Here's my theory...........
Posted on 06/07/2007 11:16:02 AM PDT by Hal1950
James Sanders is stirring again.
Two items have put the veteran investigative reporter – and my partner on the documentary "Silenced" and the book "First Strike" – on his own personal Code Orange.
One is the news out of JFK that Islamic terrorists are up to their old tricks again. At JFK? My, who da thunk it?
The second, and more personally galvanizing, is that Sanders has just gotten a big batch of new TWA Flight 800-related documents from the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act.
These documents stem from Sanders' stillborn civil suit against a government that convicted him and his wife, Elizabeth, of conspiracy for his reporting on the TWA Flight 800 investigation.
In the course of our history, citizens have received worse treatment at the hand of a generally benign government. But no reporter has been treated more shabbily at the hand of the media – ever.
In truth, the Clinton years did not bring out the best in the major media. During the TWA 800 investigation in particular, they hewed to the government line with a pride and passion that would make Edward R. Murrow squirm in his grave.
And God help the poor soul, like James Sanders, who got out of line.
Undaunted now as then, Sanders wades through these new documents like a wily prospector in Sutter's Creek. Most of the gold has been stripped away or redacted, but if you know what to look for, as Sanders does, the nuggets stand out.
His sense of humor somehow intact, Sanders forwards key documents to my shared fax under the heading, "SECRET – sensitive journalism. Do not read. If you do, you will turn into a Democrat."
The one document that intrigues me most tells of Sanders' treatment at the hands of that great 57th Street institution, CBS News.
In the way of background, Sanders had granted an exclusive interview to Emmy Award-winning CBS producer Kristina Borjesson the same day a story about his research broke in California's Riverside Press-Enterprise.
"New Data Show Missile May Have Nailed TWA 800," screamed the paper's one-inch, front-page headline on March 10, 1997.
Working with Terrel Stacey, TWA's 747 top manager inside the investigation, Sanders had received, among other information, a few foam rubber bits of seatback that contained the DNA of the investigation, streaks of an unknown red-orange residue.
Sanders had the residue tested at an independent West Coast lab, which found it to be consistent with exhaust from a solid fuel missile. To verify his claim, Sanders had sent a separate sample to CBS.
After the CBS interview had been videotaped, however, Borjesson grew alarmed when she realized no one at the "Evening News" was editing the piece.
Frustrated, she walked into a meeting of news executives and asked why the network wasn't doing the story on Sanders and his documents.
"You think it's a missile, don't you?" queried an executive she didn't recognize.
"I don't know what the hell it is," Borjesson shot back, "but don't you think we should be doing a story that asks a few questions about this guy and his documents?" The silence that followed was, as Borjesson admits, "deafening."
When she had walked in to the room, she honestly believed she was about to correct an oversight at a level where it could be corrected quickly. "I walked out of there," said Borjesson, "feeling like I'd cooked my own goose."
When CBS finally aired the story, it used what Borjesson calls "a classic avoidance tactic" to keep Sanders off the air while reporting – and dismissing – his side of the story.
Borjesson was elated, however, when "60 Minutes" expressed its interest in doing the story. She thanked its senior producer, telling him "60 Minutes" was the "last broadcast with balls." Borjesson put the residue sample in the producer's desk for safekeeping until she could locate a lab.
The FBI 302 tells the dispiriting story of what happened next. Two special agents visited CBS and talked to a senior attorney, Howard Jaeckel. Jaeckel told the FBI that "disclosing a source is very sensitive to us."
That much perfunctory business out of the way, Jaeckel and CBS eagerly cooperated with the FBI to the point of deep-sixing any scheduled production on the subject and meekly handing over the untested residue sample.
Abandoned by the last broadcast with balls, James and Elizabeth Sanders were charged with conspiracy under a law that had been enacted to discourage scavengers and souvenir hunters, not reporters.
At the time of their arraignment on Long Island, none among the media managed to pose even one First Amendment question. The reporters found it much more comfortable to frame the Sanders' transgression as simple theft.
When the Sanders' lawyer attempted to bring this issue into focus, Newsday's Bob Kessler argued the government line, insisting the Justice Department had not found sufficient evidence to declare James Sanders a journalist entitled to First Amendment protection.
