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WASHINGTON — Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials. Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants. Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force. A decision to...

The Bush administration in 2002 considered sending U.S. troops into a Buffalo, New York, suburb to arrest a group of terror suspects, the New York Times reported. WASHINGTON - The Bush administration in 2002 considered sending U.S. troops into a Buffalo, New York, suburb to arrest a group of terror suspects in what would have been a nearly unprecedented use of military power within the United States, The New York Times reported. Vice President Dick Cheney and several other Bush advisers at the time strongly urged that the military be used to apprehend men who were suspected of plotting with...

A Chilling Effect on U.S. CounterterrorismSecurity at Places of Worship: More Than a Matter of Faith By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart of Stratfor Jewish World Review July 17, 2009 / 25 Tamuz 5769 In recent months, several high-profile incidents have raised awareness of the threat posed by individuals and small groups operating under the principles of leaderless resistance. These incidents have included lone wolf attacks against a doctor who performed abortions in Kansas, an armed forces recruitment center in Arkansas and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Additionally, a grassroots jihadist cell was arrested for attempting to...

Late Friday afternoon, Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, announced that his panel would be undertaking a formal investigation of the CIA. The ostensible subject of the probe is a highly classified program that targeted al Qaeda leaders for assassination and which CIA director Leon Panetta briefed the committee about on June 24. "After careful consideration and consultation with the Ranking Minority Member and other members of the Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will conduct an investigation into possible violations of federal law, including the National Security Act of 1947," Reyes said in a statement....

Dissatisfied with the results of a joint venture with Israel to supply the Turkish Armed Forces (Turk Silahli Kuvvetleri -TSK) with Heron model unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Turkey is turning to the United States in an effort to purchase a much improved and far more lethal version of the Predator UAV known as the “Reaper.” The TSK is looking to the advanced drones to enhance its capabilities in combating the Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan – PKK) and to decrease its reliance on intelligence from American sources. The MQ-9 Reaper has been described as a “true hunter-killer,” with lethal...

Where's the outrage? If this country had its head on straight, there would be nothing but white-hot popular fury over the latest Bush-era CIA scandal broken by the New York Times. CIA director Leon Panetta reportedly told congressional committees that under Dick Cheney, the CIA hatched a plan, in the wake of 9/11, to kill senior leaders of al-Qaida. The CIA would send operatives to assassinate these terrorists in their homes and caves, if that's not redundant. President Bush reportedly put Vice President Cheney in charge of the scheme. Now, here's where it gets confusing. The Democrats and much of...

So this was the reason for all the hub-bub? On June 23, 2009, Director of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta learned of a highly compartmentalized program to assassinate al Qaeda operatives that was launched by the CIA in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. When Panetta found out that the covert program had not been disclosed to Congress, he canceled it and then called an emergency meeting June 24 to brief congressional oversight committees on the program. Over the past week, many details of the program have been leaked to the press and the issue has received extensive media coverage. That...

There are at least 35 known terrorist training camps in the United States. Mosques throughout America are a known breeding ground for Imams seeking to build terror sleeper cells within our borders, and to help fund terrorism abroad. But, the biggest source for recruitment isn’t the refugees being imported by B. Hussein Obama from Palestine, it is the home grown jihadist’s being recruited in America’s prisons. Muslim inmates in prison commit financial jihad by demanding special food, in accordance with their religion. Our government, its courts and the prison system accept Islam as a religion, rather than a society governed...

WASHINGTON – The Homeland Security Department will review and possibly replace the often-ridiculed multicolored terror alert system created after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Since it was created in 2002, the system has been confusing and became the butt of jokes by late-night television comics. Critics have said assigning different categories to different colors is too vague an approach to deliver enough information to be useful. And Democrats said the Bush administration used it for political manipulation. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appointed a task force Tuesday to determine in 60 days how effective the current system is.

The secret CIA program revealed to members of Congress late last month involved a series of planned attempts to assassinate top al-Qaeda leaders -- efforts that never progressed to an operational stage, according to current and former intelligence officials. Although the agency's attacks on terrorist camps using pilotless aircraft is well documented, the CIA's program involved operatives "striking at two feet instead of 10,000 feet," a current intelligence official said. But one current U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the program was small, intermittent and "exactly the kind of work people would expect the agency to be...

