Posted on 08/27/2005 6:13:35 AM PDT by jimbo123
Cyber-sleuths working for a Pentagon intelligence unit that reportedly identified some of the 9/11 hijackers before the attack were fired by military officials, after they mistakenly pinpointed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other prominent Americans as potential security risks, The Post has learned.
The private contractors working for the counter-terrorism unit Able Danger lost their jobs in May 2000. The firings following a series of analyses that Pentagon lawyers feared were dangerously close to violating laws banning the military from spying on Americans, sources said.
The Pentagon canceled its contract with the private firm shortly after the analysts — who were working on identifying al Qaeda operatives — produced a particularly controversial chart on proliferation of sensitive technology to China, the sources said.
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Sources said the private contractors, using sophisticated computer software that sifts through massive amounts of raw data to establish patterns, came up with a chart of Chinese strategic and business connections in the U.S.
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The China chart was put together by James Smith, who confirmed yesterday that his contract with the military was canceled and he was fired from his company because the military brass became concerned about the focus on U.S. citizens.
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"It was shut down in a matter of hours. The colonel said our service was no longer needed and told me: 'You just ended my career.' "
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(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Gorelick's rebuttals, other of the government officials' testimonies, and the 9/11 Commission report itself are replete in their references to various government agencies, departments of agencies, projects, etc. by their anagrams, such as OIPR, FISA, NSLU, etc. etc. ..as if these aren't run by people, and as if the Clinton Admin. didn't SELECT the people to run and work in these agencies/agency departments and oversee their efforts.
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Obviously, we all know what DOJ, DCI, FBI, etc. mean, but it does take some extra work to decipher some testimony. And Gorelick was famous for using the OIPR and FISA, etc. terminology throughout .. failing to state her involvement in their structured roles.
PERTINENT SECTION OF 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT OF PEOPLE, PLACES AND ORGANIZATIONS
In July 1995, Attorney General Reno issued formal procedures aimed at managing information sharing between Justice Department prosecutors and the FBI.They were developed in a working group led by the Justice Department's Executive Office of National Security, overseen by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. These procedures--while requiring the sharing of intelligence information with prosecutors--regulated the manner in which such information could be shared from the intelligence side of the house to the criminal side.
These procedures were almost immediately misunderstood and misapplied.
(((WHO WAS IN CHARGE OF CORRECTING MISINTERPRETATIONS .. WHERE WAS THE SUPERVISORY OVERVIEW OF GOVT. POLICIES FLOWING DOWN TO OPERATIVE LEVELS????)))
As a result, there was far less information sharing and coordination between the FBI and the Criminal Division in practice than was allowed under the department's procedures. Over time the procedures came to be referred to as "the wall." The term "the wall" is misleading, however, because several factors led to a series of barriers to information sharing that developed.
The Office of Intelligence Policy and Review became the sole gatekeeper for passing information to the Criminal Division. Though Attorney General Reno's procedures did not include such a provision, the Office assumed the role anyway, arguing that its position reflected the concerns of Judge Royce Lamberth, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.The Office threatened that if it could not regulate the flow of information to criminal prosecutors, it would no longer present the FBI's warrant requests to the FISA Court.The information flow withered.
The 1995 procedures dealt only with sharing between agents and criminal prosecutors, not between two kinds of FBI agents, those working on intelligence matters and those working on criminal matters. But pressure from the Office of Intelligence Policy Review, FBI leadership, and the FISA Court built barriers between agents--even agents serving on the same squads. FBI Deputy Director Bryant reinforced the Office's caution by informing agents that too much information sharing could be a career stopper.Agents in the field began to believe--incorrectly--that no FISA information could be shared with agents working on criminal investigations.
This perception evolved into the still more exaggerated belief that the FBI could not share any intelligence information with criminal investigators, even if no FISA procedures had been used. Thus, relevant information from the National Security Agency and the CIA often failed to make its way to criminal investigators. Separate reviews in 1999, 2000, and 2001 concluded independently that information sharing was not occurring, and that the intent of the 1995 procedures was ignored routinely. We will describe some of the unfortunate consequences of these accumulated institutional beliefs and practices in chapter 8.
There were other legal limitations. Both prosecutors and FBI agents argued that they were barred by court rules from sharing grand jury information, even though the prohibition applied only to that small fraction that had been presented to a grand jury, and even that prohibition had exceptions.
But as interpreted by FBI field offices, this prohibition could conceivably apply to much of the information unearthed in an investigation.There were also restrictions,arising from executive order, on the commingling of domestic information with foreign intelligence. Finally the NSA began putting caveats on its Bin Ladinrelated reports that required prior approval before sharing their contents with criminal investigators and prosecutors. These developments further blocked the arteries of information sharing.
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The whole 9/11 Commission Report Index of People, Places and Organizations is a wonderful resource.
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As I recall, the selection of the Commissioners was split between the White House and co-equal selections by the Congress critters by party. From memory of reading of that process -- Gorelick was selected by Gephardt (thanks, Dick!).
The Attorney General is authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
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Question: WHY did he do this FOUR months before he left office????
I am almost certain, as a post above reported, that each party had an equal number of seats on the commission....exactly WHO in each party made the actual choices for their particular seats is unknown...as is the question of WHO was responsible for assembling each of the staffers who worked for the commission.
I doubt that President Bush had a hand in choosing what republicans would sit on the commission...but who knows. And I have NO IDEA what democrat chose or nominated the democrat commission members.
The staffers and their backgrounds did run on a thread here on FR...it is kinda loaded.
BUT THAT JAMIE GORELICK, democrat, TRAITOR, a person deeply involved with the policy that FORCED the FBI and CIA and the POLICE to remain silent and NOT SHARE INFORMATION regarding aliens if the green cards were in place, even if they were suspects, as Able Danger made known, IS HORRIFIC.
She should have been a WITNESS...her presence on the commission was her immunity card....HER GREEN CARD as it were...to be free from the fear of having to explain her HORRIFIC POLICY and to tell us WHO ORDERED IT.
Wasn't this around the time ABLE DANGER was trying to get a meeting with the FBI???
Do you really think AD will get buried, Dog? I'll be so discouraged if that happens.
THis is what confused me this morning...the timing seems all wrong. How could it be Condi they targeted? I thought they were shut down by the time she had a position within the Bush administration.
Have you heard any more information re the female PHD (defense contractor) that may testify?
NO I haven't heard anything. You might try Captains Quarters. They break lots of the information.
If they did, they got egg on their face big time.
Lazy journalism, they see the name Rice and Stanford and came to a conclusion based on both words.
Could very well be .. but I seem to remember the "4 months before 9/11" being the timeframe when Able Danger was shut down and thinking: how outrageous and infuriating. I could be wrong.
Thanks..staying tuned.
I am talking about when ABLE DANGER tried to warn the FBI about Atta and could not because of the wall.
Hmmmmm.... wonder if that Cameron is relative of another Cameron who out of nowhere discovered a long ago George Bush DUI????
I would bet dollars to donuts that the NYP writer was fed the name "Rice" and then filled in the blanks with assumptions.
Oh .. yes, could be. I'd have to back through the threads to find out when it was initiated.
"Oh what a terrible tangled web we weave....."
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