The treasonous scumbag Dems are upset that this program has nabbed a few of their supporters. Too bad.
You've gone too far this time, and the Prez is spitting nails and is going to finally fight back.
""While most of us aren't going to be victims of wiretap or eavesdrop, it's important to now that if the government can do it to the worst of us, it can do it to the best of us," says Wolman."
Maybe I'm alone here but I always assume somebody could be listening and I don't say things I would not want to be overheard.
I am a little concerned that the Patriot act has been used against organized crime but if there is no more mission creep than that then we'll be all right.
FYI. This is what the rats allied with al Qaeda are so upset about. The system worked.
Pretty funny that even the wife of one of the terrorists netted by this thinks it's fair-- but the democrats don't.
What is amazing to me beside the anti Americans in Congress and the MSM upset about actions like the one below are the so called conservatives on Free Republic who are using this bs to hack up GW again.
"Columbus truck driver Iyman Farris pled guilty in 2003 to helping Al-Qaeda plan terrorist attacks in the US, and is was an admission that stunned his ex wife.
"Geneva Bowling says, "It's still hard for me to believe that he did."
"Two years later, Bowling knows that Faris was caught after agents monitored the couple's phone without a court order. She told the Associated Press, "If you're asking me if I think that's fair, I think it is."
The question is, did they spy on him or spy on a foreign national terrorist from another country that led to him?
BTTT
Will the Dems support the Patriot Act if it is amended such that all terrorists caught by wiretapping can still vote for them?
Case closed!
I remember that assclown
All kinda gets a big shrug from me. Heck, the Dem hero FDR did far more on far less authority. I know we have to watch for the slippery slope, but these are dangerous times.
We're not playing a game. The last time we slipped up, 3000 people died.
ping
Interview: Police Commissioner Ray Kelly Discusses His Department's Work At Fighting Terrorism And General Crime (Jan. 18)
POSTED: 7:57 am EST January 18, 2004
snip
PRESSMAN: Do you believe that the NYPD has frustrated terrorist attacks in the last year right here in New York?
Commissioner KELLY: Well, we know we've frustrated at least one, and that's Iyman Farris. Iyman Farris is a naturalized US citizen born in Kashmir, came here in the '90s, actually was with bin Laden in the '80s in Afghanistan, was with him in the year 2000.
PRESSMAN: He actually met with him.
Commissioner KELLY: Yes, he met with him. He came here with the intention of plotting and ultimately taking down the Brooklyn Bridge. And it--it certainly is, with certain techniques, doable. But he was arrested, taken into custody almost a year ago, last March. But he was in this city; he was in this city less than a year ago. He was in the city February of 2003. He's a real deal. He was in the--the al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan. He sends back a message to his handlers that the weather is too hot. In other words, the security was too hot.
PRESSMAN: He sent a cable to them?
Commissioner KELLY: No, he sent--he--he sent a message back that--you know, in his communications with them saying that...
PRESSMAN: Weather too hot.
Commissioner KELLY: An encoded message that the weather was too hot. Security was--was too hot.
PRESSMAN: And where is he now?
Commissioner KELLY: He's in prison. He has been sentenced to 20 years in jail. We hope to get more information from him. We think that there is still a lot more information to be gleaned from Iyman Farris.
PRESSMAN: You think he had accomplices here?
Commissioner KELLY: We believe he did, yes.
PRESSMAN: He also used--he actually acquired acetylene torches to...
Commissioner KELLY: No, that was the...
PRESSMAN: The plan.
Commissioner KELLY: ...that was the plan, to use...
PRESSMAN: To use to--I guess to go after the cables that hold the Brooklyn Bridge in place.
Commissioner KELLY: Well, yeah. I don't want to get into the specifics of it, but h--there was a procedure, a plan in place that he felt would enable him to do that.
PRESSMAN: The people like Farris, the people that you haven't identified, does this situation give you personally sleepless nights wondering whether terrorists are going to strike?
Commissioner KELLY: Well, I mean, that's my job. I wouldn't say sleepless nights, but obviously it's cause for concern. That's what I get paid for and other people get paid for in a department to--to think about these.
http://tinyurl.com/akz76
Two terrorism suspects were found living in Columbus. Al-Qaida member Iyman Farris was convicted of trying to sabotage the Brooklyn Bridge. Nouradin Abdi allegedly planned to detonate a bomb at a Central Ohio mall.
