More on Data Mining and Able Danger

(link)Anon (www): OK smart guys - with your "smell tests" and "Thats just flat out wrong" opinions shown above - I hope you don't mind, but let me clear up a few things - I was there and I lived through the ABLE DANGER nightmare.

First - yes - The lawyers involved in this (and similar projects) did interpret the 9-11 terrorists as "US persons" - so while you can second guess them all you want - but that was their "legal" call as wrong as it was and is. Unfortunately, the chain of command at SOCOM went along with them (and this, I expect, will be a topic that will become more clear in the near future).

And lawyers of the era also felt that any intelligence officer viewing open internet information for the purpose of intelligence collection automatically required that any "open source" information obtained be treated as if it was "intelligence information"...does this sound like idiocy to you? It did to me - and we fought it - and I was in meetings at the OSD level, with OSD laywers, that debated this - and I even briefed the DCI George Tenet on this issue relating to an internet project.

And yes, Virgina - we tried to tell the lawyers that since the data identified Atta and the others as linked to Al Qaeda, we should be able to collect on them based on SecState Albright's declaration of Al Qaeda as transnational terrorist threat to the US...well the lawyers did not agree...go figure...so we could not collect on them - and for political reasons - could not pass them to the FBI...I know because I brokered three meetings between the FBI and SOCOM to allow SOCOM to pass the informaton to the FBI. And, sadly, SOCOM cancelled them every time...

Oh - and as to your opinion that ABLE DANGER was a precursor to the IDC - you are flat out wrong - and obviously not keeping up with what is coming out in the press. ABLE DANGER partnered with LIWA/IDC to use the LIWA/IDC capability to obtain the data on Atta and the other 9-11 terrorists. I brokered the relationship... And - wrong again on the IDC using only "classified" databases - IDC used 2.5 terabytes (a whole hell of a lot of data) - all open source - to identify Atta and the others that have been identified. Classified data bases were only use to "confirm" the links subsequent to the open source data runs.

Oh - and DATA MINING is not overt or clandestine - it just "is" - it is something that is done with either open source or classified information. ABLE DANGER used an array of both open and close databases...

So...good try, gentlemen - good to see there is intellectual riggor here...but before you start doubting the story, perhaps you need to do better research. 8.12.2005 11:27pm

This is an anonymous post to an intel Dump story on Able Danger.

"And yes, Virgina - we tried to tell the lawyers that since the data identified Atta and the others as linked to Al Qaeda, we should be able to collect on them based on SecState Albright's declaration of Al Qaeda as transnational terrorist threat to the US...well the lawyers did not agree...go figure...so we could not collect on them - and for political reasons - could not pass them to the FBI...I know because I brokered three meetings between the FBI and SOCOM to allow SOCOM to pass the informaton to the FBI. And, sadly, SOCOM cancelled them every time..."

Seems like the finger pointing will gradually move up the chain of command.

As an outsider I find it hard to understand why some US citizens are so opposed to mechanisms like data mining that are designed to be, and are very effective at finding underlying indicators of truths.

You can bet your bottom dollar that foreign intelligence services are using this technique.

All Able Danger's initial searches were based on open web sources, so they are not exactly secret.

An example of data mining:

Another curious fact revealed Friday, mentioned in passing by the Associated Press: Since 1999, when Global Crossing became a major campaign contributor, it has given nearly $3.5 million in political donations, more than the $2.9 million handed out by Enron and its executives in the same period. Of course, GC gave more to Democrats, so the media establishment isn't raising a fuss.

The New York Times on Thursday casually dropped into the middle of a story focused mainly on the business side of Global Crossing’s problem the fact that "Global Crossing, which has tried to forge close ties with military organizations, appointed William S. Cohen, a secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, to its board last year.”..http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/15/154416.shtml

Recent media reports have detailed Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.'s co-bid with Singapore Technologies Telemedia Pte. Ltd. for a majority stake in Global Crossing Ltd.

Global Crossing, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company, controls approximately 15% of the fiber-optic lines connecting the U.S. with Europe, 23% with Asia, and 25% with Latin America, according to Stephan Beckert, research director at Washington-based consultancy TeleGeography Inc.[1]

Hutchison Whampoa, Ltd. is the holding company of billionaire Li Ka-shing, a well-known businessman, whose companies make up 15 percent of the market capitalization of the Hong Kong stock market. Ka-shing's empire includes ports, telecom and energy assets around the world.

According to recently declassified U.S. Government intelligence reports, obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”):

“Li is directly connected to Beijing and is willing to use his business influence to further the aims of the Chinese Government....

Global Crossing's bankruptcy filing prompted the United States Department of Defense to delay the awarding of a $450 million contract for a high-speed data network connecting its laboratories and research centers. Some media outlets report that members of Congress are questioning whether the military can award such a contract to a company controlled by foreign entities. Global Crossing originally won the contract last July under suspicious circumstances, with the apparent assistance of former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, who now, not coincidentally, sits on the Board of Directors of Global Crossing. In a Los Angeles Times article entitled “Global Crossing Hurt By Board’s Cronyism,” published on February 24, 2002, Global Crossing reportedly paid Cohen’s consulting firm, The Cohen Group, $500,000.00 in consulting fees in 2001. ....http://www.judicialwatch.org/cases/85/globalwhampoa.htm

Wasn't Bill Cohen Clintons Secrtary of Defence.

See, this data mining is not so difficult.

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