This shocked Sanders in that the Riverside Press-Enterprise article had identified him as an "investigative reporter," detailed his previous nonfiction books, and described his inquiry into the TWA 800 investigation over the preceding five months.
Another reporter asked the attorney why his client did not immediately return the residue to the NTSB and turn Stacey in to the FBI. Sanders shook his head in disbelief. Was it only a generation ago that the New York Times made Daniel Ellsberg a hero by publishing the purloined and fully classified Pentagon Papers?
Of course, just four years later, as soon as a Republican re-occupied the White House, whistleblowing came roaring back into vogue with almost comic ferocity.
No state secret was safe anymore, even if its revelation endangered the world.
At the end of 2002, self-parody reached something of journalistic peak when Time magazine named as its "Persons of the Year" three female whistleblowers.
"They took huge professional and personal risks to blow the whistle on what went wrong at WorldCom, Enron and the FBI," said the newly vigilant Time, "and in so doing helped remind us what American courage and American values are all about."
Airsickness bag, anyone?
For the last time, testimony and allegations are not necessarily irrefutable facts.
There is no constructive purpose in my playing your pingo pong game.
So the Government AND all the media outlets are in on the conspiracy? Puhleez!
If so, what approximate altitude do you think it exploded at?
There's also a silence about an impending invasion by Martians, but that doesn't mean "they don't want the truth to be told".
What is your “irrefutable evidence” that God exists?
"I am not married to the "missile conspiracy theory"... that is why I refer to an "initiating event"... although I do believe that a missile meets most of the evidence. My knowledge of physics was offended by the government's Zoom Climb scenario and their use of an obvious impossibility to impeach ALL of the eyewitnesses who claimed to see something climb up and hit the aircraft."
I didn't provide you with excerpts from any witness reports, only excerpts from FBI "302" reports. It appears to be standard FBI procedure to use 2 man interview teams, take notes without recording the interview, and at some later time dictate their recollections and understanding of what was said while looking over the notes, the dictation sometime thereafter being transcribed onto FBI 302 forms , then returned to them for signature.
http://www.ntsb.gov/events/TWA800/Transcript_8_23_3.htm inclides the following:
"The FBI documents, for some reason, or what the witnesses told FBI agents, the FBI did not make any transcripts or recordings of these interviews. Documents are written in the words of the FBI agents who prepared them. Some of the documents contain incomplete information or are vaguely worded. In other words, the documents may not always say what the witness said. Perhaps some of the witnesses who were classified as reporting a "streak" originating at the surface didn't actually say that. And there's another phenomenon we should consider: memory errors. It's been well-documented that people's memories change over time, and witnesses may incorporate inaccurate information into their memories. Let's talk about this in more detail: the memory is not like a videotape. Psychologist Ira Hymen of Western Washington University has written that people do not simple retrieve their memory and replay the experience. He said that people combine knowledge from various sources with their own personal experience to create memory. In other words, all memories are under construction and these constructed memories change over time."
http://www.law.emory.edu/4circuit/june96/945902.p.html [excerpt][quote] "Thus, when a government agent interviews a witness and takes contemporaneous notes of the witness' responses, the notes do not become the witness' statement- - despite the agent's best efforts to be accurate- - if the agent "does not read back, or the witness does not read, what the [agent] has written." Goldberg v. United States, 425 U.S. 94, 110- 11 n.19 (1976). And a government agent's interview notes that "merely select portions, albeit accurately, from a lengthy oral recital" do not satisfy the Jencks Act's requirement of a "substantially verbatim recital." Palermo, 360 U.S. at 352. [end quote] In summary, when the only evidence of what a witness supposedly saw and/or said is the 302 report of FBI agents, the witness cannot be "impeached".
"I also saw one of the two airings of the now disappeared amateur video tape that showed the apparent missile."
No irrefutable evidence has ever been presented by anyone that any such video ever expisted.
What specific evidence are you referring too?
bttt
Your post speaks for itself.
I repeat: For those of us who SAW the video, no "irrefutable evidence" that it existed is needed.
I never said YOU DID... I am fully aware of the idiotic fact that apparently the FBI cannot afford tape recorders for use in the field. So what was the flurry of citations about how the FBI creates their hearsay "Witness Reports" which are called "302" reports?
