Not A Peep About Patriot Act Passing (Where Is Code Pink?)

 

HotAir points out that during the Bush administration, the Left would go ape-shit over each time this act was passed and they would deride Bush for taking people's rights away. Did you hear anything about this time around? Not a peep.

The House had another opportunity for progressives to do a little piñata-beating on a bill last night — but curiously, it passed with little note or controversy.  The extension of the Patriot Act sailed through the lower chamber with almost no one noticing, following a similarly quiet passage out of the Senate earlier in the week:

The House of Representatives reauthorized the Patriot Act for one year Thursday.
The vote was 315-97 .
Many liberals in the House opposed the controversial act, saying it tramps Constitutional protections and civil liberties.

During George Bush’s term in office, every renewal the Patriot Act became grand theater, with newspapers inveighing against the overreach of Bush and the danger to American liberty in the bill, which wasn’t an entirely vacuous argument.  Protesters would fill streets, and reporters would demand positions from various members of Congress.  So what happened this year?...

...(read more)...

 

Assassination... One More Monster Gone -- Go Mossad! (3-Irish Guys on the Team! I Wonder How I Can Join?)

 (HotAir h/t)

BAM!! Marc Thiessen vs Christiane Amanpour on Waterboarding (Plus: Water Boarding Demonstration Added)

(For discussion on this video, go to Bottom Line Up Front)

(My YouTube embed)

"Not an Onion Headline" -- This is a Weekly Standard Headline, and it is not Funny!

The story is by Daniel Halper (January 21, 2010), and it shows that the Democratic radicals in control right now have no clue or idea on how to protect me and my family. This is asinine and is a big TOLD YOU SO to bloggers like Kimba.

Posted on my site April 09':

....The techniques themselves were used selectively against only a small number of hard-core prisoners who successfully resisted other forms of interrogation, and then only with the explicit authorization of the director of the CIA. Of the thousands of unlawful combatants captured by the U.S., fewer than 100 were detained and questioned in the CIA program. Of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to any of the techniques discussed in these opinions. As already disclosed by Director Hayden, as late as 2006, even with the growing success of other intelligence tools, fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from those interrogations.

Nor was there any legal reason compelling such disclosure. To be sure, the American Civil Liberties Union has sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain copies of these and other memoranda, but the government until now has successfully resisted such lawsuits. Even when the government disclosed that three members of al Qaeda had been subjected to waterboarding but that the technique was no longer part of the CIA interrogation program, the court sustained the government's argument that the precise details of how it was done, including limits and safeguards, could remain classified against the possibility that some future president may authorize its use. Therefore, notwithstanding the suggestion that disclosure was somehow legally compelled, there was no legal impediment to the Justice Department making the same argument even with respect to any techniques that remained in the CIA program until last January....

....In his book "The Terror Presidency," Jack Goldsmith describes the phenomenon we are now experiencing, and its inevitable effect, referring to what he calls "cycles of timidity and aggression" that have weakened intelligence gathering in the past. Politicians pressure the intelligence community to push to the legal limit, and then cast accusations when aggressiveness goes out of style, thereby encouraging risk aversion, and then, as occurred in the wake of 9/11, criticizing the intelligence community for feckless timidity. He calls these cycles "a terrible problem for our national security." Indeed they are, and the precipitous release of these OLC opinions simply makes the problem worse.

Now consider the Weekly Standard piece (Jan 2010):

SENATORS INTRODUCE BILL TO REQUIRE INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS BE CONSULTED ABOUT ARRESTED FOREIGN TERRORISTS

Addresses how Christmas Day terrorist was charged in civilian court

....The legislation would address a serious error that occurred in the handling of the so-called Christmas Day terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was charged in civilian criminal court.


At a Homeland Security Committee meeting Wednesday, Senator Collins learned during her questioning of witnesses that none of the three top U.S. intelligence officials had been consulted about that important decision. The determination to place Abdulmutallab into the U.S. civilian court system was made without their input or knowledge.


Senator Collins said this mistake “may have prevented the collection of valuable intelligence about future terrorist threats to the United States. Frankly, I was stunned to learn that the decision to place the captured terrorist into the U.S. civilian criminal court system had been made without the input or the knowledge of any of those three top intelligence officials: the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, and the Secretary of Homeland Security.


"These officials were never consulted by the Department of Justice. The decision was made without them.”


....Said Senator Ensign: “The United States is moving in a direction that threatens the national security of our country. The fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was read his Miranda rights and was placed under civilian court jurisdiction is as perplexing as it is dangerous....

....[read more].... Red State is even showing the fear in the Dems eyes over this whole progressive debacle:

Top administration officials are getting nervous that they may not be able to proceed with one of their most controversial national-security moves: trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused 9/11 conspirators in federal court in New York City. Last November Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. portrayed the trial as a way to showcase the American justice system to the world—and to accelerate President Obama’s stalled plans to shut down the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay. But because of shifting political winds in Congress, the trial is now “potentially in jeopardy,” a senior official, who did not want to be named talking about a sensitive situation, tells NEWSWEEK.

