Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat - Thread Eight

CNN ^ | 5-17-04 | Various

[JustPiper]

Picture credit: TheCabal

Picture Credit:Calpernia

I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat"

LINK TO THREAD SEVEN

BREAKING NEWS

Iraqi governing council leader among those killed by Baghdad car bomb, Iraqi officials say. Details soon.

Breaking News Alert BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) U.S. military colonel says four Iraqis killed, two U.S. soldiers injured, in car bomb at entrance to coalition headquarters in Baghdad.

[WestCoastGal]

Also......(Motorola again) I haven't seen this posted?? I hope.


Air Force base's radios jamming automatic garage door openers

Last update: 19 May 2004

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE -- A new military two-way radio system is keeping garage doors shut in communities near this Florida Panhandle base and residents may have to change the frequencies on their remote-controlled opening devices to make them work.

Homeowners in Niceville, Valparaiso and the Crestview area reported jammed garage door openers during recent testing of the new $5.5 million system at Eglin.

Air Force officials Tuesday said the contractor, Motorola Inc., will try to minimize the problem but they offered no guarantees.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Noteworthy/03NewsNOTE04052004.htm

[Calpernia]

Material Given to Congress in 2002 Is Now Classified
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: May 20, 2004


ASHINGTON, May 19 - The Justice Department has taken the unusual step of retroactively classifying information it gave to Congress nearly two years ago regarding a former F.B.I. translator who charged that the bureau had missed critical terrorist warnings, officials said Wednesday.

Law enforcement officials say the secrecy surrounding the translator, Sibel Edmonds, is essential to protecting information that could reveal intelligence-gathering operations. But some members of Congress and Congressional aides said they were troubled by the move, which comes as critics have accused the Bush administration of excessive secrecy.

"What the F.B.I. is up to here is ludicrous," Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said in an interview. "To classify something that's already been out in the public domain, what do you accomplish? It does harm to transparency in government, and it looks like an attempt to cover up the F.B.I.'s problems in translating intelligence."

F.B.I. officials gave Senate staff members two briefings in June and July of 2002 concerning Ms. Edmonds, who said the F.B.I.'s system for translating intelligence was so flawed that the bureau missed chances to spot terrorist warnings.

But the F.B.I. now maintains that some of the information discussed was so potentially damaging if released publicly that it is now considered classified, according to a memorandum distributed last week within the Senate Judiciary Committee. The material could also play a part in pending lawsuits, including Ms. Edmonds's wrongful termination suit and a lawsuit brought by hundreds of families of Sept. 11 victims who have sought to take testimony from her.

"Any staffer who attended those briefings, or who learns about those briefings, should be aware that the F.B.I. now considers the information classified and should therefore avoid further dissemination,'' the Judiciary Committee memorandum said.

An F.B.I. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the decision to classify the material was made by the Justice Department, which oversees the bureau. The Justice Department declined to comment on Wednesday.

The F.B.I. told Congressional officials that it was classifying topics including what languages Ms. Edmonds translated, what types of cases she handled, and what employees she worked with, officials said. Even routine and widely disseminated information - like where she worked - is now classified.

Ms. Edmonds, who is Turkish-American, began working for the F.B.I. shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks as a translator in the F.B.I.'s Washington field office with top-secret security clearance, but she was let go in the spring of 2002. She first gained wide public attention in October of that year when she appeared on "60 Minutes'' on CBS and charged that the F.B.I.'s translation services were plagued by incompetence and a lack of urgency and that the bureau had ignored her concerns. The Justice Department's inspector general is investigating her claims.

The F.B.I. has taken steps to improve its translation operations, including hiring more linguists. But Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, wrote in March to the Justice Department that he still had "grave concerns'' about the F.B.I.'s ability to translate vital counterterrorism material.

Ms. Edmonds testified in a closed session this year before the Sept. 11 commission, and she has made increasingly vehement charges about the F.B.I.'s intelligence failures, saying the United States had advance warnings about the attacks. Families of the Sept. 11 victims - who are suing numerous corporate and Saudi interests whom they accuse of having links to the attacks - have sought to depose her as a witness, but the Justice Department has blocked the move by saying her testimony would violate "the state secret privilege.'' Her lawyer could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

While some Congressional officials said they were confident the Justice Department had followed proper procedure in classifying the information, others said they could not remember any recent precedents and were bothered by the move.

"I have never heard of a retroactive classification two years back,'' said an aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because the subject is classified.

"It would be silly if it didn't have such serious implications,'' the aide said. "People are puzzled and, frankly, worried, because the effect here is to quash Congressional oversight. We don't even know what we can't talk about.''

Senator Grassley said, "This is about as close to a gag order as you can get."

The F.B.I. denied the accusation.

"We're not imposing a gag order,'' the F.B.I. official said. Members of Congress have the information, but have to treat it as classified, the official said. "The problem is that while these pieces of information may look innocuous on their own, you put them all together and it reveals a picture of sensitive intelligence collection, and that's a security problem.''

[knak]

do you have this link?

The Anti-Terrorism Coalition's Database of Terrorist Websites and eGroups

[Revel]

"Air Force officials Tuesday said the contractor, Motorola Inc., will try to minimize the problem but they offered no guarantees."

