Follow the FISA; Ashcroft's Justice fell asleep over Moussaoui case, pt. 1

[skip fox]

Eleanor Hill's (Staff Director, Joint Inquiry Staff) 24 Sept. 2002 testimony on Moussaoui case places the blame on a "misunderstanding" of what constitutes a "foreign power"; i.e., FBI headquarters mistakenly believed–and conveyed to Minneapolis office–that an FISA request had to link the individual under investigation to a foreign power

Hill's is the most extensive and detailed explanation for FBI's refusal to request a FISA warrant from The Justice Department and worth a careful reading. It may have false testimony in it, but it is thorough. If some of the agents or witnesses lied, then this is the testimony which will haunt them. Hill does NOT address (notably) the numbers of FISA requests sent to DoJ under Ashcroft prior to 9/11 compared to the number of requests forwarded during a comparable period under Reno.

http://burningbush.netfirms.com/hill_3.html

<snip>

Thus, the RFU agent told the Minneapolis agents that they. needed to somehow connect Moussaoui to al-Qa'ida, which he. believed was a "recognized" foreign power. This led the. Minneapolis agents to attempt to gather information showing that. the Chechen rebels were connected to al-Qa'ida.

Unfortunately this dialogue was based on a misunderstanding of FISA. The FBI's Deputy General Counsel told the Joint Inquiry Staff that the term."recognized foreign power" has no meaning under FISA and that the FBI can obtain a search warrant under FISA for an agent of gay international terrorist group, including the Chechen rebels. But because of the misunderstanding Minneapolis spent the better part of three weeks trying to connect the Chechen group to al-Qa'ida.


. . .

After the edit was complete, the RFU agent briefed the FBI Deputy General Counsel. The Deputy General Counsel told the Joint Inquiry Staff that he agreed with the RFU agent that there was insufficient information to show that Moussaoui was an agent of a foreign power, but that the issue of a "recognized" foreign power did not come up.

<snip>


http://slate.msn.com/?id=2070287




COLEEN ROWLEY: FBI HEADQUARTERS IMPEDED FISA REQUEST FOR ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI WARRANT AND REWROTE MEMO

The clearest and most detailed story on the exact steps taken for a FISA in the Moussaoui case:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/05/27/time.fbi/index.html

<snip>

With Moussaoui in custody, the Minneapolis FBI agents began hunting for information on the suspect's past. In the late 1990s, it turns out, French police had placed Moussaoui on a watch list: using London as his base, Moussaoui shuttled in and out of Kuwait, Turkey and Continental Europe, forming ties with radical Islamist groups and recruiting young men to train and fight the jihad in Chechnya. French intelligence officials also believed Moussaoui spent time in Afghanistan, and his last trip before arriving in the U.S. last February was to Pakistan. A French justice official says the government gave the FBI "everything we had" on Moussaoui, "enough to make you want to check this guy out every way you can. Anyone paying attention would have seen he was not only operational in the militant Islamist world but had some autonomy and authority as well."

The Minneapolis agents agreed. Within days of receiving the French intelligence report, Rowley writes, they "became desperate" to probe the laptop computer they seized from Moussaoui and "conduct a more thorough search of his personal effects." As Rowley describes it, the agents then encountered the first in the series of "roadblocks" thrown up by their superiors in Washington that, she says, ultimately scuttled their attempts to investigate Moussaoui. They wanted to obtain a search warrant for the laptop under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; under the law, the bureau had to prove Moussaoui was an agent of a terrorist group or a foreign power. In her memo, Rowley maintains that before Sept. 11, the Minneapolis agents had "certainly established," based on French sources and other intelligence, that Moussaoui "had affiliations with radical fundamentalist groups and activities connected to Osama bin Laden."

But officials in Washington disagreed. Rowley blasts the FBI for failing to team up with other federal agencies, such as the CIA, that could have gathered more intelligence to buttress the case against Moussaoui. But a senior Administration official told TIME last week that the bureau did go to the CIA "and asked for what it had"; in late August, the agency passed along reports from Paris that "this guy did have extremist views, but it didn't say al-Qaeda or anything like that." French intelligence sources concede that in the pre-9/11 world, explicit references to bin Laden might not have been made. Believing the evidence against Moussaoui was insufficient, the bureau supervisors rebuffed the Minneapolis effort to search the laptop.