The chief concern: that Republicans will renew attempts to strip funding for the trial and, in the aftermath of the bombing attempt aboard Northwest Flight 253, pick up enough support from moderate Democrats to prevail. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham says he will force another vote on his amendment to stop the trial (which was defeated 54-45 in November) once Congress reconvenes. “With Detroit and everything else going on, we’ve got a pretty good chance of winning this thing,” says Graham, adding that he’s privately heard from a number of Democrats, saying “they’re with me.” GOP Rep. Frank Wolf says he plans a similar move in the House. “I’m afraid it’s probably going to pass,” says Democratic Rep. Jim Moran, who has strongly backed the administration on the issue.

I said on January 7th that "charging the 'eunuch bomber' as a common criminal has hampered forever the amount of details we can get from this person in regards to his contacts and/or knowledge of terror cells.  This is where the Democrats have failed the U.S. citizen the most." When you have Democrats who call our military and administration Nazi's , what do you expect:

• John Kerry calls American troops terrorists
• Durbin Compares U.S. Troops to Nazi's, Soviets, & Pol Pot
• Murtha calls Marines Murderers (of course these Marines were all acquitted becuase they were under fire from these places they fired on. I have to include a response by a Marine to Murtha, and a story on Murtha being sued for slander.)

(May 09')

Aimes Tiedeman wrote in December the following (you should read his whole list, this is number 9):

There’s a continued, unfortunate tendency for everyone in Obamaland to preface every comment about something going wrong with a sideswipe against the Bush administration. On Sunday, Bill Burton, Deputy White House Press Secretary, briefed: “On the Sunday shows, Robert Gibbs and Secretary Napolitano made clear that we are pressing ahead with securing our nation against threats and our aggressive posture in the war with al Qaeda. We are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us, and have dramatically increased our resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan where those terrorists are.” Why pat yourself on the back for “winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us” when the issue at hand is why the US government under Obama, er, took its eyes off a terrorist who did try to attack us and nearly killed 300 people? It’s bordering on the juvenile. Obama’s been president for a year now. It’s time for him to accept that things that happen as his responsibility, not Bush’s. It’s time for him to echo Ronald Reagan, who said over Iran-Contra: “I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration.”

Consider these older stories and you can see we are headed to right where we are:

• 10 Out Of 10 Terrorists Agree… They Want the Democrats in Office (April 07')
• The Iraqi Insurgents and Terrorist Leaders Agree – Democrats Good for Business (Aprtil 07')
• The Left Loves Terrorists (But Dislike Christians) (June 07')
• Dems Support Terrorists (Sept 07')
• Radicalism Goes Mainstream.... (Oct 08')
• New York Times: To Be A Terrorist or Not To Be (Dec 08')

HotAir showed that there is chaos in the administration's handling of the most important issue to my family and I, my safety:


They quote the NI Director Blaire first:

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair on Wednesday criticized the decision by FBI agents last month to question the Christmas Day airline bombing suspect as a criminal and not interrogate him as a terrorist…

The intelligence chief said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should have been questioned by the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG, a special panel established by President Obama.

“We did not invoke the HIG in this case. We should have. Frankly, we were thinking more of overseas people. And, you know … that’s what we will do now. And so we need to make those decisions more carefully,” Mr. Blair told Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican and ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee.

 Then they quote FBI Director Mueller

FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee today and revealed that he was not consulted on the question of whether to handle accused Detroit airline bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a defendant in the civilian justice system or as an enemy combatant. Abdulmutallab, who was trained by al Qaeda — with whom President Obama says the United States is at war — was charged as a civilian and given Miranda rights and a taxpayer-supplied lawyer. At a Judiciary Committee hearing today, ranking Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions asked Mueller, “Who made the decision that Abdulmutallab was going to be treated as a criminal rather than an enemy belligerent?” The answer: the agents on the scene, with no input from the FBI director…

“So the decision was made by agents on the ground based on some protocol or some policy that they understood?” Sessions asked.

“Based on an ongoing, very fluid situation,” Mueller answered, “in which they are trying to gather the facts and determine what culpability this individual had, but as important as determining the culpability of this individual, what other threats were out there that needed to be addressed?”

 The Buck definitely stops at Obama

Scarborough Scoop: How The Taliban’s Double-Agent Bomber Ambushed The CIA (HotAir h/t)

Democratic Co-Chair of the 9/11 Commission, Lee Hamilton, Blasts the Obama Admin on Eunuch Bomber Complacency

May I say that charging the "eunuch bomber" as a common criminal has hampered forever the amount of details we can get from this person in regards to his contacts and/or knowledge of terror cells.  This is where the Democrats have failed the U.S. citizen the most.