Congress originally authorized the CIA to develop the secret counterterrorism program that is now drawing fierce criticism from House Democrats who say they were kept in the dark all along, a former senior intelligence official told FOX News on Monday. The program, which sources told FOX News was a plan to capture or kill Al Qaeda operatives, also never came close to being operational, the intelligence official said. "This was not a program. It never began," the former official said. "The authority was given by Congress to develop this idea. ... There was no need to brief it. It wasn't...

CIA Had Secret Al Qaeda Plan Initiative at Heart of Spat With Congress Examined Ways to Seize, Kill Terror Chiefs By SIOBHAN GORMAN WASHINGTON -- A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter. The precise nature of the highly classified effort isn't clear, and the CIA won't comment on its substance. According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting...

...I’d be willing to bet that a lot of the Democrats yelling about this “secret” program have known about it for years...

Subhead of this Sunday's print edition of the Dallas Morning News reads, "0Agency reported to have hidden secret counterterrorism project from Congress on ex-VP's order." The first paragraph reads, "The Central Intelligence Agency withheld informatin about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eigght years on diret orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday."

Obama doesn't want to look back, but Attorney General Eric Holder may probe Bush-era torture anyway.

On Sunday, the New York Times struck another blow against the Bush administration’s counter-terrorism measures with a front-page story alleging that a CIA program was kept secret from Congress for eight years. The orders to keep Congress out of the loop — which sound flagrantly illegal — came, according to the story, straight from then Vice President Dick Cheney.

Report: Bush-era surveillance went beyond wiretaps A government report raises new questions about how the Bush White House kept key Justice officials in the dark about the post-Sept. 11 program. By Josh Meyer July 11, 2009 Reporting from Washington -- The Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 surveillance efforts went beyond the widely publicized warrantless wiretapping program, a government report disclosed Friday, encompassing additional secretive activities that created "unprecedented" spying powers. The report also raised new questions about how the Bush White House kept key Justice Department officials in the dark as it launched the surveillance program. In a move that it...

Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project By SCOTT SHANE The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday. The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy. Mr. Panetta, who...

The Bush administration authorized secret surveillance activities that still have not been made public, according to a new government report that questions the legal basis for the unprecedented anti-terrorism program. It's unclear how much valuable intelligence was yielded by the surveillance program started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, according to the unclassified summary of reports by five inspectors general. The reports mandated by Congress last year were delivered to lawmakers Friday. President George W. Bush authorized other secret intelligence activities — which have yet to become public — even as he was launching the massive warrentless wiretapping program,...

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration built an unprecedented surveillance operation to pull in mountains of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged, a team of federal inspectors general reported Friday, questioning the legal basis for the effort but shielding almost all details on grounds they're still too secret to reveal. The report, compiled by five inspectors general, refers to "unprecedented collection activities" by U.S. intelligence agencies under an executive order signed by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Just what those activities involved remains classified, but the IGs pointedly say that any continued use...

A government report that found federal buildings were vulnerable to terrorist attacks because of poor security that included guards asleep on duty or distracted by erotic Web sites drew outrage from lawmakers Wednesday. "As we approach the eighth anniversary of 9/11 ... it is outrageously unacceptable that the federal employees working in our federal buildings are still so utterly exposed to attacks by terrorists or other violent people," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., in a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing. A new Government Accountability Office report said investigators smuggled bomb components past Federal Protective Service guards into 10 government buildings,...

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 23 terrorist plots against the United States have been foiled. This report updates a November 2007 report from the Heritage Foundation that described 19 plots that had been foiled to date since 9/11. Less than two years later, the U.S. has foiled four more plots aimed at Americans. While some trials have ended in mistrial and charges against some suspects were dropped, significantly more individuals have been convicted and sentenced for their crimes. These victories make the case for continued U.S. vigilance against terrorism around the globe. While these particular attacks have been disrupted, the...