Rowley and her colleagues continued to plead their case. Her memo rails against but doesn't name a handful of midlevel officials who "almost inexplicably" blocked "Minneapolis' by now desperate efforts to obtain a FISA search warrant... HQ personnel brought up almost ridiculous questions in their apparent efforts to undermine the probable cause." One supervisor complained that there might be plenty of men named Zacarias Moussaoui in France; how did the agents know this was the same man? (The agents checked the Paris phone books and found but one Moussaoui.) At another point the field office tried to bypass their bosses altogether and alert the CIA's Counterterrorism Center; Rowley says FBI officials chastised the agents for going behind their backs. She reserves her toughest words for a supervisor who repeatedly belittled the French intelligence on the case. Rowley claims that in late August the supervisor did forward the FISA request to lawyers at the National Security Law Unit, an FBIHQ office that vets warrant proposals before passing them on to the Justice Department. But the supervisor "deliberately further undercut" the request by withholding "intelligence information he promised to add and making several changes in the wording of the information." The resistance from Washington got so bad, she writes, that agents in her office joked that some FBI officials "had to be spies or moles, like Robert Hansen , who were actually working for Osama bin Laden."

On Aug. 28, the NSLU turned down the Minnesotans' FISA request. Rowley's letter does not provide any specifics to back up the allegation that the supervisor altered or withheld evidence. (Only after Sept. 11 did the FBI successfully obtain a warrant to search Moussaoui's belongings; among other things, the search turned up crop-dusting information, a letter to Moussaoui from an al-Qaeda operative in Malaysia and a notebook that contained an alias eventually traced to the roommate of hijacker Mohamed Atta.) According to Rowley, the supervisor has since been promoted. FBI officials refused to comment on the tampering charge last week; Mueller also demurred, passing the contents of the memo to the Justice Department's inspector general.

<snip>



Rowley's May 21 memo indicates that the request was never forwarded to Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy Review (OIPR) and places the blame squarely on an FBIHQ Supervisory Special Agent (SSA)

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,249997,00.html

<snip>

Eventually on august 28, 2001, after a series of e-mails between Minneapolis and FBIHQ, which suggest that the FBIHQ SSA deliberately further undercut the FISA effort by not adding the further intelligence information which he had promised to add that supported Moussaoui's foreign power connection and making several changes in the wording of the information that had been provided by the Minneapolis Agent, the Minneapolis agents were notified that the NSLU Unit Chief did not think there was sufficient evidence of Moussaoui's connection to a foreign power. Minneapolis personnel are, to this date, unaware of the specifics of the verbal presentations by the FBIHQ SSA to NSLU or whether anyone in NSLU ever was afforded the opportunity to actually read for him/herself all of the information on Moussaoui that had been gathered by the Minneapolis Division and the French intelligence service.

In the Moussaoui case . . . the process allowed the Headquarters Supervisor to downplay the significance of the information thus far collected in order to get out of the work of having to see the FISA application through or possibly to avoid taking what he may have perceived as an unnecessary career risk.

<snip>

Although Rowley believes aversion of personal/career risk to be the major cause for the SSA to impede Minneapolis's request, there are other possibilities, such as a written or spoken directive coming from Justice to reduce all FISA requests applications. The SSA's action may reflect that directive.

If, as the data appears to show (see on number of FISA warrants year by year), there was a large decrease in FISA warrants applied for and requested after Ashcroft came to Justice (only 900+ for 2001 compared to 1000+ for 2000, and it is safe to say that most of those 900+ were post 9/11 . . . remember the roundups &c.???), then are we to believe that the reduced number is the result of a single SSA at FBIHQ? Were other Supervisory Special Agents also impeding the requests for FISA warrants? Is there a pattern? Will other field agents come forward with complaints paralleing Rowley's?

Rowley's knowledge about the changes to her FISA-Moussaoui request (and the refusal to append additional information) seems to be in real time. That is, the changes were all pre-9/11 and not after (and were, therefore, not part of a 9/11 coverup.) If so, someone at FBIHQ was feeding her that information outside of official channels. But would that person also know, in fact, if the request was sent to The Department of Justice? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

At least five sources (see below) claim that the request was forwarded to Justice. Did four reporters get the story wrong in precisely the same way? (Or did four reporters accidently get the unsanitized version, i.e. the truth?)


