Jubilant Calls on Sept. 11 Led to F.B.I. Arrests

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 — Within hours of the terror attacks on Sept. 11, law enforcement officials say, F.B.I. agents intercepted telephone calls in which suspected associates of Al Qaeda in the United States were overheard celebrating the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In the following days, the officials said, agents swept in and arrested them and have been holding them since, some as material witnesses, based on the information picked up in the phone calls. They are among hundreds of people detained after the attacks.

Agents made the requests for the intercepts barely minutes after the planes crashed into the World Trade Center, knowing from past terrorist acts that Osama bin Laden's followers often phoned to congratulate one another after successful operations.

The agents' requests quickly paid off. While the precise contents of the intercepted phone calls have not been disclosed, officials have said some were congratulatory, even gloating.

Yet it remains unclear whether the people involved in the conversations were participants in the plot, or merely exulting in the audacity and destructiveness of the attacks on the American "enemy." The authorities have not said whether any of the people detained on the basis of the intercepts were cooperating, but none have been charged with crimes related to Sept. 11.
Law enforcement officials have said that, before Sept. 11, they did not believe they had sufficient evidence to ask a court to authorize wiretaps of people suspected of being Al Qaeda sympathizers. But after the attacks, the requests were quickly approved.

Among the people arrested as a result of these intercepts and other information are several material witnesses in the case, the officials said, although they would not identify them or discuss the contents of the intercepted communications. They did say that the tone of the conversations was happy — good cheer at the success of the attacks, a pattern of behavior that paralleled what occurred after the bombing of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.

The officials would not say how many people were detained through the telephone intercepts, nor would they discuss evidence that any of them proved to be Al Qaeda members or other militants planning specific terrorist actions. The intelligence officials said, however, that the intercepts and the resulting arrests helped form the basis of assertions by senior government officials that they thwarted separate terrorist plots in the days after Sept. 11.

The most that law enforcement officials said about the fruits of the detentions arising from the telephone intercepts was that they believed they had netted Al Qaeda sympathizers who might have been in the very early stages of terrorist plots.

Intelligence officials said they had aimed their efforts at bin Laden associates because they believed it was impossible to catch Mr. bin Laden through electronic intercepts. Officials said they had learned that he had made it a firm practice since August not to use or even go near electronic communications devices.

One official said intelligence reports showed that Mr. bin Laden began this practice because he believed that Israel was able to assassinate a Palestinian leader in Ramallah on Aug. 27 after tracing electronic emanations from his cellphone.

One official said Mr. bin Laden now used associates as messengers, who make cellphone or satellite calls after they have left him. This official said previous reports that Mr. bin Laden had called his wife in Syria shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks to advise her to return to Afghanistan were incomplete. In fact, the official said, Mr. bin Laden had someone else call his wife with that message. The call was made away from Mr. bin Laden's hideaway.

As of today, United States law enforcement authorities say they have arrested 977 people in connection with the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks. The bulk of those arrested have been charged with immigration violations or criminal violations. A far smaller group is being held on material witness warrants.

Mindy Tucker, the Justice Department spokeswoman, said this week that the authorities had not released most of the names of those held because the identities of some material witnesses were under seal. She said the department would not disclose the names of those arrested on immigration violations because privacy issues must be resolved.

But many civil liberties advocates have said they are worried that the large number of arrests may be improper. David Cole, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, said, "It's remarkable how little information is available about these people."

Mr. Cole added: "It begins to feel like those countries where they lock people up and don't tell anyone about it. That's not how this country was run until Sept. 11."

One senior law enforcement official said the new wiretaps principally produced information about Al Qaeda associates in the United States and their activities. But investigators have not learned more about the Sept. 11 attacks from those detained.

The wiretaps being used against Al Qaeda are authorized by a special court in Washington that hears requests from the government to conduct surveillance against anyone who may be connected to a foreign intelligence operation. The new antiterrorism law signed by President Bush on Friday is supposed to make it easier for federal investigators to obtain eavesdropping authorization. Under the law, officials have to assert only that foreign intelligence is a part of their need; before that, it had to be the only purpose.

In addition to the efforts against Al Qaeda, officials said they renewed their interest in people who might know something about the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 off Nantucket in October 1999, suspecting a connection. But officials said they had not determined any link between that crash and the attacks of Sept. 11. United States investigators say they feel strongly that the crash was the result of an unexplained suicide effort by the plane's co-pilot, but Egyptian officials have angrily rejected that conclusion.