9/11 Commission chair: Obama, DHS, DNI too complacent on nat’l security
(HotAir import)

Lee Hamilton, the Democratic co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, blasted the Obama administration as “too complacent” on counterterrorism after the attempted EunuchBomber attack last month.  Jake Tapper asked Hamilton where the blame lies for a series of errors and failures that led to allowing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab onto the Northwest plane from Amsterdam to Detroit.  Hamilton gives most of the responsibility to the bureaucrats, but say the President has a “major” share of the blame as well:

“I just think what’s pervasive through the country, and has been now for a number of years, is the complacency, an inertia, a business-as-usual attitude … that I think is harmful,” former 9/11 Commission Vice Chair Lee Hamilton told ABC News. This, he says, includes the entire political leadership of the United States — President Obama, leaders of Congress and the “many, many people that have had a part in Homeland Security.”

“You can’t put all the responsibility on the president, but obviously he shares a major part of it,” said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman. “His speech yesterday suggested he’s going to bear down on this, I hope that’s the case.” …

Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair (Ret.) holds a position created because of a recommendation by the 9/11 Commission. Blair and the National Counter Terrorism Center are chiefly responsible for connecting the dots, for analyzing the data coming in.

We asked Hamilton whether they weren’t the ones chiefly responsible for dropping the ball.

“On the basis of what I know now, I would answer that question, ‘Yes,’” Hamilton said, adding that it was possible some of the information didn’t get to the DNI or NCTC offices in a timely manner.

That, of course, was the problem that the 9/11 Commission supposedly fixed in its recommendations, which led to the creation of the DNI and the NCTC.  Others point to those solutions as part of the problem.  The Washington Post reports this morning that the intelligence community is almost screaming “We told you so” when the additional bureaucracy created by Congress in those recommendations amounted to barriers rather than doorways:

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the federal government was radically restructured to emphasize counterterrorism, with new agencies and divisions established. Twenty-two other domestic agencies were combined under a new Homeland Security Department.
The government’s intelligence components were placed under the new umbrella of the DNI after the 9/11 Commission inquiry and other investigations determined that the cultural and electronic firewalls between them had prevented information-sharing in the days before the 2001 attacks. Under the new system, agencies were restricted largely to intelligence-gathering and instructed to contribute analysts to rotating duty at the NCTC. Intelligence officials at the CIA and other agencies argued against separating collection from analysis. …

It is unclear whether the NSA, in the parlance of the community, “formally disseminated” the information in the intercepts to the NCTC or others. Although initial reform plans to combine all intelligence databases into a one-stop searchable system remain incomplete, NSA databases are available to NCTC analysts, as is the CIA database, in which agents began compiling a biography of Abdulmutallab after his father visited the embassy.

Some of the finger-pointing centers on claims and counterclaims about who should have flagged what for others to pay attention to and who should have looked where without being prompted. Travers, the TIDE chief who also serves as deputy director of the NCTC, predicted the problem even earlier than his 2007 expression of concern about the volume of terrorist information.

“If an organization posts something to its webpage, it can claim to have shared information,” he wrote in the forward to a 2005 book published by the Joint Military Intelligence College. “Whether the right people know the information/analysis is there, and actually make use of it, is entirely another matter.

“Indeed, we’ll almost certainly be dealing with precisely this problem in the post mortems of our next intelligence failure; the relevant intelligence will have been posted, but the right analysts never found it among the terabytes of available information.”

Instead of streamlining intel agencies into two or three coherent organizations, eliminating duplication, and focusing on clear missions, the 9/11 Commission instead recommending increasing bureaucracy by adding DNI for analysis disconnected from intel gathering, and using the NCTC as a data warehouse for intel. 

 ...[read more]...

Newsweek: Saudis briefed top Obama official about “underwear bombers” in October; Update: MI5 knew of bomber three years ago

Blogger Subpoenas from the Transportation Security Administration -- Connection to Previous Story about Democrats Criminalizing Dissent (Illiberal Egalitarianism)

For context, see: "Obama's America -- Criminalizing Dissent (Daily KOS and HotAir on Same Page)"

This story is troubling because the go-ahead to criminalize the new media has been crafted by the Left to suppress the effectiveness of passing information on to persons that isn't through the filter of FOX or MSNBC. The Left likewise wants to stop the effectiveness of talk radio with the battle over the Federal Government requiring a "Fairness Doctrine."  This is the first outcropping of the new view (a Democratic Congress and Executive) of the new media.

TSA subpoenas bloggers, demands names of sources

WASHINGTON – As the government reviews how an alleged terrorist was able to bring a bomb onto a U.S.-bound plane and try to blow it up on Christmas Day, the Transportation Security Administration is going after bloggers who wrote about a directive to increase security after the incident.

TSA special agents served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott, demanding that they reveal who leaked the security directive to them. The government says the directive was not supposed to be disclosed to the public.

Frischling said he met with two TSA special agents Tuesday night at his Connecticut home for about three hours and again on Wednesday morning when he was forced to hand over his lap top computer. Frischling said the agents threatened to interfere with his contract to write a blog for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines if he didn't cooperate and provide the name of the person who leaked the memo.