OTHER SOURCES INDICATE THE FISA REQUEST (IF NOT AN APPLICATION) _DID_ MAKE IT TO THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

The normal course of a request-application-warrant:

http://www2.mnbar.org/benchandbar/2001/nov01/terrorism-feature.htm

<snip>

Applications are forwarded from the investigator through the federal agency conducting the intelligence investigation. After the responsible federal agency approves a FISA application, it is forwarded to the Office of Intelligence Policy Review (OIPR) at the Department of Justice. OIPR thereafter performs an independent review of the application to determine whether it contains all information mandated by statute.

Upon approval by OIPR, the application is forwarded to the specially created FISA court. Applications submitted to the FISA court must also contain a certification from a Department of Justice official that the information sought is "foreign intelligence information" and that it cannot be obtained by other means.

<snip>


Although a majority of sources indicate that the request/application in the Moussaoui case was not sent to the Justice Department, such as:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134460617_moussaoui24.html

<snip>

. . . officials at FBI headquarters turned down the request, saying they did not have enough evidence to act. They refused to pass the request along to the Justice Department and the FISA court. . . .

<snip>


a number of other sources indicate, rather unambiguously, that it was Justice's attorneys, not agents or attorneys at the FBI, who turned down the request:

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/2001/october/ww_intel.htm

<snip>

The FBI went to its Justice Department superiors for a warrant to allow it to collect intelligence on. what appeared to be a criminal conspiracy or terrorist planning. It was denied. The Justice. Department Office of Intelligence and Policy Review (OIPR) refused to take the case to a judge who could consider a warrant request.

<snip>

and

http://www.humanevents.org/articles/10-01-01/robinson.html

<snip>

On September 1, the FBI received information from French intelligence that the illegal alien Moussaoui had spent two months in Pakistan, just before coming to the United States. The cable also noted that Pakistan is often a jumping-off point for terrorists seeking training in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden's worldwide al Qaeda organization.

With this damning information in hand, the investigating agents believed they needed to gather more intelligence about what looked to be a possible national security threat. They went to their superiors at the Department of Justice for permission to seek a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant that would let them collect intelligence on what appeared to be a criminal conspiracy or terrorist planning.

Despite the already considerable evidence they had gathered on Moussaoui, they were turned down just three weeks before September 11.

The Justice Department Office of Intelligence and Policy Review (OIPR) refused to take the case to a judge who could consider the warrant request.

. . .

Under FISA, the FBI has to go to OIPR before the bureau can seek approval from a judge to conduct electronic surveillance of suspected foreign agents. OIPR is supposed to help agents and represent them before the special FISA court.

. . .

According to testimony before and findings by the National Commission on Terrorism, however, the OIPR acts as an adversary, not an aid: "OIPR has not traditionally viewed its role as assisting the FBI to meet the standards for FISA applications in the same way that the Criminal Division of DoJ assists the FBI investigators to meet the standards for a wiretap," said the commission report.

For agents this can lead to profound frustration.

OIPR's take on FISA, according to a just-released General Accounting Office report, makes it difficult for the FBI to coordinate investigations within Justice: "Criminal Division officials believe these concerns, while well-intentioned, are overly cautious."

The Justice bureaucracy brags that it has almost never been turned down by the court in a FISA warrant request. But this, say experts, is a measure of the timidness of the Justice attorneys in deciding to make requests, not a mark of legal expertise.

"As I said many times , I think it is better for a judge to say no, not a departmental attorney," says John Lewis, former assistant director of the FBI's National Security Division, which has oversight on counter-terrorism.

What is odd about DoJ's reluctance to make all but the most open-and-shut warrant requests under FISA is that the FISA standard is actually less stringent than that governing other warrants. "The standard is ‘reasonable suspicion' the person may be involved in undermining national security," says Lewis. Or to put it in the words of the National Commission's Chairman L. Paul Bremer, OIPR is "needlessly restrictive of the statute."

Justice overseeing the FISA process is "slow and burdensome," the commission found.

<snip>



Townhall's Walter Williams reflects the above story:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20011010.shtml

and,

http://www.pointofview.net/ar_crippled.html

<snip>

With all of this information in hand, the investigating agents wanted to gather more information. They went to their superiors at the Justice Department for permission to seek a FISA warrant that would let them collect more intelligence. Despite the considerable evidence of a what appeared to be a criminal conspiracy or terrorist planning, they were turned down. Shortly thereafter, September 11 took place.