******
WASHINGTON: Saifullah Piracha, the father of Uzair Piracha, who was held in New York on March 31, has been detained in Karachi by Pakistan authorities. The US government is expected to file charges against Uzair.
The Washington Post said, "Authorities believe that Piracha family business may have been used as a cover for attempts to smuggle al-Qaeda operatives or weapons into the United States".
The Piracha family owns a textile factory in Karachi and used to export textile products to the US, which were handled by Uzair. The Post quoted an unidentified US official as saying, "We are still trying to sort through exactly what Piracha was up to, but there are alarming circumstances involved here". Piracha is also linked to Iyman Farris, a truck driver arrested in Ohio state, who is accused of providing material support to a "terrorist organisation".
Piracha's New York attorney, Anthony Ricco, says he expects a "multi count indictment" of his client whose name was given by al-Qaeda "mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Muhammad who was arrested in Rawalpindi a few months go.
******
Ashcroft said that truck driver Iyman Faris pleaded guilty to plotting against the United States, including taking part in a plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. An indictment said Faris worked closely with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, a top officer in the Muslim terrorist group who was captured earlier this year.
Ashcroft said Faris, also known as Mohammed Rauf, tried to obtain "gas cutters" and other tools that could be used to damage train tracks to cause derailments. He studied ultralight aircraft for use in a possible attack and suggested driving a truck loaded with explosives onto an airport tarmac to blow up planes.
Under an agreement unsealed today, Faris pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to provide support. He agreed to cooperate with investigators. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and fines of up to $500,000 on both counts at a sentencing hearing Aug. 1.
snip
Farris, a longtime resident of Columbus, Ohio, obtained U.S. citizenship in 1999.
Copyright 2003 by United Press International.
******
Man linked to al-Qaida wants to void plea deal
The Columbus Dispatch ^ | February 27, 2005 | Kevin Mayhood
Posted on 02/27/2005 11:37:54 AM PST by flutters
The man who admitted that he scouted the Brooklyn Bridge for al-Qaida lives in a federal maximum-security cell in Florence, Colo.
But Iyman Faris has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let him take back the agreement he signed in 2003 in which he pleaded guilty to helping the terrorists.
The court asked the government to respond to Faris’ appeal and will decide March 18 whether to hear it. In the meantime, new details about Faris and his dealings with the government have been revealed in court documents and through interviews with his lawyers. Faris is not permitted interviews.
His current attorney, David B. Smith, of Alexandria, Va., said Faris has helped in the war on terror. Faris told the government about an al-Qaida agent they hadn’t known about. And, Smith said, he tipped the U.S. government to Nuradin Abdi, the Somali immigrant accused of plotting to blow up a Columbus shopping mall.
For that, Smith said he thinks the government should at least cut time off Faris’ 20-year sentence.
But the government says Faris lied repeatedly, didn’t always cooperate and should not be trying to withdraw his plea. In addition, Faris has a history of shouldering arms for Muslim causes and readily talked about his days fighting in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Bosnia.
The government "thinks he’s guilty because he looks so dangerous," Smith said. "It’s not because they had a good case against him but because he’s potentially an extremely dangerous person."
Although Faris fingered Abdi, he probably won’t be called to testify against him, Abdi’s attorney, Mahir T. Sherif, has said.
One reason, Smith said, is that "my guy’s version of events doesn’t quite mesh with the government’s."
Faris told him that Abdi wanted to "shoot up a mall — like with a gun," Smith said. "Abdi wanted to teach the government a lesson for invading Iraq."
Smith said Faris described Abdi as "hot-headed and capable of doing something crazy." But Faris thought he’d talked Abdi out of it, telling him the plan "wasn’t good for the Islamic cause."
When the government filed papers to detain Abdi, Faris was listed as a co-conspirator. But Faris has not been charged.
Broken promise
In spring 2003, before he named Abdi and pleaded guilty to helping al-Qaida, Faris named a longtime friend who worked with Sept. 11 architect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Smith said.
Faris had been told that, if he provided valuable information, the government would try to get him a sentence of as little as 10 years.
The man Faris told on is identified in court papers only as Maqsood. Maqsood could "get things done" for al-Qaida, Faris told the government, and had introduced Faris to Mohammed and Osama bin Laden.
