Trying to Save Us from (Able) Danger

[T.Rally]

In a related story to the below article the Washington comPost had a story today saying there was no documents tieing Atta to Able Danger.

It was probably what Sandy Burger was stealing.

How did Jamie Gorelick ever get on the 9/11 commission? Wasn't she the one who chastised the Bush Administration? She was the one responsible for building the wall between our intelligence communities for God's sake during the Clinton Administration.

Trying to Save Us from (Able) Danger
By Michael Reagan
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 23, 2005

Back on May 25, 2004, in a column entitled, “9/11 Commission Hacks Demean 9/11's Heroes,” I wrote about the. 9/11 Commission, warning that “It’s time to shut this farce down and send its members back into their well-earned obscurity.”

Recent events proved I was right about this sorry collection of showboating has-beens who had just devoted most of their hearings in New York to attacking such 9/11 heroes as Rudy Giuliani and his police and fire commissioners.

I specifically mentioned Democrat Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, who I wrote should have been a witness forced to explain how as former Attorney General Janet Reno’s deputy she had helped cripple the intelligence community, instead of a being a commission member.

http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19232

 

[Larry Gude]

Where have you been?

We were told, in the aftermath of 9/11, before the clamps were put on, that;

A. The FBI recieved tips about several US based flying schools that some young Arab males were taking lessons...and were not interested in how to land.

B. We were told that the FBI wanted to start peeking into a few of these fellows including wire taps and sneaking a look into their computers.

C. We were told they were told no by their superiors, who cited agency lawyers, who cited restrictions in the law.

After 9/11 Congress passed the Patriot act which was the natural remedy to overcome some of the legal hurdles.

It was known who Gorelick was while she served on the commission and it was known that she was the author of the 'wall' memo, an opinion from the Justice department to the FBI that they could not use the info they had because of where it came from; they could not peruse it.

Plenty of us just lived with the shock of watching our media totaly IGNORE this story. But hey, I lived under 8 years of Clinton and I've grown used to it.

We know now that US miltary intel had picked up on many of these guys as a result of intel gained working on all the other terror attacks of the 90's but the law said that the FBI, being our domestic crime investigation agency could not use information supplied by the military or the CIA who are forbidden to work within the US.

We have some public interest to seperate the CIA and the FBI. Most of us would think that they should share information and work together. Some of us, as a result of the JFK assassination, are scared of them working together.
Others, because of JFK, think they should work closer.

Plenty of the anti-W rage is directly associated with covering up some ugly truths of the Clinton years. It's what your kids do when they are busted; try to change the subject, vigorously.

What Gorelick did do and all that Clinton did not do are not illegal; they are simply titanicly inconvenient positions in the context of elections.

So yeah, we can repeat all this stuff and it should be common knowledge but just understand; it's not likely to ever be the front page story it should always have been; too many people have a vested interest in it not being front page, including those that control front pages.

 

[T.Rally]

I'll agree that the Gorelick stuff is old news. This "Able Danger" stuff is just starting to surface is it not?

The fact that there may be evidence that proves Mohammed Atta was on the FBIs radar prior to 9/11 is relevant.

 

[Larry Gude]

What I am saying is...

I'll agree that the Gorelick stuff is old news. This "Able Danger" stuff is just starting to surface is it not?

The fact that there may be evidence that proves Mohammed Atta was on the FBIs radar prior to 9/11 is relevant.

...that none of this is new except for specifics. It was widely reported that the FBI was on to many of these guys and were told to back off. If memory serves, ALL of them were known to the FBI. In the land of Miranda, you just couldn't do much until you had some bodies. Remember; the FBI are cops; law enforcement, not crime prevention.

CIA is in the prevention business but they can't operate domestically and that is what Gorelick and her memo was re-stating. Patriot Act says that we can overcome that for national defense cases.

As to specifics, we're gonna hear tails of agents rasing holy ####ing hell that it's obvious what these guys were up to, not learning to land, and YOU GOTTA TURN US loose! Let us scare them, see what turns up, something, ANYTHING.

We'll have a made for TV movie detailing some of these agents staring in a rage at the TV on 9/11 watching the unfolding of what they had the opportunity to prevent, but not the authority. And it will emphasize George Bush being President, who with the Florida delays barely had a cabinet together by September, not the 8 years that led up to it.

None of this is new, just the details. The goal now is the spin.

 

[Bruzilla]

I think that the most interesting aspect of the Able Danger issue is being overlooked. It seems that so many people are only interested in the story for it's aspect of attacking or defending Clinton. I think the important aspect is that if the stories are true, the Able Danger info got squelched because our vaunted army of lawyers placed potential litigation over national defense, which should be a lesson we should have learned well, but instead we continue this practice by frisking grandmas and wasting resources on folks who are unlikely to be terrorists all in the name of appearing "random" in our efforts.

Forget Clinton. We need to use this info to emphasize the folly of putting litigation over security.

 

[Larry Gude]

Allow me to clarify...

I think the important aspect is that if the stories are true, the Able Danger info got squelched because our vaunted army of lawyers placed potential litigation over national defense, which should be a lesson we should have learned well, but instead we continue this practice by frisking grandmas and wasting resources on folks who are unlikely to be terrorists all in the name of appearing "random" in our efforts.

That is the EXACT message; we MUST re-think our civil liberties from the standpoint of how they apply to NATIONAL enemies intent on domestic attacks.

The press leaves this off the front page because of how it would reflect on a Democratic president. Though there is #####ing from the left about the Patriot Act, there is no follow up; "What is bad about the Patriot Act?"

