Former NSA and CIA chief Hayden has never accounted for 9/11

[noise]

The NSA's conduct before 9/11 was very strange. The basic story given to the public was that the NSA didn't alert the FBI that al Qaeda operatives were inside the US because they were worried about civil liberty violations. Yet James Bamford, a journalist considered very knowledgeable on the NSA, is on the record stating that this explanation doesn't make sense because the NSA could either have applied for a FISA warrant or told the FBI so they could apply for the warrant.

Q: What do you believe are the principal reasons for the NSA's refusal to hand over the information on the two 9/11 hijackers to the FBI? Was it legal? Bureaucratic? And does that culture persist despite the improved communications between agencies?
Anonymous

Bamford: In my view, the principal reason that the NSA failed to pass key information on to the CIA and FBI was Gen. Hayden's reluctance to involve NSA in anything domestic—even though he had an obligation to pass this information on and there was no legal prohibition against it. He could have easily obtained a FISA warrant to eavesdrop on al Mihdhar's and al Hazmi's international calls, and the FBI could have gotten a FISA warrant to tap into their domestic calls. Had that been done, the agencies would almost certainly have discovered that a terrorist plot was under way.

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DR: NSA has long had all these relationships with the telecommunications companies, as well. One thing that confused me: Before 9/11, while Hayden was supposedly fighting against any eavesdropping on Americans, you write, the NSA was trying to convince one telecom, Qwest Communications, to help the agency conduct domestic surveillance. Those two don’t fit.

JB: It would’ve been nice if everything fit into a nice little package, but it didn’t. That was one of the outlying issues. The time line seemed to be off. You know, I could see [Hayden] doing that after 9/11, but before 9/11 he was very careful. It’s hard to say. Again, I’m just one guy trying to write this book. But that’s why there really needs to be a congressional investigation into what went on at NSA.

The only thing I can think of is that [Hayden] may not have been trying to get access to the actual voice conversations. What he may have been trying to get from Qwest was their database of subscribers — subscriber names, subscriber telephone numbers. It’s one of the things that NSA has always tried to get. I mean, going back to the early days, they had the world’s largest collection of telephone books.

Hayden would’ve known that was at least questionable, if not illegal, because I think he made a comment about that very kind of access before 9/11.

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Hayden was head of the CIA when the executive summary of CIA IG 9/11 internal review was released. He complained about the release and stated that it was a distraction and was nothing but an effort to "replow old ground." In fact the public has never been told why pre 9/11 investigations were obstructed at the NSA, CIA and FBI. Instead guys like Hayden constantly exploit 9/11 to justify police state tactics knowing they can get away with it because there has never been a credible investigation into the intelligence community's pre 9/11 conduct. We also have officials tell us that if we had X power before 9/11 the attacks could have been prevented. Like Hayden they are able to get away with this sort of garbage because the public is prevented from understanding why 9/11 wasn't prevented when the intelligence community had all the necessary power required to do so.

How much longer can officials keep exploiting the people murdered on their watch? How sick is it for these officials to constantly do this and never be held accountable?

[dkf]

1. It's the source of all their power. Of course they feel no need to explain anything.

[noise]

2. I really don't understand

how anyone in the media can cover another 9/11 anniversary without feeling ashamed. At what point does Hayden have to explain why al Qaeda operatives were free to plot 9/11 for 20 months inside the US? Does it make any sense in the world to pretend Hayden's credibility on the necessity of a police state is not questionable?