<snip>


and,

http://www.msnbc.com/news/636610.asp?cp1=1

<snip>

Oct. 1 — Top Justice Department and FBI officials turned down a request by Minneapolis FBI agents early last month for a special counterintelligencesurveillance warrant on a suspected Islamic terrorist who officials now believe may have been part of the Sept. 11 plot to attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon, NEWSWEEK has learned.

<snip>


Further, explaining the protocol for request-application-warrant, John F. McManus also indicates that the Moussaoui request reached Justice:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2001/12-03-2001/vo17no25_security.htm

<snip>

Under FISA, the chief justice of the United States is required to appoint seven judges to a super-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court whose function is to grant permission to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists. FBI requests to this court must first be approved by the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy Review (OIPR) and the Attorney General. If the request is OK'd at that level, OIPR attorneys bring the matter to the FISA court, whose lawyers are well-known adversaries of the FBI. It was here that the Minnesota agents who wanted to look more deeply into Zacarias Moussaoui's records received their initial rebuff. Their request never even got to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

<snip>


Is some agent or group of agents at FBI headquarters going to "take the fall" for Justice's inaction, petulance (in response to Justice Lamberth–see below), and/or reluctance to investigate Middle-Eastern nationals?

Connect the dots.

Even if it did not reach Justice, the blame might lie in a directive (written or spoken) by The Department of Justice to the FBI discouraging FISA warrants. (See below, NUMBER OF FISA WARRANTS GRANTED BY YEAR, which indicates a suspiciously low number for 2001.) Why were so few such warrants granted in Ashcroft's first seven months in office (again, see below)? Did the FBI change? Did the problem of terrorism change? And/or did the administration at Justice change? The only answer we know for sure is that Justice changed. Mueller was also the new Director and his priorities were not counter-terrorism, as his budgetary decisions indicate, but he came on board too recently (before 9/11) to be held accountable for the Agency in this matter.

Rowley blames, primarily, a single Supervisory Security Agent (SAA), but could a single person be responsible for hundreds of requests not being sent to Justice? Or, more likely, were numbers of SSAs dissuading FBIHQ from sending up requests? Again, a directive from Justice is the most likely cause.


BACKGROUND


The story:

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/2001/october/ww_intel.htm

<snip>

According to Matthew Robinson, in his Oct. 1 article, "FBI Forbidden to Tape Hijack Suspect," in Human. Events, on Aug. 17, the FBI detained Zacarias Moussaoui for immigration violation. He was the man. who paid $8,000 in cash to a flight school for lessons on flying a Boeing 747, and he was uninterested. in learning takeoff and landins. On Sept. 1, the FBI received French intelligence that Moussaoui had. spent two months in Pakistan just prior to coming to the United States and among his possessions. when arrested was a manual on crop-dusting.

The FBI went to its Justice Department superiors for a warrant to allow it to collect intelligence on. what appeared to be a criminal conspiracy or terrorist planning. It was denied. The Justice. Department Office of Intelligence and Policy Review (OIPR) refused to take the case to a judge who could consider a warrant request.

According to a just-released General Accounting Office report, OIPR makes it difficult for the FBI to. coordinate investigations within the Justice Department: "Criminal Division officials believe these. (OIPR) concerns, while well-intentioned, are overly cautious." The Moussaoui case is the rule rather. than the exception where, a National Commission on Terrorism said, "OIPR does not generally. consider the past activities of the surveillance target in determining whether the FISA probable cause. test is met."

<snip>



The recent 60 Minutes' story (excellent investigative reporting):

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/08/60II/main508362.shtml

<snip>

The FBI was sure. Moussaoui was up to something. They actually discussed whether he was. plotting to crash a plane into a building in New York City. It was a hunch and. a brilliant one. They wanted to search Moussaoui's laptop and belongings. But they couldn't without a warrant. So the agents asked FBI headquarters in. Washington to try to get a special search warrant under a law called the. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — or FISA for short.

. . .

To get the search warrant, the FBI needed evidence to link Moussaoui to a. specific terrorist group. A computer search at the National Security Agency. and at the FBI, and CIA found nothing. Moussaoui is a French citizen of. Moroccan descent, so the FBI asked French intelligence what they had.

The French had reason to link Moussaoui to Osama bin Laden's organization. 60 Minutes talked with several sources in French intelligence and they all agree on three points. First, back as early as 1995 French agents traced Moussaoui to Afghanistan on what they believe was a trip to an Al Qaeda camp. Second, in 1999, the French put Moussaoui on a watch list of potential terror suspects. Third, in 2000, French intelligence followed Moussaoui to Pakistan. They believe he went to see a man named Abu Jaffa—a top lieutenant to Osama bin Laden.

