal Reserve
banks.
Federal immigration officers at Chicago's O'Hare
International Airport, the nation's busiest, say
delays in the TECS lookout database are causing
passport-processing bottlenecks and long lines at
international terminals.
"People are backed up all the way down the terminal,"
a supervisor there said. "It's just a mess."
U.S. authorities at Dallas-Fort Worth International
Airport say their database went down for 24 hours a
week ago, and delays in calling up data persist.
Homeland Security spokesman James Michie said he's
aware of complaints about "sluggishness" in the
computer system, but he knew of no other details about
the problem.
"I understand there has been some sluggishness in
recent days with some databases," he confirmed in an
interview with WorldNetDaily.
The back-up system for TECS, known by the acronym
PALS, isn't much help, officers say, because it relies
on old data. It's updated by CD every couple of
months.
Washington is baffled by the computer-system slowdown
on the immigration side of inspections, officials say.
"The tech honchos from D.C. can't figure it out," one
said.
"It's weird," said another.
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