[Freedom is eternally right]

I must have missed something in the GSN interview or maybe I need to reread it. IMHO, Lt. Col. Shaffer appears arrogant at best and at worse an extortionist. Notice how every name and/or meeting has another super duper secret program being discussed?

One thing I did get out of it was the answer to the question "Why is this coming out now?". It appears to me that Shaffer is just your better than average lobbyist. Seems to have more to do with a $50 million dollar appropriation than with information AD found, (other than perhaps his ego being hurt that he didn't get mentioned in the Omission Commission report).

Hope I'm wrong about this, but any hope for meaningful hearings on the Omission Commission just went to nil. Just so I don't put a damper on things, in Business Law classes I always got the ROL and reasoning right, almost always got the verdict wrong.

Flame away.

[An.American.Expatriate]

Thanks Jane for the ping - I'll read this later and see...

BTW - I generally don't flame, even when I totally disagree with someone - I prefer to debate normally ;)

[An.American.Expatriate]

I didn't get the same "arrogance" that you did, nor do I think he is a "lobbyist", although he does want AD's hier to be financed.

Being former US Army CI myself, it is not uncommon to have knowledge of / be involved with more than one project at any one time. Considering that he seems to be very good at what he does, his participation in several "super duper secret program[s]" does not really cause any alarms in my mind.

Furthermore, his experiences with the "powers that be" are common from my experience. Thus, I would tend to believe his claims in the interview.

What worries me though is this:

" Plus, I [Schaffer] offered them access to my full copy of Able Danger documents. I let him know that because I was operating as Able Danger’s forward headquarters -- because they were in Tampa or Texas -- to preclude having to bring all this classified information back and forth. I became their repository of both briefing charts, summations and authority documents, so they didn’t have to worry about bringing all this classified material on aircraft.

Therefore, I had a full copy of this. I just kept it because I was worried about something like this happening one day. My former deputy was a finance officer. She kept immaculate records of all the legal documents. We had all this. I informed Dr. Zelikow that I had a copy of all this stuff and I offered it to him. I think that was one of the reasons he wanted me to re-contact him; so he could look at it."

-snip-

" There are some troubling facts that remain. The last time I saw the data I’m referring to is also the February 2004 timeframe. Since then, the data regarding the Able Danger set of documents has not been located."

If he had the documents up to February 2004 - what did he do with them / where did they go?? - Are these the ones that were ordered destroyed?? If so - this really WOULD be explosive!