Jean-Louis Bruguiere is a French judge and one of the world's top terror investigators. The law prevents him from talking about classified intelligence related to Moussaoui, but he did tell 60 Minutes that French agents were closely watching French citizens in Afghanistan.

"We know that people were training in Afghanistan to come back in Europe and be able to set up, organize and run terrorist networks," he says.

Was Moussaoui placed on a watch list of terrorist suspects in 1999? "If by a watch list you mean everyone who could be of interest to the security services, well then probably Mr. Moussaoui is on that list," Bruguiere says.

Bruguiere is famous for being a step ahead of most other terror investigators—including one case similar to the Moussaoui investigation. In 1999 Bruguiere wanted to question Al Qaeda's Ahmed Ressam, who was living in Canada. The Canadians refused and Ressam was next seen in Washington state with a trunk load of explosives meant to bomb the Los Angeles airport. Ressam was convicted last year. Bruguiere says that when the FBI asked about Moussaoui, French intelligence was eager to help.

"For this particular case, I can't discuss the specific details. But overall all the information we had, we handed it over," he says.

"We gave them everything we had," says Bruguiere. "Or what we knew when these requests were made."
.
. . .

The French had a thick file on Moussaoui. But U.S. government sources tell us the FBI never received all the information from the French. These sources say the French sent only a few pages to FBI headquarters that described Moussaoui as an Islamic extremist and dangerous—but never mentioned what the French believed about the bin Laden connections in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Three months after the attacks, FBI director Robert Mueller said this about the effort to get the search warrant. "All I can tell you is that the agents on the scene attempted to follow up aggressively. The attorneys back at FBI determined that there was insufficient probable cause for a FISA, which appears to be an accurate decision. And September 11th happened."

The FBI has characterized the quality of French information after the arrest of Moussaoui in August, as vague and sketchy - in other words, not very good.

"We don't only give general information," says Bruguiere. "We have detailed information, we give as much detail as we know. If the FBI thinks that the information is valuable, that's its own responsibility."
.
. . . the end of August, after a series of meetings at headquarters, FBI lawyers decided they would not even try to get a warrant to search Moussaoui's things.

<snip>

[skip fox]

1. Follow the FISA, pt. 2

MOUSSAOUI'S COMPUTER AND POSSESSIONS WHICH MAY HAVE LEAD TO DISCOVERY OF 9/11 PLOTS

What did Moussaoui have in possession and on computer which may have alerted authorities to terror attack of 9/11 had they obtained a FISA (from indictment)?

The judge at Moussaoui's trial is trying to find out why the FBI didn't find Moussaoui's e-mail records:

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGATSI5EF5D.html

Guy Taylor, for the Washington Times, reports that prosecutors claim the FBI did not discover such records:

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020905-20283603.htm


<snip>

Federal prosecutors said yesterday that FBI searches of a computer once owned by Zacarias Moussaoui turned up no evidence that the accused September 11 conspirator had used a Hotmail e-mail account before the terror attacks.
"The United States was never aware of 'xdesertman @hotmail.com' account until July 2002, when the defendant listed it in one of his pleadings," prosecutors said in a court motion

<snip>

Perhaps the FBI DID find those records post-9/11 when they were finally granted a FISA warrant to look at Moussaoui's computer, but realize that if they showed the evidence it would indicate that they could have prevented the 9/11 attacks if they had been given a FISA warrant when they requested one, so two weeks previous to 9/11. They may now be illegally suppressing the evidence since will increase scrutiny on why a FISA warrant was not granted.


Moussaoui indictment itself only included:

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/mous_indict.html

<snip>

73. On or about August 16, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI possessed, among other things:

two knives;

a pair of binoculars;

flight manuals for the Boeing 747 Model 400;

a flight simulator computer program;

fighting gloves and shin guards;

a piece of paper referring to a handheld Global Positioning System receiver and a camcorder;

software that could be used to review pilot procedures for the Boeing 747 Model 400;

a notebook listing German Telephone #1, German Telephone #2, and the name "Ahad Sabet;"

letters indicating that MOUSSAOUI is a marketing consultant in the United States for Infocus Tech ;

a computer disk containing information related to the aerial application of pesticides; and

a hand-held aviation radio.