The government promised that his cooperation would be kept secret. To protect Faris’ family in Pakistan and avoid tipping off al-Qaida, a judge sealed Faris’ plea and all the information related to him.
But Faris’ first lawyer, J. Frederick Sinclair, and Smith say that some official in Washington, leaked Faris’ story. In June 2003, Newsweek magazine told of Faris, an Ohio truck driver who was involved in plots to down the Brooklyn Bridge, derail a passenger train and drive a truckload of explosives beneath a passenger plane as it sat on the ground. The story, attributed to an unnamed government source, said Faris had disappeared.
The Department of Justice said it had to calm the public’s fears because of the article. Over Sinclair’s objections, the seal was lifted.
At a news conference, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft said Faris had admitted scouting the bridge and helping al-Qaida and was cooperating with the government.
Sinclair said the publicity "really threw a monkey wrench in things."
"Whether it was the Department of Justice or the Department of Defense, or another agency leaked the information, I have no idea," he said.
"But at that point, Faris felt betrayed. He was then put in security isolation because he was no longer a regular prisoner."
Faris seemed depressed. "All those were factors" in his decision to stop talking, Sinclair said.
Before the leak, the government had a good chance of capturing Maqsood in Pakistan, Smith said, but it "wrote off the effort for the sake of a press conference."
Violent past
The government fears Faris, Smith said. "I understand why he gives people the willies."
Government documents say Faris was born Rauf Mohammed in Pakistani Kashmir on June 4, 1969. In 1986, Maqsood recruited him, and he trained and fought with fellow Muslims against forces from India. Both countries claim the disputed Kashmir territory.
While still a teenager, Faris went to Afghanistan, where he fought in the mountains against the invading Soviets. In one battle, Faris told Smith, his group of fighters captured 35 Soviet soldiers and executed them.
In 1992, he and two friends used false papers to pass through Turkey into Croatia and Bosnia. Faris said they were trying to get to Western Europe to find jobs. But they stayed in Bosnia and fought with the Muslims against the Serbs.
In Afghanistan and Bosnia, Faris was on the sides the United States was supporting.
Iyman Al-Ali, a friend who fought beside Faris in Bosnia, sold Faris his passport because Faris wanted to travel to the United States and the two looked alike. Dressed in Middle Eastern clothes, Faris flew to New York in March 1994 and passed easily through customs. He flew to Detroit and drove to Columbus, a city friends had told him was affordable.
He got a Social Security card and a driver’s license and began life as Iyman Faris.
Faris married an American in 1995 and became a U.S. citizen. They divorced in 2000. By that time, he had become a truck driver with a license to haul hazardous materials.
The FBI was looking at Faris as early as 2001. His ex-wife, Geneva Bowling, said agents asked her if she knew why he was in Pakistan.
"He left after our divorce, and I didn’t think he was going to come back," she said last week. "I wonder what sent up the red flag on him then."
Faris had been in Pakistan for a month in 1999. He also was there from May 2000 to May 2001 and from October 2001 to April 2002.
Maqsood took Faris to meet Mohammed during the latter two trips, and Faris agreed to gather information. Mohammed wanted to know if ultralight planes could be used for escapes and whether cutting torches could be used to sever the cables on the Brooklyn Bridge. He also wanted Faris to get torches and equipment that could derail trains by bending the tracks.
Mohammed "was very into Hollywood," Smith said. "He got the idea of severing the cables from a Godzilla movie. He only wanted to derail a train if it sent the train over a cliff."
Smith said Faris told investigators early in their conversations that he wanted to write a book about al-Qaida and was "just playing along."
The government said Faris made the book claim only when he began trying to take back his guilty plea. But Smith said the plea agreement has a provision that any money Faris earns from a book must be turned over to the U.S. government.
Plea or trial
Faris’ name came up again in another FBI investigation. On March 19, 2003, two agents approached Faris in Cincinnati and briefly interviewed him. On March 20, they met again and Faris allowed them to search his apartment on Riverview Drive in Columbus. Later that day, the FBI learned that Mohammed, who had been captured in Pakistan, had fingered Faris.
Faris agreed to meet FBI agents at the Embassy Suites hotel in Dublin that night. Within two hours, he confessed that Mohammed had asked him to scout the Brooklyn Bridge, the government says.
Faris agreed to go to FBI headquarters in Quantico, Va. From March 21 to May 1, when he secretly pleaded guilty to helping al-Qaida, Faris had almost daily meetings with agents.