"It literally showed up in my box," Frischling told The Associated Press. "I do not know who it came from." He said he provided the agents a signed statement to that effect.

In a Dec. 29 posting on his blog, Elliott said he had told the TSA agents at his house that he would call his lawyer and get back to them. Elliott said late Wednesday he could not comment until the legal issues had been resolved.

The TSA declined to say how many people were subpoenaed.

The directive was dated Dec. 25 and was issued after a 23-year-old Nigerian man was charged with attempting to bomb a Northwest Airlines flight as it approached Detroit from Amsterdam. The bomb, which allegedly was hidden in Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's underwear, malfunctioned and no one was killed. Authorities said the device included a syringe and a condom-like bag filled with powder that the FBI determined to be PETN, a common explosive.

The near-miss attack has prompted President Barack Obama to order a review of what intelligence information the government had about Abdulmutallab and why it wasn't shared with the appropriate agencies. He also ordered a review of U.S. aviation security. The government has spent billions of dollars and undergone massive reorganizations since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

The TSA directive outlined new screening measures that went into effect the same day as the airliner incident. It included many procedures that would be apparent to the traveling public, such as screening at boarding gates, patting down the upper legs and torso, physically inspecting all travelers' belongings, looking carefully at syringes with powders and liquids, requiring that passengers remain in their seats one hour before landing, and disabling all onboard communications systems, including what is provided by the airline.

It also listed people who would be exempted from these screening procedures such as heads of state and their families.

This is the second time in a month that the TSA has found some of its sensitive airline security documents on the Internet.

___

On the Net:

http://www.elliott.org/blog/full-text-of-my-subpoena-from-the-department-of-homeland-security/(pound sign)more-10228

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2009/12/30/the-fallout-from-sd-1544-09-06-the-feds-at-my-door/

It seems to me that the subpoenas should be going towards how ineffective our security is and how easy it is for persons from other countries to get into the U.S.

FOX News -- The US Gov Seized 36-Story Office Building & 4-Mosques

Feds seize four mosques, NYC skyscraper belonging to Iran-linked nonprofit organization (Jihad Watch) --- The nonprofit organization, the Alavi Foundation, may be owned by the Iranian government.

(AP) NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors Thursday took steps to seize four U.S. mosques and a Fifth Avenue skyscraper owned by a nonprofit Muslim organization long suspected of being secretly controlled by the Iranian government.

In what could prove to be one of the biggest counter-terrorism seizures in U.S. history, prosecutors filed a civil complaint in federal court seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets of the Alavi Foundation and an alleged front company.

The assets include Islamic centers in New York City, Maryland, California and Houston, more than 100 acres in Virginia, and a 36-story office tower in New York.

Seizing the properties would be a sharp blow against Iran, which has been accused by the U.S. government of bankrolling terrorism and seeking a nuclear bomb....

(old video)

Did Israel help "intelligence wise" in this bust?

(Debka h/t)

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama focused on the single subject of Iran when they met in Washington Monday, Nov. 9 - as did Netanyahu and French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, Wednesday, Nov. 11. Iran also occupied the meeting between defense minster Ehud Barak and US defense secretary Robert Gates Monday. DEBKAfile's Washington sources disclose that briefings to the media and joint communiqués were disallowed for the sake of blacking out the content of these conversations.  

More... 

(Another Old Video)

Religious backlash possible -- (Atlas Shrugs)

It is extremely rare for U.S. law enforcement authorities to seize a house of worship, a step fraught with questions about the First Amendment right to freedom of religion.

 

The action against the Shiite Muslim mosques is sure to inflame relations between the U.S. government and American Muslims, many of whom are fearful of a backlash after last week's Fort Hood shooting rampage, blamed on a Muslim American soldier.

The mosques and the office tower will remain open while the forfeiture case works its way through court in what could be a long process. What will happen to them if the government ultimately prevails is unclear. But the government typically sells properties it has seized through forfeiture, and the proceeds are sometimes distributed to crime victims.

There were no raids Thursday as part of the forfeiture action. The government is simply required to post notices of the civil complaint on the property.

Prosecutors said the Alavi Foundation, through a front company known as Assa Corp., illegally funneled millions in rental income back to Iran's state-owned Bank Melli. Bank Melli has been accused by a U.S. Treasury official of providing support for Iran's nuclear program, and it is illegal in the United States to do business with the bank.

Hot Air Posted About Pentagon Not Being Informed by FBI About Hasan's Contacts

 (An Important Puzzle Piece to PC Murder [Hasan going "undetected"], by HotAir)

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, we discovered that a failure to “connect the dots” left America unable to defend itself against 19 lunatics armed with boxcutters.  The Fort Hood massacre had far fewer casualties, but all of them could have been avoided had the FBI informed the Pentagon that one of its high-ranking officers had a new al-Qaeda pen pal in Yemen.  The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon never heard from the FBI or other intelligence services that Major Nidal Hasan had begun corresponding with a radical Islamist imam in the hotbed of al-Qaeda terrorism:

The Pentagon said it was never notified by U.S. intelligence agencies that they had intercepted emails between the alleged Fort Hood shooter and an extremist imam until after last week’s bloody assaults, raising new questions about whether the government could have helped prevent the attack.