That one is easy. Everyone having this problem just needs to drive around town with there finger on the button of there garage door openers. The military will probably decide it would be a good idea not to use Garage door frequencys for their communications...LOL

[nw_arizona_granny]

Don't worry about it, I for myself, would rather see the same article 2 or 3 times, than not at all.

[Cindy]

Thank you WCG.
I research a lot, but I couldn't do all those posts without the FReeper input... and I am grateful.

[Velveeta]

Someone torching cars in Iowa too. I wonder if this is happening elsewhere as well?

Suspicious Fires Link?
Thursday, May 20, 2004, 7:22:15 PM


From the KCRG-TV9 Iowa City Newsroom

Investigators in Coralville and Iowa City are working together looking for a possible link between recent suspicious fires.

Someone set several vehicles on fires in Coralville early Wednesday morning.

Iowa City is also trying to solve a case involving six suspicious fires in the downtown area all in a month's time.

There have been no arrests in several, recent arson fires in Cedar Rapids, including two at Jefferson High School.

http://www.kcrg.com/article.aspx?art_id=82495&cat_id=123

[Mo1]

Was it wired to anything???

I just checked the local Philly news and they haven't reported on this from what I can tell

[Cindy]

I've seen that site before.
Thank you Knak.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Impressive list, well done.

Needs to be sent to all the "Nothing is going on" folks.

hugs,
ma

[knak]

your welcome

[Velveeta]

Bomb alert at American school in Greek capital

ATHENS : Greek police late Thursday closed off an American school in a suburb of Athens after a bomb alert was phoned in to a newspaper.

An unknown caller told a Greek newspaper that a bomb planted near the school would go off at 9:00 pm (1800 GMT), police said.


http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/europe/view/86095/1/.html

[Velveeta]

SECURITY FAILED TO SPOT BREACH FOR TEN HOURS May 21 2004 (UK)


EXCLUSIVE BREAK-IN SPARKS BOMB ATTACK FEARS Scare after raid at giant oil refinery

DOZY guards at the Grangemouth oil refinery took an incredible 10 hours to stumble across a frightening security breach.

Round-the-clock security procedures at the key target for terrorists are constantly monitored by the intelligence agencies, due to its devastating explosive potential.

MI5 regularly conduct checks and risk assessment exercises and security patrols drive around the perimeter of the massive petrochemical site.

But they failed to spot where raiders cut the wire fence and removed two bollards before driving in a van and stealing £20,000 worth of steel pipes.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=14260582&method=full&siteid=89488&headline=security-failed-to-spot-breach-for-ten-hours-name_page.html

[Indie]

"CBS said the "rock solid" evidence was said to show that Chalabi himself gave Iranian intelligence officers information so closely guarded that if revealed it could "get Americans killed."

==
Ok. So why is this guy still free.

They are all two-faced, backstabbing liars. They all want to kill us.
Why can't our government [and many CINOs on FR] understand this?

[knak]

Police find suspicious package inside mall

The Albuquerque bomb squad was called out to Coronado Mall after a suspicious package was found inside a department store.

Police say a package with Arabic-looking markings on it was found in the Mervyn’s store in the mall. The bomb squad and bomb-sniffing dogs were also called in.

The mall was not evacuated. Officials have not released information on where the package came from or what was in it.

[Revel]

Don't go to Nien if you are using Mozilla....Something there on there page crashes it every time.

[Indie]

I think this is proof that "private" security can not be the capitalist panacea to security concerns in this day and age. The requirements are not high enough, and neither is the pay.

Although this happened in the UK, if something is THAT dangerous [nuke plants etc], then they need to be guarded by National Guard troops with orders to fire.

The fact that our refineries are still guarded by
private firms is proof we are not serious about protecting ourselves.

At the very least [knowing the military can not be everywhere], local police/sheriff officers could be hired off-duty for an extra job by these locations, as is commonly done throughout the US in other venues like grocery stores and for private traffic control.

[Velveeta]

Workers Say They Are Underprepared to Detect Bombs in Cargo

By Jim Hoffer
(New York-WABC, May 20, 2004) — This story begins with an air cargo worker who's been fired after she refused to become a human bomb detector.

Her story exposes a dirty little secret about airport security -- a secret Jim Hoffer has been investigating.

A worker at Starbuck's gets more training for making espresso's than some cargo workers get for detecting explosives. Two cargo workers tell us they were trained to be bomb screeners in just a couple of hours and then given an ultimatum (snip)

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/investigators/wabc_investigators_052004cargo.html

[milkncookies]

My info said 570, but the "important"date I believe is June 10th, regardless of the year. We know how they have a penchant for dates and numbers.

[Velveeta]

Los Alamos Lab: Classified Data Missing

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - Classified information was discovered missing at Los Alamos National Laboratory this week, but a lab spokesman said the data would not jeopardize national security even if it fell into the wrong hands.

The information, which was on a data storage device, was still unaccounted for Thursday, said LANL spokesman Kevin Roark. A federal review team is set to investigate.(snip)
http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/news/8716935.htm