9/11 pair used state college to buy airfare

[Rose Siding]

The Justice Department disclosed for the first time yesterday that two of the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackers used computers at a New Jersey state college library to access the Internet and order their airplane tickets.
...
The revelation about the New Jersey library computers was made by Ken Wainstein, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, during a congressional hearing in Washington as he sought to build support for the administration's proposal to renew expiring provisions of the Patriot Act.
...
House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) said the Justice Department's disclosure "demonstrates the critical importance" of renewing the Patriot Act provisions dealing with investigations of library and bookstore records.

"Today we learned that 9/11 murderers used our public libraries to access the Internet and help plan their travel prior to 9/11," said Sensenbrenner. "We put Americans' lives at risk if we foolishly provide sanctuaries -- even in our public libraries -- for terrorists to operate."

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1114752574204761.xml

[trotsky]

1. I don't suppose anyone is going to ask the question...

If the Patriot Act had been in place prior to 9/11, would it have PREVENTED two people from buying plane tickets on a library computer terminal?

I think I know the answer to that one.

[CBGLuthier]

2. And let the war begin

No more computer access for the poor. Screw them we just can't take the chance.

Like a terrorist couldn't afford a "free" AOL account and a cheap computer.

We should also eliminate all credit cards because terrorists used them to pay for the tickets.

And lets eliminate all airline flights because terrorists used them too...

[meganmonkey]

3. Oh, god. Are they using this as justification to

monitor internet use in libraries?!

Yikes :scared:

[bleedingheart]

4. meanwhile the poor kids in our area use the public libraries to

type their papers and to access the extracurricular programming on the internet to help them with their studies.

[wellst0nev0ter]

6. Gawd Help Them If They Decided To Research Radical Islam

Actually, too late for that.

[tanyev]

5. Oh, that reminded me of this story.

An Airline Ticket for a 9/11 Hijacker Was Purchased from the OU Library Computer

Former Senator David Boren is currently president of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, where I reside. In the fall of 2001, I was talking to an OU library employee who told me that she was present when an FBI agent was interviewing her colleague. From this encounter she learned that an OU library computer terminal had been used for an online purchase of an airline ticket for a 9/11 hijacker who was on the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania. She also told me that the person who made the purchase had not been a hijacker. Contrary to expectation, he was a white American male, but he knew he was assisting the hijacking operation.
http://members.aol.com/mpwright9/sting.html

Some people were even speculating that Nick Berg had something to do with it. I had forgotten about all of that.

[rooboy]

8. THAT'S RIGHT!!! Nick Berg!

I was thinking the same thing when I saw this post. Nick Berg booked his ticket from the same library where one/some of the 9/11 hijackers had, didn't he? And wasn't there some other 'coincidence' that his email password or something was in the possession of a 9/11 hijacker, and there was some bullshit excuse that they met on a bus???

All I know is that satan's running this planet now. I CANNOT BELIEVE that people just sit back and accept this bullshit.

[Dhalgren]

9. One aspect of your related story is that the information

gleaned from the OU Library's computer was pre-Patriot Act. I work in a University Library and I know for a fact that the FBI and the SS and Federal Marshals have always been able to access records when they could show that the records were related to criminal activity. The Patriot Act is not needed for that kind of access. The supporters of this fascist crap are blowing smoke - that is not what they want the Act for. They want this thing in order to legally control the population. It has nothing to do with criminal investigation - that has been possible all along.

[DURHAM D]

13. Do you know who Senator Boren was having breakfast with at

the time of the crash into the World Trade Center ?

He was with George Tenet - can't remember if they were in DC or NY hotel room. By the way, George's mentor was Boren and Boren is very much responsible for George's meteoric rise. (No pun intended)

[sui generis]

7. what the fcuk?

clearly the solution then is to close public libraries. Wouldn't want to be funding terrorists. Wouldn't be prudent.

Why do I sense a straw man here?

[TNOE]

10. WHICH 2 HIJACKERS WOULD THAT BE?

Any of the 7 that turned up alive elsewhere? Any of the ZERO hijacker's names on the planes' manifest list? or Any of the ZERO arab bodies found on the planes during autopsies?

Which were the supposed 2?