A top defense official said federal investigators didn’t tell the Pentagon they were looking into months of contacts between Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki. The imam knew three of the Sept. 11 hijackers and hailed Maj. Hasan as a “hero” after the shooting last week at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead. …

A person familiar with the matter said a Pentagon worker on a terrorism task force overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation was told about the intercepted emails several months ago. But members of terror task forces aren’t allowed to share such information with their agencies, unless they get permission from the FBI, which leads the task forces.

In this case, the Pentagon worker, an employee from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, helped make the assessment that Maj. Hasan wasn’t a threat, and the FBI’s “procedures for sharing the information were never used,” said the person familiar with the matter.

This is absurd.  Anwar Aulaqi gets a number of mentions in the 9/11 Commission report for his contacts with at least two of the 9/11 hijackers.  Anyone communicating with Aulaqi after the attacks, especially after Aulaqi relocated to Yemen and established his Islamist jihadist website and recruitment efforts, should have been immediately reported to the Army’s chain of command, especially a high-ranking officer.

From the 9/11 Commission report, page 221:

Another potentially significant San Diego contact for Hazmi and Mihdhar was Anwar Aulaqi, an imam at the Rabat mosque. Born in New Mexico and thus a U.S. citizen, Aulaqi grew up in Yemen and studied in the United States on a Yemeni government scholarship. We do not know how or when Hazmi and Mihdhar first met Aulaqi. The operatives may even have met or at least talked to him the same day they first moved to San Diego. Hazmi and Mihdhar reportedly respected Aulaqi as a religious figure and developed a close relationship with him.³³

When interviewed after 9/11, Aulaqi said he did not recognize Hazmi’s name but did identify his picture. Although Aulaqi admitted meeting with Hazmi several times, he claimed not to remember any specifics of what they discussed. He described Hazmi as a soft-spoken Saudi student who used to appear at the mosque with a companion but who did not have a large circle of friends.³⁴

Aulaqi left San Diego in mid-2000, and by early 2001 had relocated to Virginia. As we will discuss later, Hazmi eventually showed up at Aulaqi’s mosque in Virginia, an appearance that may not have been coincidental. We have been unable to learn enough about Aulaqi’s relationship with Hazmi and Mihdhar to reach a conclusion.³⁵

In sum, although the evidence is thin as to specific motivations, our overall impression is that soon after arriving in California, Hazmi and Mihdhar sought out and found a group of young and ideologically like-minded Muslims with roots in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, individuals mainly associated with Mohdar Abdullah and the Rabat mosque. The al Qaeda operatives lived openly in San Diego under their true names, listing Hazmi in the telephone directory. They managed to avoid attracting much attention.

And more from page 230:

At the Dar al Hijra mosque, Hazmi and Hanjour met a Jordanian named Eyad al Rababah. Rababah says he had gone to the mosque to speak to the imam, Aulaqi, about finding work. At the conclusion of services, which normally had 400 to 500 attendees, Rababah says he happened to meet Hazmi and Hanjour. They were looking for an apartment; Rababah referred them to a friend who had one to rent. Hazmi and Hanjour moved into the apartment, which was in Alexandria.⁷⁵

Some FBI investigators doubt Rababah’s story. Some agents suspect that Aulaqi may have tasked Rababah to help Hazmi and Hanjour. We share that suspicion, given the remarkable coincidence of Aulaqi’s prior relationship with Hazmi. As noted above, the Commission was unable to locate and interview Aulaqi. Rababah has been deported to Jordan, having been convicted after 9/11 in a fraudulent driver’s license scheme.⁷⁶

The Commission was unable to locate and interview Aulaqi, but Hasan found him without too much trouble.  The Commission also makes it clear that they themselves suspected Aulaqi of an operational role in 9/11, and that counterterrorism agents shared that suspicion.  This was no run-of-the-mill radical imam, but a man suspected of helping to murder almost 3,000 people in the worst terrorist attack in history.

And eight years later, no one thought it was suspicious or worthy of further investigation that a high-ranking officer in the Army was communicating with a man suspected of being one of the architects of 9/11?

There’s a failure to connect dots, and then there’s willful blindness.  This appears to be the latter.  Something is very, very wrong with our present counterterrorism effort if contacts between a military officer and a known radical imam in Yemen gets shrugged off like this, especially with a figure likely part of the 9/11 attacks.

.... (MORE)....

As if a pen-pal relationship with a suspected 9/11 plotter wasn’t bad enough, ABC News now reports that the suspected shooter in the Fort Hood massacre may have had other ties to jihadists.   Those dots should have been connected before 14 people died in a hail of gunfire:

A senior government official tells ABC News that investigators have found that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan had “more unexplained connections to people being tracked by the FBI” than just radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki. The official declined to name the individuals but Congressional sources said their names and countries of origin were likely to emerge soon.

