FEDS WARN OF TRANSIT TERROR ATTACKS (New info today, Friday, April 2)

WASHINGTON — The federal government is warning local authorities of possible attacks on the U.S. transportation system this summer, U.S. officials told Fox News.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security (search) sent out warnings Thursday night saying there is uncorroborated information pointing to possible attacks on buses and trains, specifically, near major U.S. cities.

The two agencies issued the warnings to law enforcement and security personnel throughout the country.

The possibility of such attacks has been a factor as officials contemplate how to best secure locations in Boston and New York City this summer, the sites of the Democratic national conventions and the Republican conventions, respectively.

One option New York City is considering, for example, is to shut down Penn Station — which is below Madison Square Garden (search), the site of some GOP convention activities — during major addresses, such as when President Bush is on stage or when he is in the building.

But security experts said shutting down buildings or areas like Penn Station isn't realistic.

"That's really impossible -- they'd really be shutting down the economy," former NYPD squad commander Joe Cardinale told Fox News. "You're going to have to just step up all the efforts" and coordinate with local law enforcement, rail workers, unions and others on security, he added.

Thursday's warning was not part of the weekly bulletin usually sent out on Wednesdays, which was on visas this week, but a special, non-scheduled warning.

The FBI has previously sent out warnings about threats to subways and railways. For example, On Jan. 28, the FBI said, "recent intelligence indicates a continued terrorist interest in conducting attacks on U.S. subways and railways." Furthermore, the March 11 bombing in Madrid has increased law enforcement concern about possible activity in the United States.

Since then, much a lot of law enforcement attention in recent weeks has focused on Amtrak and local railroads. Railroad security is lagging compared to security at U.S. airports; baggage, for the most part, isn't searched, passengers don't go through metal detectors and a train can often be boarded without even presenting a ticket or identification.

DHS recently announced initiatives to increase rail security, including bomb-sniffing dogs to be made available to local law enforcement and a pilot program to test luggage that's being brought aboard trains.

Rank	Location	Receipts	Donors/Avg	Freepers/Avg	Monthlies
36	Nebraska	50.00	1	50.00			3.00	1

I share your general sentiment in that I think we should take stronger measures, such as--IMO--ignoring PC objections to "profiling". However, that said, a note on FDR's internment policy I'd like to add to the discussion: FDR actually avoided taking responsibility for the decision to intern Japanese citizens, which was extremely controversial even among very security-oriented people--for instance, even J. Edgar Hoover opposed it. FDR accordingly delegated responsibility for the decision to various subordinates, and the guy who ultimately made it and later got scapegoated for it (unfairly IMO) was John McCloy. McCloy spent a lot of time debating both sides of the argument before finally deciding what he did, and it could be argued either way whether it had any real effect on deterring Japanese espionage and sabotage. One interesting fact which has emerged recently is that the Japanese did in fact continue to run espionage/sabotage networks out of Mexico and Canada into the US throughout the war. The Mexican operation was based in "neutral" Spain, and Spanish embassies all over the world became havens for Axis espionage. For more on this, a very informative book which IMO is very relevant to understanding Al Qaeda's current MO is:

Tony Matthews, Shadows Dancing: Japanese Espionage Against the West, 1939-1945

BOOK REVIEW: Matthews, Tony, Shadows Dancing: Japanese Espionage Against the West, 1939-1945, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1993.

Reviewed by Richard Rongstad for Sun Tzu Organization

Tony Matthews' book focuses on a Japanese spy network code named TO which was controlled from Spain with the blessing and cooperation of Spanish authorities including Foreign Ministers Ramon Suner (Franco's brother-in-law) and Count Gomez Jordana.

Matthews' book contains new information dug out of the U.S. National Archives, including newly declassified Magic intercepts and the book is largely based on these new findings. Matthews also turned to sources in such places as Australia, Great Britain, Spain, Japan and the Philippines to assemble the story of Japanese spy rings around the world 1939-1945.

In neutral Spain, spy masters operating under the aegis of Japan's Ambassador Yakichiro Suma controlled TO spy rings worldwide and coordinated exchanges of intelligence with the other Axis powers through Germany's Abwehr general staff intelligence agency and Italy's Military Intelligence Bureau. In neutral Portugal Ambassador Morito Morishima provided a vital link and source of intelligence for the Axis. In Germany, Ambassador Baron Hiroshi Oshima outranked both Suma in Madrid and Morishima in Lisbon, and much of the TO intelligence was funneled through Japan's Embassy in Berlin, where Oshima enjoyed a close friendship with Admiral Canaris, chief of Germany's Abwehr. Oshima then relayed TO information to Tokyo along with messages coordinating policies and operations between the three Axis powers. Japan's diplomats in Afghanistan spied on Russia, Iran and India and fed TO information into Suma's Madrid center. This pattern of diplomatic cover and use of neutral third countries and Japanese of ordinary backgrounds was repeated around the world.

The TO network even operated in Great Britain, as admitted by Spanish diplomat Angel Alcazar in 1978 when he said that he had run TO operations from England and stated that "Franco knew every detail of my activities". Matthews wrote that early on Suma established a successful spy ring in the U.S. aided by a Spanish operative introduced by Spain's Foreign Minister Suner. Mention is made of Yoshio Muto, a spy operating in San Francisco, and the relocation and internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans in places like Manzanar (Executive Order EO 9066, carried out by Colonel Karl Bendetsen). Matthews believes that by late in the war, Japan's early spying successes in the U.S. were reversed and eventually failed, largely due to successful decryption of the Magic intercepts of Purple Code, Red Code and J Code messages. In 1944, the U.S. took action against Spain and suspended the loading of petroleum products onto Spanish tankers.