The government said Faris "virtually had room service." On April 9, agents even let his girlfriend from Columbus visit him.
"He was treated very well and the sessions were very cordial between Mr. Faris and the agents," a government brief says.
But two agents sat outside his rooms, Smith said. Faris was allowed out to take a walk only at night, and agents were always with him.
"He repeatedly asked for a lawyer," Smith said. "And the FBI told him, ‘You’re not going to jail, you don’t need a lawyer.’ So he continued to talk to them for a couple of weeks. Until he demanded a lawyer."
On April 4, Sinclair was named to represent Faris.
Smith said the government threatened to send Faris to Guantanamo Bay if he didn’t plead guilty and promised him as few as 7½ years in prison if he did. The government denies it ever threatened to send him to the military base on Cuba.
"The government had threatened to take him to Guantanamo as an enemy combatant," Sinclair said, "but I didn’t really take that seriously."
He and an assistant U.S. attorney from Virginia met with Faris two or three times and discussed returning to Columbus for a trial versus the plea offer.
Smith says they quickly worked out a deal. But Sinclair said, "I was urging him to go back to Columbus and try the case." Faris would have faced 30 years to life in prison if convicted at trial. But he would have been able to challenge whether his statements were voluntary, Sinclair said.
Smith said he thinks the government couldn’t use any of Faris’ statements at trial. They were gathered in violation of Miranda and Sixth Amendment rights, he said.
"My view is, the government couldn’t possibly have convicted him" without his statements.
In an appeals brief, the government says it was "able to corroborate significant portions of the evidence used against Faris." It then lays out the facts that Faris had agreed were true when he pleaded guilty:
• Faris accompanied Maqsood when he ordered 2,000 sleeping bags for al-Qaida.
• He and Maqsood went to Karachi, Pakistan, to get extensions on several airline tickets to be used by al-Qaida members traveling to Yemen. "We all knew what was going on, and you don’t ask questions," he told investigators.
• He delivered money and cell phones to Mohammed.
Faris told agents that on his way to Buffalo, N.Y., with a delivery, he looked at the Brooklyn Bridge and concluded that the plan to cut the cables wouldn’t work. He sent a message by way of a Baltimore contact: "The weather is too hot."
Changing story
Sinclair said the FBI’s report on interviews with Faris shows that he would say one thing one day, deny it the next and confirm it on the third day. "Because of that report, I think there was a factual basis to withdraw the plea."
He and Smith both say Faris’ story about scouting the Brooklyn Bridge is false. Faris told investigators he looked at the bridge on a trip from Columbus to Buffalo, but it would have been hundreds of miles out of his way. When asked for details, Faris said he checked out the bridge when he drove across it. But 18-wheelers such as the one he drove have been banned from the bridge for years.
Faris doesn’t deny that he sent a message to Mohammed saying "the weather is too hot." But he said he saw the bridge only on TV.
"The government says they have corroboration. but they could only prove he went to New York to deliver candles," Smith said.
Paul J. McNulty is the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. His office worked out the plea agreement with Faris. In a statement he released Friday, McNulty said, "Neither the Department of Justice nor the court would allow Mr. Faris to plead guilty if we believed the charges against him were not true."
The FBI would say only that it followed the law in its dealings with Faris.
Faris declines to leave his cell because he finds it degrading to be strip-searched going and coming, Smith said.
Sinclair said that when Faris spoke of Mohammed and bin Laden, he may have been "just blowing smoke."
But "the government feels strongly," he said, "and probably to this day believes he has a lot more information."
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1352213/posts
http://www.msnbc.com/news/928428.asp
But a NEWSWEEK inquiry showed that Faris, a naturalized American citizen from Pakistan, has not been publicly charged with any crime. Nor is there any visible trace of what has become of him since his name first began surfacing in U.S. intelligence documents earlier this spring.
The phone number at his Columbus apartment is no longer working. He failed to show up for a court hearing on two speeding tickets. A close acquaintance says Faris had been in regular touch with his American ex-wife (an Ohio Pentacostalist preacher’s daughter) until a few months ago—at which point the communications abruptly stopped.