<snip>

But the indictment is, tellingly, incomplete:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A531-2002May23.html

<snip>

The hard drive of Moussaoui's computer, which was finally searched several hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, was found to include detailed information on crop-dusting and on the type of jetliner hijacked. The computer also included the names of Moussaoui associates in Singapore and elsewhere that could have opened new paths for investigators, two sources said.

<snip>

On June 6, in The Washington Post, we learn that there were letters and a notebook:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2607-2002Jun5.html

<snip>

A notebook and correspondence of. Moussaoui's not only appears to. link him to the main
hijacking cell in. Hamburg, Germany, but also to an. al Qaeda associate in Malaysia. whose
activities were monitored by. the CIA more than a year before. the terror attacks on New
York. and Washington.

. . .
The evidence they allegedly found included a computer disk containing information related to crop-dusting; the phone numbers in Germany of Ramzi Binalshibh, an al Qaeda fugitive who allegedly helped finance the plot. . . .

One of the most tantalizing pieces of information was correspondence identifying Moussaoui as a "marketing consultant" for a Malaysian computer technology firm, Infocus Tech. The letters were signed by "Yazid Sufaat, Managing Director," and stipulated that Moussaoui was to receive a $2,500-per-month allowance.



That connection, it now appears, could have proved critical. Sufaat, a Malaysian microbiologist,, provided his Kuala Lumpur condominium for a "terrorism summit" attended by Alhazmi and another Sept. 11 hijacker, Khalid Almihdhar, in January 2000, according to CIA and FBI officials. The gathering was also attended by a man later identified as one of the leading suspects in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.

Moussaoui stayed at the same condo eight months later, The Post reported in February.

<snip>

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/WTC_Investigation011211.html

<snip>

"They also found notes and phone numbers linked to Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, who had Atta stay with him in Hamburg, Germany"

<snip>

And,

http://www.crimelynx.com/mousswarn.html

<snip>

The officials say a lack of evidence prohibited them from searching a laptop computer that
contained information about jetliners. . . .

<snip>

There was also:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/05/27/time.fbi/index.html

<snip>

a letter to Moussaoui from an al-Qaeda operative in Malaysia and a notebook that contained an alias eventually traced to the roommate of hijacker Mohamed Atta

<snip>

There seems to also have been information about wind patterns over NYC:

http://www.americasnewspaper.com/editorials.shtml

<snip>

Agents in Minneapolis who had seized Mr. Moussaoui's computer asked FBI headquarters in Washington for a warrant to open it and sought another to tap his phone. Had they done so, they might have learned that New York was a target, and that he was studying wind patterns over the city.

<snip>

He also had a flight-deck videos from Ohio Pilot Store (same as Atta) for a 747 model 200. It is odd that the indictment is selective in the above list. What else is omitted from indictment list? Will it come out in trial, or will this evidence be entered in closed court? (Early reports about the hard drive of Moussaoui's laptop included seating charts for a 747, terminal charts, and airline schedules. The links to these no longer exist.)


A readable account of Moussaoui's "career" (claims only crop dusting information on laptop):

http://www.cmonitor.com/stories/news/recent2002/moussaoui03311582_2002.shtml





FISA BACKGROUND



A pdf site with questions and answers on FISA from a legal perspectives:

http://www.netcaucus.org/books/surveillance2001/docs/EFF_FISA.pdf

http://www2.mnbar.org/benchandbar/2001/nov01/terrorism-feature.htm


Overview and the process for obtaining a FISA warrant:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-093001fisa.story




NUMBERS OF FISA WARRANTS GRANTED BY YEAR

The Electronic Privacy Information Center provides number of FISA warrants from 1979 to 1999:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html



From 1996-2000 4,275 applications for FISA warrants were processed and 4,275 granted:

http://www.counterpunch.org/sherman1.html



Ashcroft's own letter claims 1012 applications for FISA were successful in 2000:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2001/05/fisa2000.html

<snip>

During calendar year 2000, 1005 applications were made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for electronic surveillance and physical search. The Court approved 1003 of these applications in 2000. Two of the 1005 applications were filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in December 2000 and approved in January 2001. Nine applications were filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in calendar year 1999 and approved in calendar year 2000. Thus, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved 1012 applications in calendar year 2000. One order was modified by the Court. No orders were entered which denied the requested authority.

