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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDEBUNKING The Bush and Obama Administrations’ Justification for Mass Surveillance
The Government Actually DID Spy On the Bad Guys Before 9/11 … and the Boston Bombing
Preface: The Bush and Obama administrations both claimed that spying on Americans was justified by 9/11. Specifically, they said that they could have caught one of the 9/11 hijackers living in San Diego if they could have spied on phone calls on American soil.
However – as demonstrated below – that claim is totally false.
ProPublica notes:
In defending the NSA’s sweeping collection of Americans’ phone call records, Obama administration officials have repeatedly pointed out how it could have helped thwart the 9/11 attacks: If only the surveillance program been in place before Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. authorities would have been able to identify one of the future hijackers who was living in San Diego [named Khalid al Mihdhar].
Last weekend, former Vice President Dick Cheney invoked the same argument.
***
Indeed, the Obama administration’s invocation of the Mihdhar case echoes a nearly identical argument made by the Bush administration eight years ago when it defended the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.
The reality is different.
Initially, an FBI informant hosted and rented a room to Mihdhar and another 9/11 hijacker in 2000.
Investigators for the Congressional Joint Inquiry discovered that an FBI informant had hosted and even rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House.
As the New York Times notes:
Senator Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who is a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the White House on Tuesday of covering up evidence ….The accusation stems from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s refusal to allow investigators for a Congressional inquiry and the independent Sept. 11 commission to interview an informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who had been the landlord in San Diego of two Sept. 11 hijackers.
So mass surveillance of Americans isn’t necessary, when the FBI informant should have apprehended the hijackers.
Moreover, the NSA actually did intercept Mihdhar’s phone calls before 9/11.
We reported in 2008:
We’ve previously pointed out that the U.S. government heard the 9/11 plans from the hijackers’ own mouth. Most of what we wrote about involved the NSA and other intelligence services tapping top Al Qaeda operatives’ phone calls outside the U.S.
However, as leading NSA expert James Bamford - the Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings for almost a decade, winner of a number of journalism awards for coverage national security issues, whose articles have appeared in dozens of publications, including cover stories for the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and the only author to write any books (he wrote 3) on the NSA – reports, the NSA was also tapping the hijackers’ phone calls inside the U.S.
Specifically, hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi lived in San Diego, California, for 2 years before 9/11. Numerous phone calls between al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in San Diego and a high-level Al Qaeda operations base in Yemen were made in those 2 years.
The NSA had been tapping and eavesdropping on all calls made from that Yemen phone for years. So NSA recorded all of these phone calls.
Indeed, the CIA knew as far back as 1999 that al-Mihdhar was coming to the U.S. Specifically, in 1999, CIA operatives tailing al-Mihdhar in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, obtained a copy of his passport. It contained visas for both Malaysia and the U.S., so they knew it was likely he would go from Kuala Lumpur to America.
We asked top NSA whistleblower William Binney – a highly-credible 32-year NSA veteran with the title of senior technical director, who headed the agency’s digital data gathering program (featured in a New York Times documentary, and the source for much of what we know about NSA spying) – what he thought of the government’s claim that mass surveillance of Americans would have caught Mihdhar and prevented 9/11.
Binney responded:
Of course they could have and did have data on hijackers before 9/11. And, Prism did not start until 2007. But they could get the data from the “Upstream” collection. This is the Mark Klein documentation of Narus equipment in the NSA room in San Francisco and probably other places in the lower 48. They did not need Prism to discover that. Prism only suplemented the “Upstream” material starting in 2007 according to the slide.
Read more at:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/bush-and-obama-administrations-911-justification-for-nsa-spying-has-been-debunked.html
No, NSA Spying Did NOT Prevent a Terror Attack on Wall Street
Posted on June 19, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
NSA Grasps at Straws
In response to the revelation that the NSA has been illegally spying on all Americans for more than a decade, NSA chief General Keith Alexander claimed that the spying prevented a terrorist attack on Wall Street and the New York subway.
There’s only one problem: the claim is completely false.
The Christian Science Monitor notes today:
According to officials at the House Intelligence hearing, this plan was caught when the NSA was using its Internet intercept authority to monitor the communications of a known extremist in Yemen.
This suspect, in turn, was in contact with an individual in the United States named Khalid Ouazzani. Thus warned, the FBI investigated Mr. Ouazzani through traditional law enforcement methods, and discovered a burgeoning plot to bomb the NYSE.
“Ouazzani had been providing information and support to this plot,” FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce told lawmakers.
However, Mr. Ouazzani pleaded guilty to providing material support – in his case, money – to Al Qaeda, not to terror planning. His May 2010 plea agreement makes no mention of anything related to the New York Stock Exchange, or any bomb plot, notes David Kravets in Wired magazine.
Plus, Ouazzani’s defense attorney said Tuesday the stock market allegation was news to him.
“Khalid Ouazzani was not involved in any plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange,” attorney Robin Fowler told Wired.
How much did this bad guy give Al Qaeda? $23,000 total.
The other publicly-discussed disrupted terror plot – on the New York subway – was also not really due to government’s overbroad spying program.
