Some questions to be asked by the press of Panel members:
1. What changes to the USA Patriot Act did the 9/11 Commission recommend? Should terrorists be treated better than mob chiefs?
2. Did the last Longshoreman's strike in California help or hurt attempts to strengthen port security and container tracking automation?
3. If letting 9/11 hijackers travel through Iran was a collaborative operational relationship, had Iraq provided safe harbor to any al-Qaeda operatives?
4. Given the quagmire that developed obtaining the Senate's consent to presidential appointees in early 2001 and subsequently, are Americans well served by subjecting a new intelligence chief to the same politics?
5. Given the failure of the Senate to pass legislation passed by the House, is there any reasonable expectation that the Senate could move on the Panel's recommendations this year before the election? (Refer to editorial "Daschle's Dead Zone" in today's Wall Street Journal.)
6. What responsibility does the Congress assign itself for the Church Committee and Torricelli "reforms"?
7. What Panel recommendations had been proposed by previous commissions?
8. How much did this commission cost? What are the expected costs estimates for implementation of all proposals?
9. How was the Gorelick conflict of interest resolved with respect to the "Wall" between the FBI and CIA and within those agencies and other intelligence units?
10. What did Sandy Berger not want the 9/11 Panel to see in the 4-6 drafts of the Millenium After-Acrion Report and related port security documents?
Additional questions solicited. Send to
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11. Now that we know that airport security is an imperfect line of defense and thankfully not the last line since we now have air marshals, hardened cockpit doors and a more attentive class of passengers, does it not make sense to arm pilots on every flight to increase the odds that security measures are never again breached? In other words, to take a concrete example: Is it more important to save 3,000 lives than to protect the life of a hijacker?
12. What are the recommendations by the Panel for better immigration controls, especially as it involves biometric identification, tracking and reporting?
13. Is the Al Gore brokered agreement with airlines not to single out more than two members of the same ethnic group now considered to be obsolete and should be abandoned?
14. What weight did the Panel accord pre-9/11 reports from Russian intelligence as recently disclosed by President Putin that Saddam was actively working to attack Americans?
15. What evidence threshold can be recommended in evaluating whether any particular group is responsible for an attack on a US facility or ship before taking effective action against that group or in accepting offers to extradite the group's leader?