<snip>


According to May 20, 2002 Bush Watch:

http://www.bushwatch.net/bush.htm#feature

<snip>

Ari Fleischer says the 'dots couldn't be connected' until after passage of the USA-Patriot Act; this is complete nonsense, of course, the FBI agents in the field were prevented from connecting the dots before 9/11 because Ashcroft and the Administration had shut down the granting of FISA warrants (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). Whereas, the record of the Clinton administration and Janet Reno was that no FISA requests were refused, under Ashcroft and the Bush administration FBI field agents were unable, after repeated requests, to obtain a FISA warrant against Zacarias Moussaoui even after French Intelligence had named him as having Al Qaeda connections. Among other useful things, Moussaoui's computer held the phone number of Mohamed Atta's roommate.

<snip>


Of the 900+ FISA warrants issued in 2001, the majority were probably issued post 9/11 but the administration is keeping this figure quiet:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/oct2001/civ-o06.shtml

<snip>

Many of the requests for surveillance by the FBI, the CIA and the National Security Agency of suspected terrorists and spies are being processed by a secret court created in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The FISA court is a seven-member body appointed by the US Supreme Court, which meets every other week for two days in a soundproof conference room at the Justice Department. The Court approves secret intelligence-gathering warrants at the request of these law enforcement agencies, and uses a lower criterion for approval than the "probable cause" standard applied in other criminal matters. The target of the requested warrant is not represented at the court's hearings. It has not been made public how many secret warrants the FISA court has issued since September 11.

<snip>


We do know that post-9/11 921 people were "rounded up" ( http://www.uchastings.edu/boswell_01/Text/CRACKDOWN.htm ) which indicates highly increased activity at Justice and that the majority of FISA warrants were issued in 2001 after 9/11. (Does anyone know how many? I have heard that Ashcroft did not approve a single request, which does not seem credible and I have been unable to find any active links to this effect.)





JUDGE ROYCE LAMBERTH

Could it be that in March 2001 Judge Royce Lamberth caused FBI and Justice to reevaluate its use of FISA?


http://www.freemasonwatch.freepress-freespeech.com/secret_court.html

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U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth, chief of the seven-member FISA. court, would not agree to be interviewed, but has bristled at accusations that the.court rubber-stamps federal warrants. He challenged an American Bar. Association audience in 1997 to come up with a better system.

And Lamberth has often been critical of the government from his bench. He is said to have censured an FBI lawyer in March for one FISA warrant request,. according to The Washington Post, a censure that set off a department-wide. investigation into the way the FBI was requesting the warrants.

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and,

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0204.mencimer.html

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Last fall, Lamberth came under fire for sanctioning Justice Department lawyer Michael.Resnick for failing to provide sufficient documentation for a wiretap application in the. FISA court. The FISA court is a top-secret institution created in 1978 to oversee. warrants for domestic wiretaps issued for national security reasons rather than criminal. investigations. When the FBI wants to tap a phone, break into a house, hack into a. computer, or bug the rooms of a suspected terrorist on American soil, it applies to the. FISA court for a secret warrant.

A FISA court warrant does not require the same burden of proof that a search warrant in a criminal case does, which is one reason civil libertarians believe the FISA court is unconstitutional. Not only does it allow the government to secretly spy on its own citizens with little evidence of their guilt, its entire book of business is conducted in secrecy, leaving very little public insight into its workings. The statute creating the court contains protections to ensure that the government, in prosecuting criminal cases, does not simply go to the FISA court when it has too weak a case to secure a wiretap from a regular judge. But critics have charged that the seven-judge court is simply a rubber stamp for the government, because, since its inception, the court has denied just one wiretap application out of more than 12,000 made.

At a 1997 meeting of the American Bar Association, Lamberth, the FISA court's chief judge, said he resented the "rubber stamp" charge. He insisted that even if judges did not reject wiretap applications outright, they closely scrutinized and even revised them before approving them. "I ask questions. I get into the nitty-gritty. I know exactly what's going to be done and why," he said. "I have pen-and-inked changes myself on the things."

Lamberth proved he wasn't kidding in March last year when he censured Resnick. Unfortunately for Lamberth, after September 11, when the FBI received unexpected criticism for shoddy counterterrorist investigations, law enforcement officials blamed Lamberth. They argued that his censure had a chilling effect, making lawyers leery of seeking new wiretaps---such as the one critics say the bureau should have requested for Zacarias Moussaoui. Thought to be the "20th terrorist," Moussaoui is the Moroccan man arrested in August after he tried to learn how to fly a plane but not how to land it. (Officially, the FBI has denied that Lamberth had anything to do with the decision not to surveil Moussaoui.)

