Boeing warns staff about 'disturbing surveillance' (by Middle Easterners)

King5.com ^ | 5/24/2003 | AP

[lelio]

SEATTLE - Boeing's head of security sent his staff an e-mail this month warning that people had been conducting "very disturbing surveillance" of the company's facilities in Western Washington and elsewhere.
The e-mail, as described in Saturday's editions of The Seattle Times, offered no details beyond that "apparent Middle Easterners" were seen conducting the surveillance.
Chief Security Officer Greg Gwash urged his personnel to heighten "surveillance detection measures ... especially during hours of darkness, to detect any reconnaissance being done in advance of a future attack," The Times reported.
Boeing has been mentioned as a hypothetical terrorist target since Sept. 11, 2001, due to its status as the nation's largest exporter and second-largest defense contractor.
Boeing confirmed the existence of the e-mail but refused to discuss its contents with The Times. A company spokesman did not immediately return a phone call from The Associated Press on Saturday.
Charles Mandigo, special agent in charge of the FBI's Seattle office, said the agency is not aware of any specific threats against Boeing.
Gwash's e-mail was sent May 14, two days after three Boeing workers were slightly injured by a series of terrorist attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed 34 people and wounded hundreds more.
The Department of Homeland Security raised the national terrorism threat level from yellow, or "elevated," to orange, or "high," on Tuesday.
Since the World Trade Center attacks, the FBI has put out several security alerts to U.S. businesses operating both domestically and abroad, warning them to be on the lookout for surveillance of their facilities.
Mandigo said such activity is known to be a trademark of al-Qaida, the international terrorist network founded by Osama bin Laden. The most recent warning went out shortly after this month's bombings in Riyadh.
"Almost all of the attacks, including the 9-11 hijackings, were preceded by some sort of pre-event activity, either surveillance or dry-runs," he said.
The local FBI office has investigated a number of similar reports of suspicious activities by Arabs or Middle Easterners over the past two years, he added. In some cases, the purported suspects were involved in normal activity that was misinterpreted; in others, the FBI was unable to verify that a threat existed.
Boeing spokesman Bob Jorgensen said advising security personnel to be on heightened alert after Boeing workers were injured in a terrorist attack was an "appropriate thing to do" for the company's head of security, and in keeping with the Boeing's heightened awareness since Sept. 11.
Gwash's e-mail carries a tone of urgency.
"Work to make your site a hard target, not an inviting one!" he wrote. "Let's resist complacency and the distraction of day-to-day issues, maintain constant awareness and demonstrate our professionalism to make sure we have a future!"

[MEG33]

Sounds like a prudent warning to me!

[ChadGore]

Vigilance bump.

[Cicero]

If you wanted to cause some very expensive damage, I would think one of the Boeing assembly buildings would be hard to beat.

[rickmichaels]

Just counting the minutes before CAIR issues a press release condemning Boeing for its "racism and paranoia."

[katana]

Sounds like a good time for counter-surveillance, apprehension, and interrogation by my little friend "Mr. Car Battery". Let the lawyers sort it out later.

[philo]

That will come later, first they'll start out on the racial profiling angle.

[rickmichaels]

Quite true.

[DoctorMichael]

The-enemy-walks-among-us Bump.

[MEG33]

Count on it.

[So Cal Rocket]

I seem to recall that we recovered photographs of Boeing facilities from an Al Queda hideout in Afghanistan... I'll have to look for the article.

[bigfootbob]

Boeing knew how to protect its property during WWII. Let's hope they haven't been to PC'd in the generations that has followed. I'd like to think they'll be very hard to be compromised, after planting this story.

[Final Authority]

The reality is that on 9-11 Boeing was a target by way of collateralism. When folks stop flying, airlines stop buying airplanes. I believe that Boeing was an accomplice to a possible coverup with respect to TWA 800. Because of national security Boeing was placed in a bad position. Do they defend themselves with respect to the CWT which would have precluded the governments explaination or at least been at odds with it and as such, they would have had to offer a different explaination, a SAM shoot-down maybe. Terrorists affected them then in a big way. I don't see how the explaination of a CWT (center wing tank) explosion would not have grounded all the Boeing 747's until the solution was arrived at. But they weren't grounded and Boeing was saved for the time being because I believe since they played by the rules they were spared. Lately, at Logan (Boston) much has been reported about securing the airfield to prevent a shoulder fired SAM from being deployed by terrorists. The technology is being deployed in many locations to allow a visual where fog would obscure an approach and where an insufficient radar signature would be present. In my opinion no one would do this if the threat of bringing down an airliner with a SAM was out of the question. I believe it happened and now an effort is underway to minimize the potential for more take-downs. Remember Rockaway. Has the evidence been released to the public. If it has, please let me know since it is all hearsay for me to this point.

[eno_]

Governments, including our own, have lied to the people about sabotage/terrorism. Even the phrase "Loose lips sink ships" was invented to distract the public from the fact we couldn't lay a finger on the u-boats that were sinking ships at will. "Loose lips" never even sank a dinghy.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

A "Lazy B" ping, FYI.

[nmh]

Nah, can't be. Most likey they're muslims and George Bush assures us it's a religion of "peace". Besides, "racial profiling" is insensitive. Can't have that either. Most likely these are paranoid white people vying for media attention. (Sarcasm off).

[oceanview]

but no mention of anyone caught or questioned, so how did they know they were being monitored by ME people? Did someone just look out a window of the plant and see some ME guys with a camcorder, and just said "that's nice", and not do anything about it except write an email? This makes no sense to me, they have observed enough to know that ME guys are conducting surveillance of their facilities (so that means that either someone saw them, or they have video tapes), with enough certainty to issue a company wide warning email, but no mention that anyone was stopped or questioned, and no mention that any law enforcement people did anything about it.

It makes no sense to me.

[RightWhale]

"Loose lips" never even sank a dinghy.

Only because true patriots zip it. Only spies rat out ships.

[eno_]

The point is, loose lips or not, patriots or not, the Germans acquired no useful intelligence about shipping. Meanwhile the U.S. government was accusing its own people of indiscretions that cost lives, in order to cover up ineffective coastal defenses.

There is very good reason to think TWA800 and AA587 are coverups, too.

[MatthewViti]

"Islam is peace" George W. Bush 9-17-01