Senate to Hold Hearings on Able Danger, Info Sharing

Fox News ^ | August 25, 2005 | Catherine Herridge, Molly Hooper and Liza Porteus

[george76]

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., plans to hold a hearing on the "Able Danger" allegations and the larger issue of information-sharing between the Pentagon and the FBI...

Able Danger...learned a year before terror attacks that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and other terrorists were already in the United States.

One of the central Able Danger claims — that military lawyers blocked the sharing of the Atta information from the FBI in the late summer and early fall of 2000 —will be a priority of the committee's probe...

Some analysts involved with Able Danger have recently gone public with their findings, saying they were discouraged from looking further into Atta, and their attempts to share their information with the FBI were thwarted, because Atta was a legal foreign visitor at the time.

"This story needs to be told. The American people need to be told what could have been done to prevent 3,000 people from losing their lives," said Rep. Curt Weldon.

"There's something very sinister going on here that really troubles me," Weldon told FOX News on Thursday, blasting the Sept. 11 commission for not taking the claims more seriously. He said some panel members were trying to smear Shaffer and Able Danger.

"What's the Sept. 11 commission got to hide?" Weldon asked. "The commission is trying to spin this because they're embarrassed about what's coming out. In two weeks with two staffers, I've uncovered more in this regard than they did with 80 staffers and $15 million of taxpayer money."

Weldon added that at least five people on the federal payroll will testify under oath about the validity of the Able Danger intelligence.

"When this is over, the Sept. 11 commission is going to have egg all over their face," he said.

[YaYa123]

true enough, thanks