Questions already surround Major Hasan’s contact with Awlaki, a radical cleric based in Yemen whom authorities consider a recruiter for al Qaeda. U.S. officials now confirm Hasan sent as many as 20 e-mails to Awlaki. Authorities intercepted the e-mails but later deemed them innocent or protected by the first amendment.

The FBI said it turned over the information to the Army, but Defense Department officials today denied that. One military investigator on a joint terror task force with the FBI was shown the e-mails, but they were never forwarded in a formal way to more senior officials at the Pentagon, and the Army did not learn of the contacts until after the shootings.

Awlaki (or in the 9/11 Commission report, Aulaqi) was bad enough.  And the FBI knew about Aulaqi, unlike the Army, which was kept in the dark about Hasan’s correspondence.  If they knew that Hasan had communicated with Aulaqi and other people on their terrorism watch lists, why didn’t they connect the dots?  Why didn’t they at least inform Hasan’s chain of command?

FBI Make Arrests (Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Chicago Plot) -- Imported from Counterterrorism Blog

Out of all the bad news and missed opportunities with Hasan, I wanted to show that all news isn't bad news on the War On Terror front:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Transnational Terror: Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Chicago Plot
By Animesh Roul

Three names have been doing the rounds in India these days: Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, David Coleman Headley (a.k.a Dauod Geelani) and Tahawur Hussein Rana; one hard core veteran Jehadi and two motivated ‘would be’ terrorists. They are in the news for plotting major assaults in India. Among them, Ilyas Kashmiri who was rumored to be dead early this year, in fact survived three drone attacks in Pakistan’s Waziristan region, belongs to the Al Qaeda- Harkat-Ul- Jihad- Al-Islami (HuJI) lineage and heads the Qaeda’s deadly 311 brigade. He still carries a head money of US $ 600,000 dollars. His name resurfaced when a report was published in the Asia Times last month. The semi-biographical report titled, “Al-Qaeda's guerrilla chief lays out strategy” was written by Syed Saleem Shahzad of Pakistan who interviewed Ilyas Kashmiri about his future terror plans at his den and on his invitation.

In early September 2009, Pakistani officials and Western intelligence agencies believed that Ilyas Kashmir, Al Qaeda/HuJI operations chief in Pakistan and another close aide of Bin Laden, a Uzbek terrorist commander identified as Nazimuddin Zalalov (a.ka. Yahyo) have been killed in missile attacks in Turrikhel area of North Waziristan.

The other two names, Headly and Rana came as a bit of surprise to many in India and in the US. But their plan made one thing clear about the intention and capability of terrorist outfits (like LeT, Al Qaeda and JeM) that have transnational reach and global Jihadi agenda. These two men are part of a Lashkar-e-Taiba plot to attack major landmarks in India and Denmark. The US investigating agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have so far neutralized what is now dubbed as LeT’s ‘Chicago Terror Plot’. Headley was arrested early in October 2009 by the Joint Terrorism Task Force at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. He was reportedly planning to travel to Pakistan in near future to meet Ilyas Kashmiri and other terrorist leaders. His accomplice and co plotter Rana was arrested from Chicago later in that month.

According to FBI affidavit filed in a Chicago court, Headley had visited Pakistan a number of times before and constantly in touch with his LeT handlers (two Pakistan based LeT terrorists are still to be identified) in Pakistan through emails. As per the FBI the email communications revealed that a LeT mastermind in Pakistan was placing a higher priority on using Headley to assist in planning a new attack in India than on completing the planned attack in Denmark (facilities of Jayland Posten, the Danish newspaper which carried a cartoon strip of Prophet Muhammad in 2005 and perhaps (I suspect) a commando type assault during the upcoming Climate Summit). Any audacious attacks on these spots (and in India) would have given Lashkar-e-Taiba a position parallel to Al Qaeda in the international terrorism arena.

In June 2003, FBI made a similar breakthrough arresting at least seven Lashkar sympathizers or world be terrorists from in and around Washington region (3 from Maryland, 3 from Virginia and one in Pennsylvania), for providing material support to LeT.

The latest foiled LeT plot targeted vital landmarks, installations and elite boarding schools, as per the FBI investigations. The LeT is obviously planning Nov 2008 Mumbai type assaults in India and the possible targets were National Defense College, New Delhi, Doon School in Dehradun and Woodstock School in Mussoorie. It has been reported also that these terrorists have major plans to target the American and the Israeli nationals in India....

Digitizing Millions of Documents Taken from Iraq - Iraq Is Wanting Them Back for Historical Reasons

(Regime of Terror import)

Update on Saddam Hussein era Iraq documents

Aseel Kami, recently reported for Reuters that some officials in the current Iraqi government are making a push for the return of millions of Saddam Hussein-era Iraq documents (previously the subject of Congressional inquiries and public controversy) that were seized by the U.S. government and other non-government entities following the former regime's fall in 2003.