Matthews mentions the Molino Rojo (Red Mill) in Tijuana, Mexico as a brothel used by Japanese intelligence agents for conferences and as a meeting place. The Molino Rojo is located in Tijuana's notorious Zona Norte and still in the same business in 1997 as it was in 1939, although it is rather seedy now. The interesting thing about Molino Rojo and Tijuana that Matthews probably didn't realize, is that it is less than 15 miles from the U.S. Navy's San Diego Destroyer Base (now Naval Station San Diego). Matthews wrote that Imperial Navy Lieutenant Commander Toshio Miyazaki, a former exchange student at California's Stanford University, had recruited an American spy, former Navy yeoman Harry Thomas Thompson. Starting with a $500 lure and $200 monthly, Miyazaki persuaded Thompson to board U.S. Navy ships dressed in a yeoman's uniform, for the purposes of gleaning intelligence from the crews. Miyazaki recruited Thompson in San Pedro, two hours drive up the California coast, and also the location of U.S. shipping and naval units. Thompson was detected by U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and was later sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 1997, Mexican based Asian gangsters are reputed to own the Chicago Bar, also a brothel and directly across the street from the Molino Rojo, and most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet is still based 15 miles away at Naval Station San Diego, located at 32nd Street.

Then, as now [link], Japanese spies had assumed the cover of diplomats, businessmen, fisherman and other mundane occupations and frequently relied on the cooperation of, or the blind eyes of top officials of supposedly neutral governments. Here to is found the story of Japanese attempts to subvert U.S. politics and foment unrest among minorities with overtures to the National Association for Colored People. This practice was repeated in Mexico and in South America and was patterned after Japan's subversive activities throughout Asia.

In 1942, Brazilian officials rounded up espionage and subversion suspects, mostly Japanese, German and Italian. Matthews quotes the Brazilian officials about the Japanese that were caught; "who disguised themselves as waiters, house-boys, laundry men, pedlars, canvassers and farmers were the most dangerous of the lot". According to the Brazilians, a Japanese admiral had disguised himself as the commander of a large fishing fleet. General Tonogawa Yusci was found disguised as a farm worker. A Japanese army captain disguised himself as a woman, and held a job as a cook for a prominent Brazilian family until detected by Brazilian security services.

Brazil found itself in an awkward situation in 1942. There were 250,000 Japanese nationals [see doho] living in Brazil, and by August, 1942, German submarines had sunk 19 Brazilian ships. Considering that Japan had signed the Axis treaty with the Germans, and realizing the methods of Japan's intelligence system using Japanese people of ordinary appearances, Brazil's authorities were in a quandary. Brazil declared war on Germany and Italy but according to Matthews, "...no declaration of war with Japan was made because of the difficulties involved over the large Japanese population living in the country".

Matthews gives a fairly good summary of the historical background to Japanese espionage methods. The Japanese, like their counterparts in China, developed espionage programs by linking secret societies with ultranationalist aims such as Genyosha (Dark Ocean Society), Kokuryu-ku (Amur River Society, the Black Dragons link) and organized criminal enterprises such as Yakuza crime syndicates. [link]. Indeed, Dark Ocean and the Black Dragons supplied espionage and subversion services to the Empire in Korea in 1895 and perhaps earlier. Matthews mentions Dark Ocean founder and Black Dragon mentor Mitsuru Toyama, as well secret society links to the Japanese Kempei Tai, a functional equivalent to Hitler's Gestapo that relied upon the secret societies for manpower and support.

In one instance Matthews records one report that Japan's reliance on the Black Dragons backfired. Secret Japanese documents titled The Three Power Alliance and the American/Japanese War were alleged to have been stolen from a ranking officer of the Black Dragon Society by Kilsoo Haan, an anti-Japanese Korean patriot. The documents were purported to detail Japanese war plans for the simultaneous invasion of the Panama Canal Zone, Alaska, California and Washington State. Haan was said to have obtained the documents by clandestine means in a Los Angeles hotel room in 1940.

In the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines, as in the U.S. and Mexican west coasts, throngs of Japanese fishermen pulled nets and took notes and pictures for the Empire. Japan's fishing fleets were augmented by farmers, mining engineers, industrialists and merchants, barbers, house-boys, maids and prostitutes, especially in those areas designated as part of Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In this sea of ordinary Japanese was submerged a potent fifth column of spies, subversives and saboteurs. Matthews relates the story of French author Jean Marques-Riviere's world travels when the writer wrote of observing Japanese spy rings operating in Malaya, India, Burma, Ceylon, Thailand and as far away as Port Said, Egypt and Italian-occupied Ethiopia.

Matthews found that the weakest and fatal link in Japan's worldwide spy network was the "...Japanese laxity regarding their secret codes and ciphers." This factor alone enabled hard-working American and British crypt-analysts to penetrate the Japanese Navy's Type 91 Red Machine, and later the J Machine, code named Purple by American code-breakers. Eventually, the J Machine was adopted by other Japanese military and diplomatic centers, and the work of the Purple code-breakers multiplied accordingly. The weak link on the American and British side was the lack of capable linguists, fluent in Japanese, and eligible for security clearances and access to cryptographic devices. The allies simply could not keep up with all the Japanese code they were breaking until late in the war.

Matthews' book represents another breakthrough in presenting esoteric information to the general public about the history of World War II, a history that is still poorly understood by both the public and even by scholars, who often don't agree. Shadows Dancing opens the door for further research on such questions as the internment of German, Italian and Japanese enemy aliens and the relocation of underage American citizens who were obligated to accompany their alien or dual-citizenship parents. Decisions concerning management of fifth column doho threats and developing suitable relocation and internment policies also burdened the governments of Canada, Mexico and Panama and such South American countries as Argentina, Chile, Columbia and Peru with Brazil excepted as previously noted.

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Protect yourself from a terrorist attack - follow John Kerry around.