Under the law that created the special court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the subjects of eavesdropping may be American citizens or foreigners.

The surveillance act, first passed in 1978 after Watergate and other revelations of abuses by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, created a legal framework allowing the government to spy on suspects considered dangerous to American national security.

This year, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. began an investigation of formal requests to the court that administers these requests after complaints that agents had sought to eavesdrop on people who were already subjects of criminal investigations — apparently a violation of the rules.

Despite the recent problems, applications to the special court have surged in the last decade, for espionage and terrorism investigations. Last year, the government made 1,005 applications under the act for electronic surveillance and physical search warrants, according to an April report from Attorney General John Ashcroft to Congress. The court approved 1,003 of the applications in 2000 and the final two in January 2001.

Why is this being published? Won't the terrorist/scum think twice about doing this next time? I had the same though when reports came out that some of the credit-cards the terrorists used were still being used. Why would we make that info public? Why not publish a manual on what our tactics and methodology is to help our terrorist/scum friends.

"But many civil liberties advocates have said they are worried that the large number of arrests may be improper"

Screw 'em. If they were part of the Jubilant Callers, keep them locked up till we can determine if they were part of 9/11. If they are found out to be mere celebrants, kick them out of the USA - with a warning NEVER to Return!!

Ah yes, but that doesn't matter to the journalists. They think the public "right to know" gives them a sacred duty to betray the American people and help our enemies.

Why is this being published?

In light of your concerns, perhaps a better question would be: "Why is this information being made public by those unnamed 'law enforcement officials?'"

They think the public "right to know" gives them a sacred duty to betray the American people and help our enemies.

Then what of the law enforcement types who apparently revealed this information to the press to begin with? Are they not deserving of your scorn?

If they are found out to be mere celebrants, kick them out of the USA ...

...from a helicopter, over the Atlantic. During winter. From very high up. With weights attached.

Not only do I agree with you that this is something that could be helpful to the enemy but I also think the media in general is talking way too much. For instance, why do they think we need to know how the special forces train, what the equipment is and so on. They think they are making the American public feel secure, I suppose but in my view, they are feeding infor to the Taliban and other unfriendlies. I wish they would just shut up!

But many civil liberties advocates have said they are worried that the large number of arrests may be improper.

So were the larage number of DEATHS on American soil, Mr. Cole.

That's not how this country was run until Sept. 11."

Yup, exactly right. I'd sooner see 977 people inconvenienced, and paid reparations IF NECESSARY, than see another 5000 AMERICANS killed in the name of PC.

BTTT. These celebrating callers should be held for as long as it takes to determine if they were involved in the attack. I suggest we wait at least 5 or 10 years before releasing them, just in case further evidence comes in. Then after that, deport them.

I was puzzled when I saw the report that bin Laden had phoned his mother -- I think it was his mother, not his wife, as this article says -- because I had also seen a report that bin Laden hasn't been on the phone to anybody for a year or so. Here's the explanation.

No harm in revealing this if bin Laden's people are already on to the danger of making such calls, as they undoubtedly would be after mass arrests. We could see if they are on to the danger if they have stopped making such phone calls.

Only problem then is that the Islamofascists' failure to make such calls over the anthrax would then be of zero significance in supporting the conclusion that they are not involved in the anthrax, and apparently U.S. intelligence agencies are using this silence to argue that the Islamofascists are not the guilty parties in connection with the anthrax.

"The most that law enforcement officials said about the fruits of the detentions arising from the telephone intercepts was that they believed they had netted Al Qaeda sympathizers who might have been in the very early stages of terrorist plots."

I agree. Keep'em locked up forever.

Well the intelligence community might have other evidence from the Al Qaeda group that is related - but not directly revealed here which would point the finger away from a direct connection in this case. I'm not saying that the government is necessarily on the right track wrt the anthrax attacks - but no one in government seems to take a direct foreign connection too seriously. Perhaps they do have intercepts from domestic groups that they aren't leaking yet which is leading them in that direction.

Mr. Cole added: "It begins to feel like those countries where they lock people up and don't tell anyone about it. That's not how this country was run until Sept. 11."

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