Kami wrote:

The files include intelligence papers on Iraqis kept by Saddam Hussein's feared secret police, information on weapons arsenals, detailed plans of massacres of the regime's enemies and even tapes of songs praising Saddam, officials said.

Some of these files have been made public while others were made available to the authors of The Iraqi Perspectives Project, Duelfer Report and other investigations into Saddam Hussein's activities.

Others just went missing in the chaos and looting in the early months of the U.S.-led invasion which toppled Saddam.

"Dictatorships document everything, from the simplest details to the biggest events in their citizens' lives," said Saad Eskander, director of the national library and archives. He added that he thought some were still with the CIA.

The Iraqi National Library and Archive (found here) is reportedly leading the pursuit of documents though it is likely that Iraq's "Red Museum" will be another party involved in the efforts.

One of the non-government entities in possession of the former Iraqi regime's documents is the Hoover Foundation. Officials with knowledge of the Hoover Foundation's cache indicated that the millions of documents they obtained from the Iraq Memory Foundation are a fraction of the approximately 100 million the Department of Defense and other U.S. agencies have. Those officials further said that documents are still being organized for a possible move to digital format before a planned move to the internet for historians and researchers to analyze though they urged caution with the release of documents that name former regime officials and their allies as well as their victims.

When asked about reported CIA possession of such documents current and former CIA officials directed requests for information to the Department of Defense and another former intelligence official, who was familiar with the story, told this site that originals were all supposed to be in Iraq or Qatar and that if the Iraqis wanted to expedite process they should contact their in-country DIA representative and prepare a large data store.

When reached for comment on this story Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Almarah Belk said that while her knowledge of the topic was limited she was able to confirm that the process of archiving and digitizing materials was a joint effort by the DOD and intelligence community and was moving forward though some documents may need further exploitation and many were still classified....

[more]

[Not in the name of Christ] Churches denounce African children as “witches” (Import)

(Religion News h/t-Import)

EKET, Nigeria (AP) — The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall.

His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him — Mount Zion Lighthouse. A month later, he died.

Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of “witch children” reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.
Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

“It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity,” said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria.

For their part, the families are often extremely poor, and sometimes even relieved to have one less mouth to feed. Poverty, conflict and poor education lay the foundation for accusations, which are then triggered by the death of a relative, the loss of a job or the denunciation of a pastor on the make, said Martin Dawes, a spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund.

“When communities come under pressure, they look for scapegoats,” he said. “It plays into traditional beliefs that someone is responsible for a negative change … and children are defenseless.”

The idea of witchcraft is hardly new, but it has taken on new life recently partly because of a rapid growth in evangelical Christianity. Campaigners against the practice say around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria’s 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered. In the past month alone, three Nigerian children accused of witchcraft were killed and another three were set on fire.

Nigeria is one of the heartlands of abuse, but hardly the only one: the United Nations Children’s Fund says tens of thousands of children have been targeted throughout Africa.

[...more...]

See Also

Stepping Stones Nigeria

• “Stepping Stones Nigeria is dedicated to promoting and protecting the rights of vulnerable and disadvantaged children, such as so-called child witches, in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Our vision is of a world where every child is free. By focusing our efforts in the Niger Delta we hope to establish an effective model to eradicate the stigmatisation of children as witches, whilst inspiring others elsewhere in similar circumstances."

Related Articles
• Killing of women, child “witches” on rise, U.N. told
• Abuse of child ‘witches’ on rise, aid group says
• Nigeria sees rise in number of children accused of witchcraft
• D.R. Congo: Children Increasingly Accused of Sorcery, Abused and Abandoned
• Thousands of child ‘witches’ turned on to the streets to starve
• Children pegged as witches suffer at families’ hands

Dallas Terror Bomb Suspect Was Jailed On September 11

ELLIS COUNTY — Just days before he allegedly tried and failed to blow up a Dallas skyscraper, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi was arrested in Ellis County.

Body/Butt Bomb

Terror 09' -- Update from Libertarian Republican

Najibullah Zazi was planning London 7/7 type attacks in New York for 9/11 Anniversary

Just Breaking...

The lead Prosecutor in the federal case against suspected Terrorist Najibullah Zazi is now stating that the Afghani was planning to attack Subway and Metro Stations in the New York area with Weapoons of Mass Destruction.

He is quoted by the AP via Google News:

"The evidence suggests a chilling, disturbing sequence of events showing the defendant was intent on making a bomb and being in New York on 9/11, for purposes of perhaps using such items," prosecutor Tim Neff told [Judge] Schaffer.

Even more disturbing, evidence now indicates that at least 3 of his alleged accomplices in the New York area have escaped. Continuing:

At least three and possibly more of his accomplices remain at large, and investigators have fanned out across New York in pursuit of suspects. Authorities also issued a flurry of terrorism warnings for sports complexes, hotels and transit systems.

