Posted on 09/10/2005 4:51:51 AM PDT by Perdogg
A Defense Department employee will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21 that civilian superiors in 2000 ordered him to destroy a huge cache of data from a classified program that tracked al Qaeda, a congressman said Thursday.
"Another witness will testify that he was ordered to destroy 2.5 terabytes of data related to Able Danger and al Qaeda," said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., referring to a now widely publicized "data-mining" program that gathered information about people from a host of sources to establish links and patterns that would not otherwise come to light. The amount of data obliterated is equivalent to 125,000 trees made into paper and printed, or a quarter of the print volumes in the Library of Congress.
"He was ordered to destroy the data or he would lose his job or go to jail," Weldon said of the Defense official, whom he did not name. "What were their motives? I think we have to find out."
News of the coming testimony about the destruction of Able Danger data is the latest development about the controversial and once-classified program. Five people who were connected to Able Danger said the program identified Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as a potential threat more than a year earlier. Weldon and some of these people also said the Defense Department did not share with the FBI what it learned about al Qaeda as a result of Able Danger prior to the attacks.
"We have identified the FBI employees in the Washington field office who arranged three meetings [with Able Danger personnel] that were canceled," Weldon said.
"It was a very serious breach not to pass that information on and to have it shared," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., in an Aug. 31 statement about the Pentagon's withholding of Able Danger information from the FBI. "The consequences of not identifying them was that 9-11 might have been avoided."
Because the destruction of Able Danger data occurred prior to both Sept. 11 and the 2005 disclosure of Able Danger's existence, no one suggests the data was eradicated to cover up what the Pentagon knew about al Qaeda. But senior members of Congress from both parties are determined to learn why the Pentagon would destroy a massive trove of information about terrorism when it was even then a critical concern of U.S. national security agencies.
Destroyed Data Pentagon officials acknowledged at a Sept. 2 briefing that they destroyed the data. They said it was done as a matter of routine to protect the identity of "U.S. persons" citizens and those who were visiting the country legally.
But Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, an Army intelligence officer who worked on the program, said Thursday that before the Able Danger data was destroyed, he had briefed senior officials in the Pentagon and White House on ways to excise U.S. persons' names without losing the entire database. He said the Pentagon must have obliterated the data for another reason that it is not disclosing.
Could this be why Dems want another commission to "get to the bottom of things?"
If the RICO laws were properly and evenly applied, there wouldn't be a single career politician who wouldn't be residing in the Gray Bar Hotel!
Oooo, I've moved all the way up to "Old newbie!!!" LOL!
tenjoobellymud.
ping to me for later.
thank you all for the info
Hilary Clinton has a copy.
I wonder if Sandy Burgler will be one of or the witnesses?
The deal was for him to cooperate in an investigation...
Just a thought.
IMO, Cal, I don't think so. I think it will all "...just go away." Generations from now the truth may come out, but I doubt we'll see it.
Perhaps it is this thought process that cause some to call me a romantic cynic, also, a cynical romantic!
Got that right man ..
LOL! tenjoobellymud ? I keep asking myself if I really want to know the definition of that.
Think...phonics! };^)
BUMP and save
Some military personnel might have assignments of an information gathering nature. Long before the Gorelick wall was established, instructions were given, and the military was very clear about this, that information gathered about U.S. citizens could not be disclosed. Now, there may have been a clause relating to criminal activity, but that is not the point here. It is possible that in the gathering of information, even though some of it was public source, many names of U.S. citizens might have been gathered, and they may have had no involvement whatever in criminal matters.
At some point, the military authorities or their legal advisors may have concluded that there was too much information gathered which was in violation of U.S. privacy laws, and in violation of established Pentagon directives on the gathering of information of U.S. citizens by a military unit. Thus, the information was ordered destroyed, possibly because it became a matter of domestic surveillance by military personnel. It was against the law then, and I believe it is still against the law.
Just a guess though, just a guess.
Able Danger is like a hurricane sitting just outside the reach of the Washington elite. It threatens to discredit the 9/11 Commission and establish once again who knew or should have known.
I think what we are all missing is the data may have been destroyed that they collected but a great deal if not most of the data they mined can be mined again. It is out there in many data bases. I wonder if they have started the operation over? I would hope so. The data exists in bank records and computers. It is there. It can be recreated again. If I were Clinton and his old gang at the justice department and the DNC I would be afraid of this operation.
Was last week. $50,000 fine and probation. The Red Chinese Lippo Bank probably covered the tab.
One thing professional Washington bureaucrats like Gorelick are really good at is CYA.
"Could this be why Dems want another commission to "get to the bottom of things?"
The Dems having been going lower and lower for years, but they haven't seemed to hit bottom yet.
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