MILITARY 'SPIED' ON RICE (More Able Danger leaks from Specter staffers)

NY Post ^ | 8/27/05 | NILES LATHEM

[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.

-snip-

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.

-snip-

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.

-snip-

"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.' "

-snip-

[Yasotay]

This is what I understand:

The US Congress and President George W. Bush established the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission) in November 2002.

The amendment established a 10-member commission with all of the 10 members appointed by the majority and minority leaders of Congress.

I think the Republicans shot themselves in their own feet. Clearly the Republicans LET the Democrats put her on ....

[Mo1]

(More Able Danger leaks from Spector staffers)

Would this staffer included the dude that is a big time lib?

The one on the Judiciary Committee

[Bob]

As I wrote earlier, she (Condoleezza Rice) was a Charles Schulz "protege," so to speak, someone he moreorless mentored...Hoover Institute at Stanford and all.

Sorry, I missed your earlier post. In any event, she would have barely been in office in the early months of 2001.

[pax_et_bonum]

Ping

[livius]

Interesting idea (about Susan Rice).

I don't exactly see, given the timeline, how Condoleeza Rice could have been involved in any of this, since she wasn't in the government at that time and no one could have foreseen that she would be. Perhaps there was some incidental meeting with some Chinese figure when she was at Stanford, but I don't see how it could be relevant.

The "other Rice," however, would be tied to Clinton and it could be very relevant.

[BayouCoyote]

BTTT!

[Bob]

From the article:

The private contractors working for the counter-terrorism unit Able Danger lost their jobs in May 2000.

Heck, at that point, GWB hadn't even been elected.

[roses of sharon]

We need a list of staffers on both the Judiciary and the Intell committees.

[loveliberty2]

And how is this related to Berger's search and destroy mission?

[texasbluebell]

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.

This is just nuts. Condi was at that point an advisor to the campaign of GWB, and probably still working at Stanford.

She had nothing to do with the admin that was in power at that point.

Are we being spun, yet again?

[WilliamofCarmichael]

a chart of Chinese strategic and business connections in the U.S.

Well, well. I see that Senator Dianne Feinstein and her husband Richard Blum made the chart.

[mware]

I don't know how this fact fits into all of this, but Clinton had to do it for a reason.

In March or April of 2000 he signed an EO that made Janet Reno Assistant Sec of Defense in charge of Domestic Affairs.

There was a thread at the time it happen and it was recently brought up in a conversation of Able Danger.

[Mo1]

Nightowl's suggestion that it was not Condi Rice but Susan Rice that was found on the charts is an excellent one. How about checking with Niles Lathem of the NYPost?

That is VERY possible

[mware]

He lost his job in May of 2000.

Reno was made Assistant Sec of Defense in charge of Domestic Affairs in March of 2000 (EO signed by Clinton)

The plot thickens.

[OldFriend]

We Freepers have always known it was the China Connection.

[G.Mason]

" ... With our new found megaphone, the Internet, we can draw our own conclusions and tell the world ..."

Useful to only to those that wish separate the "wheat from the chaff".

" ... Do you think AD is being driven by the MSM today? ... "

Of course not. (good point) Like Rather's obscene performance, the alphabet media continues to ride interference for, and otherwise aid and abet the left.

Misinformation is rampant, both in the "MSM" and the internet. Most, even voters, are too preoccupied with day to day life to take the time to be knowledgeable in the truth and those that do have already been awakened to which political side is closer to it.

Unfortunately "their parrot" is not dead. But we should kill it! ;)

Build their gallows high

[OldFriend]

Able Danger was the name for the data mining project.

When it close to clinton/china it was shut down. We always knew it was about clinton transferring technical capabilities on missile design to China.

We always knew that was the reason for Gorelick building the wall higher.

[OldFriend]

Don't forget that Perry was in slick willie's administration.

[libstripper]

The kind of electronic matching analysis they were doing looks like a very sophisticated version of a Google search one of us might do on some topic or a police department running a computerized check on a set of unknown fingerprints found at a crime scene. In any such situation a lot of irrelevant information is going to be turned up along with valuable information. Then it's up to the humans to take over from the computers and do some serious analysis.

Any search of publicly available materials regarding relations between the U.S. and China is going to turn up large numbers of high ranking people in the foreign policy establishment who have extensive, legitimate relations with the Chinese. Then the analysts need to dig deeper to find out who has the illegitimate relations. It looks to me like Condi and others were turned up in the first, broad computer run and this was used as a pretext for shutting the operation down because those who shut it down were concerned about the illicit contacts between the Clinton administration and the Chinese that were probably in the pile. That's much like getting a pile of possible fingerprints from a computer search and shutting down the final analysis to protect the real perp.

[Republic]

I believe your post, and this thread, is one of the most important threads to ever run on Free Republic.

We knew. Starwise. Way back when, when the technology vetting was transferred to the Commerce Dept (OF ALL PLACES...a money maker for whomever was willing to make this transfer...and it was the klintons, of course).

This act alone, along with gorelick's wall (and WHOM do we suppose ordered this policy! the klintons, of course), LEFT OUR NATION VULNERABLE TO SECURITY LOOP HOLES BIG TIME!