******
New York Times 6/20
THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
A Conspicuous Terror Target Is Called Hard to Topple
By RANDY KENNEDY
Could one terrorist, or even several, armed only with blowtorches actually bring down the Brooklyn Bridge?
snip
However, several engineers interviewed yesterday said they believed that even for someone with unfettered access to the bridge, a substantial amount of time and a lot of hard work would be required to do serious damage with acetylene torches.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/20/national/20BRID.html
I bet terrorists couldn't fly planes into building either. /sarcasm
*******
Washington Post 6/21
'Scout' Had Low Profile
Home in Heartland Afforded Ideal Cover
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Amy DePaul
Iyman Faris, the naturalized U.S. citizen unmasked yesterday as a scout for the al Qaeda terrorist network, has an unassuming profile that greatly worries authorities trying to stem the threat of new attacks within the United States, federal officials said yesterday.
A resident of Columbus, Ohio, who had reason to travel widely in his job as a freelance truck driver, Faris was in some ways an ideal agent for al Qaeda planners who needed practical information they could feed to others willing to undertake such attacks, the officials said.
Faris, 34, was "a scout and a facilitator" within al Qaeda's organization, collecting information about the feasibility of destroying the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and derailing trains in or near Washington, D.C., one official said, elaborating on details in an FBI affidavit unsealed Thursday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17697-2003Jun20.html
******
New York Times 6/21
Man in Brooklyn Bridge Plot Spurred Early F.B.I. Interest
By ERIC LICHTBLAU with MONICA DAVEY
WASHINGTON, June 20 — The F.B.I. first interviewed Iyman Faris, the Ohio truck driver implicated in a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials said today. But investigators did not actively focus on Mr. Faris until about a year ago, when other investigations led agents to him, the officials added.
The questioning of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a top lieutenant to Osama bin Laden who was captured in March in Pakistan, provided what law officials said was critical information that linked Mr. Faris to Al Qaeda.
"There was a lot of stuff we knew about him that was corroborated by K.S.M.," a law enforcement official said, referring to Mr. Mohammed by his initials. "But this was a person who was already known by us. He was actively being investigated."
Shortly after receiving the information from Mr. Mohammed, who has been under intensive questioning by intelligence officials since his capture, the Federal Bureau of Investigation started 24-hour surveillance on Mr. Faris, law enforcement officials said.
After Mr. Faris was secretly arrested three months ago in the Columbus, Ohio, metropolitan region, he, too, began cooperating and gave questioners valuable information about his communications with Al Qaeda, officials said. He told them that he had passed coded messages to Pakistan about "gas stations," a code for "gas cutters" or blowtorches to be used in an attack on the Brooklyn Bridge, officials added.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/21/national/21TERR.html
Just how much does it cost to buy these guys? And who is picking up the tab for it?
Thursday, October 06, 2005
What about the terrorist attacks that don't happen?
It's hard to claim credit for the absence of an event. WaPo reports:
President Bush said today the United States and its allies have disrupted at least 10 serious plots by the al Qaeda network in the past four years, as he sought to rally the nation against international terrorists and warned foreign governments against supporting them....
He added, "We've stopped at least five more al Qaeda efforts to case targets in the United States or infiltrate operatives into our country."...
Bush did not elaborate.
******
Bush's open-ended commitment in Iraq "threatens to break the U.S. Army and hurt the economy," Feingold said. "Such a policy keeps America bogged down in Iraq rather than engaged in what should be a global campaign against terrorism." Feingold has called for setting a target date of Dec. 31, 2006, for completing the U.S. mission in Iraq and bringing American troops home.
******
No big deal to the Washington Post and/or CNN...
Jose Padilla. “Paul Wolfowitz, Mr. Rumsfeld’s deputy, stressed on Monday that ‘there was not an actual plan’ to set off a radioactive device in America and Padilla had not begun trying to acquire materials. Intelligence officials said his research had not gone beyond surfing the internet.” Since being detained in O’Hare airport in 2002, Padilla has not been charged with any crime or permitted to talk to a lawyer. [Daily Telegraph, 12/06/02; Washington Post, 9/10/05]
Iyman Faris. Faris was an Ohio truck driver who pleaded guilty in June 2003 to two felony charges of supporting a foreign terrorist organization. He was charged with plotting to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, but U.S. officials admitted that Faris had abandoned the plot because he deemed it unlikely to succeed. “After scouting the bridge and deciding its security and structure meant the plot was unlikely to succeed, he passed along a message to al Qaeda in early 2003 that said ‘the weather is too hot.’” [CNN, 6/19/03]