You both say the huge firball exploded at approximately 7,000 feet - which was about 6,800 feet below the initial event.
Frankly my boy, you seem to have a large problem with understanding common english. - My interest in those reports, and my finding them credible, [why would the Ken & Sven lie?] does not mean I agree [or imply] that a fireball exploded at approximately 7,000 feet.
You really do need rest, - and that professional help.
Your comments appeared to me to imply
Obviously, that is exactly the big problem here. What ~appears~ to you is not apparent to the rest of us here, who have logical doubts about certain aspects of what the gov't says happened that night.
that you disagree with Swordmaker's estimate that the huge fireball exploded at about 7,000 feet.
If so, what approximate altitude do you think it exploded at?
Read it again:
My interest in those reports, and my finding them credible, [why would the Ken & Sven lie?] does not mean I agree [or imply] that a fireball exploded at approximately 7,000 feet. - I also find ~interesting & credible~ the fact that the investigating agencies simply ignored Sven & Ken.
Get it yet?
Swordmaker:
I never said YOU DID... I am fully aware of the idiotic fact that apparently the FBI cannot afford tape recorders for use in the field. So what was the flurry of citations about how the FBI creates their hearsay "Witness Reports" which are called "302" reports?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gotta love trying to explain logical doubt [in gov't investigations] to someone that only has unquestioning faith in them.
Sure they can. Here's some more background on that subject:
http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/1998/jan1598.htm [quote]
QUESTION: Ms. Reno, an off-the-wall question here.
QUESTION: Ms. Reno, an off-the-wall question here.
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: After the Nichols trial, there was some concern on the part of some of the jurors there about the fact -- and this comes up from time to time -- that the FBI does not transcribe interviews, it does this form 302. And every once in a while somebody says, you know, that it is not the best evidence, 302's are summaries of what something thinks somebody said. And people, every once in a while, look at whether the FBI should change that.
Is that anything that is being looked at? During the time you have been Attorney General, has anyone ever suggested that the FBI ought to change that practice?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: I have heard it on occasions and have discussed it with Director Freeh. I cannot discuss it in the context of this particular case.
QUESTION: But as a general matter, is that something that is pretty much a dead letter now?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: As always, we continue to review each issues, the circumstances of the issue in the context it arises, to see what is appropriate. But, again, with respect to this matter, in this case, I cannot discuss it.
QUESTION: Yes, but as a general matter, does it strike you as a good idea, the way the FBI does the 302's? Do you see any need to change that?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: I think, each case, you have got to look at it on a case-by-case basis, and I think that is what the Bureau does.
QUESTION: Are you saying that they sometimes use a tape recorder?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: Again, I think you have to look at the specific examples of each case and make the best judgment of what is right in that case.
QUESTION: (Off microphone) -- some have suggested the FBI should no longer use this form 302, and should go to a transcription of interviews. Would that be a good idea, in your view?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: Again, you are going to have to look at the whole matter: each case, when you interview, who you interview, what the circumstances are.
QUESTION: But the FBI has a policy that applies to all cases all the time, that they do not tape record their interviews.
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: I will be happy to check with Director Freeh and clarify anything that I have said. But, again, I cannot comment on this particular case. And I think you have got to look at the larger picture. [end quote]
* * * * * * * * * *
Los Angeles Times 7-31-2001
Hearings Open on Mueller
Senate: Bush's pick to head the FBI tells panel his "highest priority" is to restore public's trust in the battle-weary bureau.
[excerpt] " . . . . . he said he would consider expanded tape-recording of FBI interviews to give its investigations greater credibility--another idea the bureau has resisted through the years."[end excerpt]
In summary, most have considered 302s to be "witness reports" but they're not. The only witness report referred to in this thread is the personally prepared report of Faret & Wendell.
Here is a question I would like answered. If it was, indeed, a missile shootdown by terrorists, why has it not happened again in the past ten years? Terrorists tend to go with what works until it doesn’t work anymore.
It is not a matter of being able to get surface-to-air missiles; they are available for the right money in the right country. Also, it’s not a matter of not being able to get them into this country, as our borders are porous, especially if they come through Canada.
So if terrorists are able to get the missiles and get them into the US, why has that not happened more often? Perhaps the real answer is that it was not a shootdown, but actually bad wiring.
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