Court papers say that during the summer, Zazi and three unidentified associates bought "unusually large quantities" of hydrogen peroxide and acetone — a flammable solvent found in nail-polish remover — from Denver-area beauty supply stores.

Court records also show that Zazi checked himself into a Colorado hotel suite 4 days before his cross-country trip to NYC, and spent those days attempting to concoct a lethal mixture of a bomb-making material known as TATP (triacetone triperoxide). This is the same substance used by 2002 shoe bomber Richard Reid (photo).

The UK Daily Mirror is suggesting that Zazi was planning a similar attack to the 7/7 attacks on London 4 years ago:

He allegedly bought large amounts of hydrogen peroxide and nail-polish remover - items that were used to make explosives in the 2005 London bombingsInvestigators say they found bomb-making instructions on his computer and believe Zazi received explosives training from al-Qaeda...

Additionally, the Ottawa Citizen is now confirming that Zazi traveled to Canada on at least 2 occasions:

Experts call alleged conspiracy one of the biggest threats since 9/11... An Afghan immigrant living in Colorado who is suspected of being linked to al-Qaeda and a plot to bomb targets in the United States travelled to Canada twice in the last decade, according to the prosecution... U.S. Attorney David Gaouette confirmed Friday that Zazi had crossed the border...

Meanwhile, other reports are suggesting that Zazi may have sought refuge within the "Afghan-Muslim" community in Queens during the final phase of the plot. From CNN:

The arrest of a local imam for allegedly lying to the FBI about tipping off a suspected terrorist sent shock waves through the Afghan community in New York... Prosecutors said Zazi received explosives training with the intent to bomb a high density target in the United States, and that Afzali jeopardized their investigation by telling Zazi that federal investigators were on to him.

The imam (mullah) is affiliated with the Masjid Al-Saaliheen (mosque) located in the Flushing section of Queens.

Wife Blows MI6 Chief’s Cover on Facebook (Does She Twitter?)

This comes with a Fausta’s h/t. FaceBook in the news for what it does best, connect people... even those that do not need to be connected.

Wife blows MI6 chief’s cover on Facebook

The wife of the new head of MI6 has caused a major security breach and left his family exposed after publishing photographs and personal details on Facebook.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all of Britain’s spying operations abroad.

But entries by his wife Shelley on the social networking site have exposed potentially compromising details about where they live and work, their friends’ identities and where they spend their holidays. On the day her husband was appointed she congratulated him on the site using his codename “C”.

Lady Sawers had put virtually no privacy protection on her account, making it visible to any of the site’s 200m users around the world who choose to be in the open-access London social network on Facebook.

The extraordinary lapse exposed the couple’s friendships with senior diplomats and well-known actors, including a leading character in The Archers, the BBC Radio 4 drama, and revealed that the intelligence chief’s brother-in-law, who holidayed with him last month, is an associate of David Irving, the controversial right-wing historian.

Once the Foreign Office had been informed of the faux pas all the material was removed from the internet. The move suggests that MI6 or the Foreign Office had not vetted the information the Sawers family shared over the internet.

Foreign Office staff are warned about using social networking sites when they join but MI6 advises its agents to maintain even tighter secrecy, telling them to reveal their true role only to their closest family.

Last night Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, told The Mail On Sunday: “This type of exposure verges on the reckless. The prime minister should immediately commission an internal inquiry as to whether this has breached the security of the incoming head of MI6 too seriously to allow him to take up the post.”

The Tory MP Patrick Mercer said the MI6 chief had left himself open to blackmail. A Foreign Office spokesman was unavailable for comment last night.

Pelosi Still Receives CIA Briefings, But Won't Say If They're Truthful

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at her weekly press conference yesterday continued dodging questions about her accusations that the CIA lied to Congress about waterboarding terrorist detainees.

Pelosi was pressed by reporters on whether she continued to receive briefings and admitted that she is still receiving the CIA presentatoins. She refused to answer when this humble correspondent asked whether or not she believes intelligence professionals are still lying to her....

Obama Learns Existence of Defense Department Intel Agency During Burger Run

(BreitBartTV)

Politico: "So explain to me exactly what this National Geospatial..." Obama said, after the worker mentioned his employer, according to a video of the event. "We work with, uh, satellite imagery," the worker, Walter replied. A POLITICO reader caught the exchange, which starts around 5:45 on this C-SPAN video.

(The transcript)

Obama: What do you do Walter?
Walter: I work at, uh, NGA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Obama: Outstanding, how long you been doing that?
Walter: About six years
Obama: Yea?
Walter: Yes.
Obama: You like it?
Walter: I do, keeps me...
Obama: So explain to me exactly what this National Geospatial...uh...
Walter: Uh, we work with, uh, satellite imagery..
Obama: Right
Walter: [unintelligible] ...support systems, so...
Obama: Sounds like good work.
Walter: Enjoy the weekend.
Obama: Appreciate it.

Liz Cheney Spars With Lawrence O'Donnell Over Waterboarding