The answer is that the act allows for closer relations between our domestic law enforcement agencies, the FBI, and our foreign intelligence people, the CIA and the alphabet soup of military shops.

That's why I pointed out Clinton didn't do anything wrong per se; he just
happens to be among the group that fears coordination of these agencies, but for other reasons.


When a drug dealer has Miranda rights and gets off scott free, that's one thing. When Bad Guy has 20 pounds of symtex in his trunk or is studying at flight school but not studying landing, these are issues that common sense says should transcend our traditional civil rights.

People in our government who work to protect us all had to watch 9/11 happen knowing that they may well have been able to stop it in its tracks but were forbiden to...by the law. Our law.

By the way; the stories ARE true. I don't know about all the details but all of this stuff was reported as it came to light; the flight schools calling the FBI, agents asking for taps, denied by agency lawyers. It was subsequently buried as the beaurcracy got hold of it, but it was reported.

 

[2ndAmendment]

Something else that is overlooked, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution only covers citizens. There is no reason to extent them to non-citizens, even green card holders, and certainly not to illegal aliens. Of course this position is totally non PC.

 

[Larry Gude]

That needs to be...

Something else that is overlooked, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution only covers citizens. There is no reason to extent them to non-citizens, even green card holders, and certainly not to illegal aliens. Of course this position is totally non PC.

...part of the equation as well but on top of that I doubt the Bill of Rights was ever meant to contemplate the myriad protections for US citizen criminals we've morphed it into.

 

[2ndAmendment]

...part of the equation as well but on top of that I doubt the Bill of Rights was ever meant to contemplate the myriad protections for US citizen criminals we've morphed it into.

Convicted felons typically lost their right to vote and many of their other rights in the early years.

 

[Larry Gude]

It's not even that...

...there is no way anyone can excuse NOT aggressively investigating Atta and the boys by virtue of the LAW.

A man of 1789 would say "If that be the case, that the nation stands by waiting until an attack, by law, then the law is in need of repair."

 

[2ndAmendment]

...there is no way anyone can excuse NOT aggressively investigating Atta and the boys by virtue of the LAW.

A man of 1789 would say "If that be the case, that the nation stands by waiting until an attack, by law, then the law is in need of repair."

A man of 1789 would not allow our borders to be so porous.

 

[Bruzilla]

Larry, as I understood it, the government lawyers didn't care about who the military talked to, be it the FBI, the CIA, Burger King employees, etc. Their concern was that if the Able Danger program was made public as a result of these discussions, and the public were made aware that the US military was "spying" on foreign nationals who were here legally, that there would be Hell to pay by the US government et al. That was the liability, not the sharing of the information through the Democrat-created "wall."

 

[Larry Gude]

I guess I'm just not clear today...

Larry, as I understood it, the government lawyers didn't care about who the military talked to, be it the FBI, the CIA, Burger King employees, etc. Their concern was that if the Able Danger program was made public as a result of these discussions, and the public were made aware that the US military was "spying" on foreign nationals who were here legally, that there would be Hell to pay by the US government et al. That was the liability, not the sharing of the information through the Democrat-created "wall."

That's what I was trying to say; The military is not allowed, nor is the CIA nor the alphabet groups, NSA, etc, to operate within the US.

In other words, A/D is not actively spying on anyone here at home; they have developed intel about these guys overseas, tracked them here and then could do no more. Gorelick and Co., as I understand it, were basically saying had the FBI found these guys on there own that's one thing.

Sorta like a cop can't introduce evidence 'illegally' obtained and if he did then it excludes what he found downstream of the illegal evidence.

Point being that the 'wall' as it is called limits coordination between the various groups for civil rights reasons. Patriot got around that.

 

[SmallTown]

The information must be very relevant. The day after the stories broke all over the news, fox news had a front page article about how clinton had a chance to get bin laden

 

[Larry Gude]

Are talking about when...

The information must be very relevant. The day after the stories broke all over the news, fox news had a front page article about how clinton had a chance to get bin laden

...9/11 happened or now?

 

[SmallTown]

...9/11 happened or now?

If clinton didn't do it back then, do you think he would be trying now?

 

[Penn]

If clinton didn't do it back then, do you think he would be trying now?

If I recall rightly, didn't a story come out in the weeks/months after 9/11, that the Sudanese offered Bin Laden to the USA, back in the late 90s?

No action was taken - I heard 2 or 3 stories why it wasn't; one of them hinted that clinton was too busy in the Oval Office.

 

[Bruzilla]

In other words, A/D is not actively spying on anyone here at home; they have developed intel about these guys overseas, tracked them here and then could do no more.

Negative. What A/D did was allow the DoD to access numerous open-source databases for tranactions within the United States, and allowed DoD personnel to develop associations with known terrorist organizations based on those transactions. For example, Mohammed Atta utilized a credit card to conduct some financial transactions with a mosque that was associated with Al Qaeda, and this was how his name got picked up on by A/D. Once they have a name, they then start looking at other open-source databases to see if there are any other links or transactions going on between that person and known terrorists or groups.

It is a form of spying, just using open-source information rather than active collection. But again, the issue about not wanting to use the data to support the FBI was that the DoD lawyers were afraid of what the impact to the military would be if it was learned that the military was snooping on people who were here legally. I would guess the reaction would have been the same as it would have been if the FBI forced flight schools to stop training Muslim pilots before 9/11, and the same as the reaction to Muslim men being singled out for searches is today - lots of screaming, accusations, nashing of teeth, and apologies for offending sensitivities from the Left.

 

[Larry Gude]

Bruz...

Gotcha.