(06-28) 04:00 PDT Brussels, Belgium -- SNIPPET: "Like many spy tales in fiction and reality, "Background to Danger" begins in a train station." SNIPPET: "Fast-forward six decades into a transformed landscape. Europe has erased internal borders. Instead of fighting Nazis or Communists, spy agencies use satellites and wiretaps to track Islamic terrorists who conspire on the Internet. But one thing has not changed much. Trains, stations and the gritty neighborhoods that surround them are often the backdrop to danger." SNIPPET: "In a train station, after all, you never know who might be listening."

The Obama administration plans to kill a controversial Bush administration spy satellite program at the Department of Homeland Security, according to officials familiar with the decision. The program came under fire from its inception two years ago. Democratic lawmakers said it would lead to domestic spying. The program would have provided federal, state and local officials with extensive access to spy-satellite imagery — but no eavesdropping capabilities— to assist with emergency response and other domestic-security needs, such as identifying where ports or border areas are vulnerable to terrorism.

The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged, current and former officials said. Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times Representative Rush Holt Readers' Comments Readers shared their thoughts on this article. Read All Comments (170) » The agency’s monitoring of domestic e-mail messages, in particular, has posed longstanding legal and logistical difficulties, the officials said. Since April, when it was disclosed that the intercepts of some private communications...

Two radical Muslims identified on crashed Air France flight DEBKAfile Special Repor June 10, 2009, 9:40 PM (GMT+02:00) The day after DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources' revelation of Tuesday, June 9, that French security was going through the doomed Air France flight's passenger list for suspected terror links, the Paris weekly L'Express reported a link had been found. French security DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure) agents dispatched to Brazil identified two names on the passenger list which also appear also on highly-classified documents listing radical Muslims considered a threat to France. This link to the air tragedy was described as...

FBI Director Defends Use of Informants in Mosques June 08, 2009 LOS ANGELES — FBI Director Robert Mueller on Monday defended the agency's use of informants within U.S. mosques, despite complaints from Muslim organizations that worshippers and clerics are being targeted instead of possible terrorists. Mueller's comments came just days after a Michigan Muslim organization asked the Justice Department to investigate complaints that the FBI is asking the faithful to spy on Islamic leaders and worshippers. Similar alarm followed the disclosure earlier this year that the FBI planted a spy in Southern California mosques. "We don't investigate places, we investigate...

The next time you book a flight, make sure your name on the ticket is exactly the same as your ID. Otherwise it could take some time to get on the plane. The federal Transportation Security Administration is introducing a requirement that passenger names on tickets be exactly the same as the name on a government issued ID... The move is designed to reduce the amount of travelers incorrectly identified with names similar to those on terrorist watch lists. "We're doing some testing now, but we won't roll out the first phase until August," . About 58,000 travelers have filed...

The South, although militarily weak, "fielded," Hanson says, "individual warriors who were among the most gallant and deadly in the entire history of warfare." Hence what Sherman called "the awful fact": Victory required "that the present class of men who rule the South must be killed outright."

On Thursday, Josh Meyer of the Los Angeles Times broke the story that the FBI is edging the CIA out of the business of fighting international terrorism. Under the bureau’s “global justice” initiative, Meyer reported that “FBI agents will have a central role in overseas counter-terrorism cases. They will expand their questioning of suspects and evidence-gathering to try to ensure that criminal prosecutions are an option.” Who needs a War on Terror, or even an “overseas contingency operation,” when all the world’s a crime scene? If you’re thinking, “Hey, we’ve seen this movie before,” you’re right. Slowly but surely, it’s...

Reporting from Washington -- The FBI and Justice Department plan to significantly expand their role in global counter-terrorism operations, part of a U.S. policy shift that will replace a CIA-dominated system of clandestine detentions and interrogations with one built around transparent investigations and prosecutions. Under the "global justice" initiative, which has been in the works for several months, FBI agents will have a central role in overseas counter-terrorism cases. They will expand their questioning of suspects and evidence-gathering to try to ensure that criminal prosecutions are an option, officials familiar with the effort said.

