I'm not a stauch supporter of the FBI, bu this does sound like the FBI was on the case.
With Moussaoui in detention, agents asked FBI headquarters for permission to check his computer's hard drive and wanted to launch a full-scale criminal investigation. Superiors at the FBI's Washington office flatly turned down the agents' request.
Could be valid reasons for this. We just don't have enough info.
Only after the Sept. 11 attacks did FBI headquarters finally give approval for agents to examine Moussaouio's hard drive and open up a broader inquiry.
Maybe I'm a fatalist, but I really don't know what could have been done to stop 9/11. Up until they hijacked the planes, Atta and his thugs did nothing overtly criminal, i.e. nothing that would give the FBI cause to detain or arrest them.
Unless Moussaouio named names, how could the perpetrators have been discovered ahead of time?
Reportedly, the FBI discovered that Moussaoui had compiled data on how wind patterns affect crop dusters, as well as a large amount of information on crop-dusting aircraft.
Nothing against the law here. It's a free country and one can gather info on whatever one wants. If you or I decided to gather this info, would we want an FBI agent knocking at our doors with a warrant to search our hard drives or would we want our phone tapped?
I'm not making excuses for the FBI or excusing anything this Moussaoui terrorist did, but hindsight is 20/20.
Newsweek is quoted in this article and that immediately raises red flags with me. Maybe Newsweek is getting fed up with all the charges that Clinton did nothing to stop OBL and has decided to nitpick about what Bush might have done.
This is most certainly a fact. Just as these liberal media folks have been building a case for things like abject racism and ending gun ownership they will turn their sincere efforts to proving disgraced President Clinton could not have stopped terrorist attacks.