[DulceDecorum]

14. A witness at the Delray Beach Public Library in Florida

says he saw the guys in the FBI photos in the library, using the computers.

Friday, April 29, 2005
"Wail al Shehri and Waleed al Shehri entered the library one afternoon in July of 2001 and asked to use the library's computers to access the Internet," said Wainstein. "After about an hour, a third man, Marwan al Shehhi, joined the two."
"A witness, who recognized photos of the three individuals that ran in newspaper articles after Sept. 11, provided the information about the Delray library visit," he said. "While no records exist to confirm the hijackers' visit ... , the timing, location and behavior described by the witness are consistent with other information gathered in the course of the investigation."
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1114752574204761.xml

No damn records, huh?
Recognized photos?

Sunday, 23 September, 2001, 12:30 GMT 13:30 UK
Another of the men named by the FBI as a hijacker in the suicide attacks on Washington and New York has turned up alive and well.
The identities of four of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in doubt.
Saudi Arabian pilot Waleed Al Shehri was one of five men that the FBI said had deliberately crashed American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Centre on 11 September.
His photograph was released, and has since appeared in newspapers and on television around the world.
Now he is protesting his innocence from Casablanca, Morocco.
He told journalists there that he had nothing to do with the attacks on New York and Washington, and had been in Morocco when they happened. He has contacted both the Saudi and American authorities, according to Saudi press reports.
He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach in the United States, and is indeed the same Waleed Al Shehri to whom the FBI has been referring.
But, he says, he left the United States in September last year, became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training course in Morocco.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

[Benhurst]

11. The Bush Crime Family is so cheap. The least they could have

done was buy them laptops.

[DulceDecorum]

12. Any College Republicans at either of those schools?

Any wannabe Roves?

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. Two 9/11 Hijackers Used College Computers

April 29, 2005, 3:33 PM EDT

NEWARK, N.J. -- Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers used a public-access computer at a New Jersey college library to buy tickets for the plane they seized and crashed into the Pentagon, a federal prosecutor said.

Ken Wainstein, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, made the disclosure Thursday during a congressional hearing in which the Bush administration pushed for renewal of provisions of the Patriot Act that make it easier for investigators to obtain library and other records.

Wainstein said the hijackers used the computers four times in August 2001, including once on Aug. 30 to check on reservations that had been made for Sept. 11. He said the Internet accounts used were registered to hijackers Nawaf Alhamzi and Khalid Almihdhar.

Wainstein did not identify the college. But an official with William Paterson University in Wayne -- the state college closest to where the hijackers lived just before the attacks -- said investigators had seized several public-access computers from the library shortly after the attacks.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-attacks-university,0,4576656.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[RC]

16. This doesn't sound right.

Too neat. too clean. Besides there is no proof a plane did hit the Pentagon. You know, plane parts like seats, evidence of TWO engines. Little things like that.

[BattyDem]

18. So because of this, we're supposed to let the government monitor ...

All public access computers and all bookstore and library records? Give me a break!

There are millions of public access computers in this country in schools, colleges, libraries, internet cafes, even the shopping malls in my area have computer terminals for people to check email and/or look up something on the internet. There are also millions of people who use computers at their place of employment. You can't possibly monitor every single one for "suspicious activity" especially when that activity is something common like buying an airline ticket.

Not every person in this country has a computer and/or can afford a computer - so they use public access computers to check email, surf the net and do online shopping. It's not a crime. You will never convince me that if law enforcement had the ability to monitor these computers prior to 9/11, an airline ticket purchase would have raised a red flag. A PDB titled "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The US" didn't raise a red flag! Millions of dollars in "put options" were placed on two airlines in the days prior to 9/11 and that didn't raise a red flag! Middle Eastern men attended a flight school, told the instructer that they didn't want to learn how to take off or land, only how to fly the plane ... and that didn't raise a red flag! But an airline ticket purchase on a college library computer would have alerted authorities of the coming attack?! Puh-leeze! :eyes:

[Frederik]

17. I suggest

Sensenbrenner have a chat with Sibel Edmonds. The FBI knew who these people were and what they were up to, even without the Patriot Act! so obviously, there is no need for the Patriot Act.

[brettdale]

19. Bye Bye Internet privacy and Library Privacy

Well we all know what they are going to try to do with this! No email is going to be safe.