Note: The following text is a quote: Federal Judge Hands Downs Sentences in Holy Land Foundation Case Holy Land Foundation and Leaders Convicted on Providing Material Support to Hamas Terrorist Organization Today, in federal court in Dallas, U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis sentenced the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and five of its leaders following their convictions by a federal jury in November 2008 on charges of providing material support to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization. "Today's sentences mark the culmination of many years of painstaking investigative and prosecutorial work at the federal, state and...

President Obama has done a lot of speechifying in recent days about America's "responsibilities" in fighting terror. So you'd think he'd have a word of encouragement for the team of crack FBI agents and NYPD officers that foiled a real-life terror attack against two Bronx synagogues on Wednesday. Alas, not a peep. Obama yesterday spoke at commencement ceremonies at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. -- largely rehashing the themes of his address the day before on terror detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay. "As Americans, we reject the false choice between our security and our ideals," he said....

A successful counter-terrorism operation led by the FBI and the New York City Police Department ended with the arrest of four New York City men in connection with plots to bomb Jewish synagogues and gun down military planes in upstate areas. ———— Today’s announcement of the foiled terror plot is a stark reminder that we are still under attack — eight years after the September 11 massacres. And if we are under attack, it means that we are still at war, a real one, not a “man-made disaster.” ————- According to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly the suspects, identified as James...

The debate over what to do with the prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center got more complicated this week when the FBI foiled an alleged terror plot in New York. The arrest of four men Wednesday on charges that they plotted to bomb two New York City synagogues and shoot down military airplanes served as a reminder that there are terror cells operating in the United States. It also provided evidence to some lawmakers that closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay or releasing any of its 240 detainees into the U.S. federal prison system would further endanger national...

San Francisco, CA (AP) -- A federal judge is threatening to severely sanction the Obama Administration for withholding a top secret document he ordered turned over to lawyers suing the government over its warrantless wiretapping program. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco has ordered Justice Department lawyers to court June 3 to tell him why he shouldn't award damages to the now-defunct Oregon arm of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation.

WASHINGTON, May 21, 2009 – Less than a month after the sentencing of five defendants found guilty in a terror plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., authorities say they have foiled another terrorist plot against an Air National Guard base and a synagogue and Jewish community center in New York. The FBI and New York police arrested four suspects yesterday who allegedly were planning to shoot down military planes at the New York Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, N.Y., and blow up a synagogue and Jewish community center in the Bronx. James Cromitie, the alleged group leader,...

After 9/11, Americans wanted one thing from Washington: to prevent future terrorist attacks. President George W. Bush, the CIA and other hard-working officials delivered. For their trouble, a handful of those individuals now have reason to fear that they may be ruined. My guess is that President Obama realizes it was a big mistake for his administration to release four memos written by Bush administration lawyers sanctioning enhanced interrogation techniques. Already, rage on the left has prompted Obama to go squishy on his once-insistent opposition to prosecuting any Bush administration officials. Now he says he might let his attorney general...

At the Central Intelligence Agency, it's known as "slow rolling." That's what agency officers sometimes do on politically sensitive assignments. They go through the motions; they pass cables back and forth; they take other jobs out of the danger zone; they cover their backsides...in the words of one veteran officer, "hit the agency like a car bomb in the driveway." President Obama promised CIA officers that they won't be prosecuted for carrying out lawful orders, but the people on the firing line don't believe him. They think the memos have opened a new season of investigation and retribution. The lesson...

Weapons experts and techno-thriller fans are familiar with the concept of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) — a supermassive blast of electricity, usually from a nuclear blast high above ground, that fries electronic circuits for miles around, crippling computers, cars and most other modern gadgets. Now comes word that a much smaller EMP device, or “e-bomb,” could be carried in a car, or even on someone’s person — and be used to take down an airliner. “Once it is known that aircraft are vulnerable to particular types of disruption, it isn’t too much of a leap to build a device that...