The Associated Press reports:
Little was offered to substantiate claims that the programs have been successful in stopping acts of terrorism that would not have been caught with narrower surveillance. In the New York subway bombing case, President Barack Obama conceded the would-be bomber might have been caught with less sweeping surveillance.
Read more at:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/no-nsa-spying-did-not-prevent-a-terror-attack-on-wall-street.html
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dkf
(37,305 posts)
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Business and political news link to Lew Rockwell and Drudge.
The piece is comparing Obama to Cheney? Pushing the Obama = Bush nonsense?
We are NOT calling for the overthrow of the government. In fact, we are calling for the reinstatement of our government.
We are not calling for lawlessness. We are calling for an end to lawlessness and lack of accountability and a return to the rule of law.
Rather than trying to subvert the constitution, we are calling for its enforcement.
We are patriotic Americans born and raised in this country. We love the U.S. We don't seek to destroy or attack America ... we seek to restore her to strength, prosperity, liberty and respect.
We don't support or like Al Qaeda, the Taliban or any supporting groups. We think they are all disgusting.
dkf
(37,305 posts)Exclusive: The Informant Who Lived With The Hijackers
At first, FBI director Bob Mueller insisted there was nothing the bureau could have done to penetrate the 9-11 plot. That account has been modified over time--and now may change again. NEWSWEEK has learned that one of the bureau's informants had a close relationship with two of the hijackers: he was their roommate.
The connection, just discovered by congressional investigators, has stunned some top counterterrorism officials and raised new concerns about the information-sharing among U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies. The two hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, were hardly unknown to the intelligence community. The CIA was first alerted to them in January 2000, when the two Saudi nationals showed up at a Qaeda "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. FBI officials have argued internally for months that if the CIA had more quickly passed along everything it knew about the two men, the bureau could have hunted them down more aggressively.
But both agencies can share in the blame. Upon leaving Malaysia, Almihdhar and Alhazmi went to San Diego, where they took flight-school lessons. In September 2000, the two moved into the home of a Muslim man who had befriended them at the local Islamic Center. The landlord regularly prayed with them and even helped one open a bank account. He was also, sources tell NEWSWEEK, a "tested" undercover "asset" who had been working closely with the FBI office in San Diego on terrorism cases related to Hamas. A senior law-enforcement official told NEWSWEEK the informant never provided the bureau with the names of his two houseguests from Saudi Arabia. Nor does the FBI have any reason to believe the informant was concealing their identities. (He could not be reached for comment.) But the FBI concedes that a San Diego case agent appears to have been at least aware that Saudi visitors were renting rooms in the informant's house. (On one occasion, a source says, the case agent called up the informant and was told he couldn't talk because "Khalid"--a reference to Almihdhar--was in the room.) I. C. Smith, a former top FBI counterintelligence official, says the case agent should have been keeping closer tabs on who his informant was fraternizing with--if only to seek out the houseguests as possible informants. "They should have been asking, 'Who are these guys? What are they doing here?' This strikes me as a lack of investigative curiosity." About six weeks after moving into the house, Almihdhar left town, explaining to the landlord he was heading back to Saudi Arabia to see his daughter. Alhazmi moved out at the end of 2000.
In the meantime, the CIA was gathering more information about just how potentially dangerous both men were. A few months after the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, CIA analysts discovered in their Malaysia file that one of the chief suspects in the Cole attack--Tawfiq bin Attash--was present at the "summit" and had been photographed with Almihdhar and Alhazmi. But it wasn't until Aug. 23, 2001, that the CIA sent out an urgent cable to U.S. border and law-enforcement agencies identifying the two men as "possible" terrorists. By then it was too late. The bureau did not realize the San Diego connection until a few days after 9-11, when the informant heard the names of the Pentagon hijackers and called his case agent. "I know those guys," the informant purportedly said, referring to Almihdhar and Alhazmi. "They were my roommates."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2002/09/15/exclusive-the-informant-who-lived-with-the-hijackers.html
ProSense
(116,464 posts)dkf
(37,305 posts)You don't need to appreciate the blog post to gain from its links.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)dkf
(37,305 posts)Drudge. I get it.
your "blue linkies" comment didn't make your response relevant to my point that the other site links to Drudge and Lew Rockwell.
dkf
(37,305 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)dkf
(37,305 posts)Go ahead and discount what the messenger says, but you can't discount the links. Like Snowden, like you or I in fact.
msongs
(73,752 posts)TakeALeftTurn
(316 posts)Go read his article on the the secret TPP treaty - I posted that on here about 3 days ago.
He writes articles that are highly critical of the government - be they politicians on the left or the right.
He is sufficiently clued up to write a statement on his position, before someone else might accuse him of something else.
He gathers his information and links from a wide range of sources.
I can't recall him using anything from Faux News.
At any rate, that seems to be his LEAST favorite source.
He seems to use just about every other news source.
He writes well reasoned articles with plenty of evidence and links to back up his claims.
I say he.
I don't know that it is not a she.
With the kind of well thought out, reasoned logic, evident in multiple articles the author could well be a she.
usGovOwesUs3Trillion
(2,022 posts)And more would know if the MSM gave these kinda important stories the same level attention/airtime they give to gov/corp, shark attack 'stories'.
Thanks for sharing!