April 17, 2009 DHS Wants to Know What You’re Thinking The Obama administration defines extremism down. By Andrew C. McCarthy For eight years, we’ve been treated to hysterical rhetoric from Democrats, including Barack Obama, about the scourge of “domestic spying.” Now that the Obama administration is openly calling for domestic spying — the real thing, not the smear used against President Bush — they’re suddenly silent. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in coordination with the FBI, has issued an intelligence assessment on what it calls “Rightwing Extremism.” It is appalling. The nakedly political document announces itself as a “federal...

Law enforcement officials are vastly expanding their collection of DNA to include millions more people who have been arrested or detained but not yet convicted. The move, intended to help solve more crimes, is raising concerns about the privacy of petty offenders and people who are presumed innocent. Until now, the federal government genetically tracked only convicts. But starting this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join 15 states that collect DNA samples from those awaiting trial and will collect DNA from detained immigrants — the vanguard of a growing class of genetic registrants. The F.B.I., with a DNA...

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this year launched a nationwide operation targeting white supremacists and "militia/sovereign-citizen extremist groups," including a focus on veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to memos sent from bureau headquarters to field offices. The initiative, dubbed Operation Vigilant Eagle, was outlined in February, two months before a memo giving a similar warning was issued on April 7 by the Department of Homeland Security. ____________________________________ A Feb. 23 draft memo from FBI domestic counterterrorism leaders, obtained by The Wall Street Journal, cited an "increase in recruitment, threatening communications and weapons procurement by white supremacy...

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews. Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in "overcollection" of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional. The legal and operational problems surrounding the N.S.A.'s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence...

Washington D.C., Apr 14, 2009 / 02:28 pm (CNA).- According to a Homeland Security Report distributed to law enforcement organizations, abortion opponents are as great a threat to national security in the immediate future as white supremacists.The nine-page document was sent to police and sheriff's departments across the country on April 7 under the headline, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." The report is unclassified, but is accompanied by a warning that says it “contains information that may be exempt from public release under the Freedom of Information Act.” The report was prepared...

It’s not just Paul Krugman anymore. A growing chorus on the legal left is cooling toward President Barack Obama as a result of recent actions by the Justice Department vigorously defending the Bush administration in what it termed the war on terror. “Obama Position on Illegal Spying: Worse Than Bush,” a large graphic declared over the weekend on the home page of a respected group advocating freedom on the Internet, Electronic Frontier Foundation. Obama has been pilloried by a liberal TV icon who was one of President George W. Bush’s most vociferous critics, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. “During his run for...

On 'State Secrets,' Meet Barack W. Obama April 10, 2009 9:20 AM In February, President Obama's Justice Department quietly argued in a San Francisco court that it was maintaining the same position as President Bush's Justice Department on a case involving detainees trying to sue a private company for its role in their (allegedly) extraordinary renditions. The Obama administration pushed the status quo administration argument by invoking the "state secrets" argument, also a Bush-era fave. "It is the policy of this administration to invoke the state secrets privilege only when necessary and in the most appropriate cases," said DOJ spox...

LONDON--The Metropolitan Police Service entered a new phase of turmoil when its top counterterrorism official, Bob Quick, resigned in the wake of his inadvertent disclosure of secret plans to stop an alleged terrorist plot in northwest England. John Yates, a 28-year Metropolitan Police veteran known for his skill in murder cases and delicate political inquiries, immediately succeeded Mr. Quick, becoming the third counterterrorism chief Scotland Yard has had since late 2007. The change comes as the U.K. is dealing with the reality that small, radical Islamic cells remain a big threat -- even as the government spends more time and...

Dramatic daylight terror raids on a university may have been linked to a plot to blow up a shopping centre or nightclub, police fear. Students at Liverpool John Moores University watched in shock yesterday as two men were hauled outside and forced to the ground by armed police.  Witnesses said the duo  -  students at the university's Business School  -  were wearing combat trousers and hiking jackets, and claimed there were rumours of 'a bomb' on the premises.  (edit) The raid was one of a series carried out simultaneously across the North-West in which 12 suspects believed to be...

LONDON (Reuters) - Police arrested 12 men in counter-terrorism raids across northwest England on Wednesday hours after a security blunder by a top police officer. The afternoon raids involving several hundred officers took place after Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer was photographed openly carrying a secret document detailing plans for the arrests.