Because the whole episode is classified, it's impossible for the public to really know whether this was another case of Lamberth going ballistic over a minor bureaucratic snafu or a serious screwup by the Justice Department. Either way, civil libertarians were reassured simply to know that the judge really was exercising his oversight role on the court with an eye towards protecting constitutional rights.

"Lamberth has demonstrated a refreshing willingness to scrutinize government claims and to demand absolute accuracy from the government filings. You'd be surprised how rare that is," says Jonathan Turley, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University and one of the few lawyers actually to set foot inside the FISA court.

Turley says that with its windowless, soundproof, super-secret chamber on the sixth floor of the Justice Department, the FISA court can dangerously warp a judge's perspective. "The trappings of the court can make judges feel like an extension of the intelligence agencies. That would not be the case with Lamberth. He has a healthy skepticism... It takes a great deal of self-confidence for a judge to send back a FISA application. The thing about Lamberth is that he has never flinched. He possesses independent judgement that makes him a real protector of constitutional rights. The criticism that has been heaped on him should be a badge of honor."

The Bush administration has apparently been less pleased with Lamberth's independence. Last fall, Attorney General John Ashcroft's office sent Congress the "U.S.A. Patriot Act," sweeping anti-terrorism legislation that called for far-reaching changes in federal law enforcement. Those changes included overturning many of the rules put in place at the FBI, like those creating the FISA court, designed to protect Americans against Hoover-era domestic spying abuses. The bill (which Bush signed in October) also attempted to eliminate the provision that allowed Lamberth to send back Resnick's wiretap application.

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And yet more on Lamberth's possible role in dampening the climate for FISA requests:

http://mathforum.org/epigone/mathed-news/khigrimptwun





JUSTICE AND/OR REFLECTING THE ADMINISTRATION'S DECISION TO GO EASY ON MOUSSAOUI?

Was FISA request not made an application because FBI was told to go easy on Bin Laden associates and Saudis?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/events/newsnight/newsid_1645000/1645527.stm

http://old.smh.com.au/news/0111/07/world/world100.html

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=103&row=1

http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/071101/dlame43.asp

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1030259305

http://www.tmtmetropolis.ru/stories/2002/05/24/120.html

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/05/23/warning/index_np.html



OTHER


Notice of intent to seek death for Moussaoui (pdf format):

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/usmoussaoui032802ntc.pdf



The difficulty of prosecuting Moussaoui without compromising secrets:

http://www.crimelynx.com/mousprobe.html


MSNBC's story on Moussaoui:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/636610.asp?cp1=1

& Ashville's Global Report:

http://www.agrnews.org/issues/147/nationalnews.html


Legal information on FISA:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/ch36.html



Penthouse article on FISA court:

http://www.penthouse.com/features/9906f_secret_court/index.html


Bibliography:

http://www.h2orium.com/ils/fisa-biblio.htm


There are a couple sites that come up in an extensive Google search which appear to make the claim that Ashcroft has approved NO FISA warrants such as:

Documentation ... to the publication Security Focus, in their January 2001 ... the comparative record -Under Clinton and Reno, NO FISA ... Under Bush and Ashcroft, there seems to have ...
www.bruinzone.com/gen/messages/23373.shtml - 7k - Cached - Similar pages were found but these are no longer active either. Why?

[skip fox]

2. I'd like to keep this on front burner

in case Commission staff would like a compendium of news accounts on the Moussaoui story, along with my questions/suspecions.

[skip fox]

3. Trying to keep this going for over the weekend. Commission staffers!!!!

If the local FBI would have been given a FISA warrant to ckeck Z. Mouassaoui's computer, could 9/11 have been prevented? Did Ashcroft's DoJ deny the request? Why?

[librechik]

4. why was the Moussaui FISA singled out as unallowable

when something like 1200 other warrants were granted that year, and requirements are not very stringent?

Too me these little gears, the places where somebody had to step in and put a stop to normal routine, some person of great authority, in fact.

In Moussaui's case we know who did it and we know what happened to them--it was Rowley's supervisor, and that person recently got a promotion. (DOn't ask me to look it up. it happened)

[skip fox]

6. There were few warrants issued in the first 8 months of Bush admin.

But the evidence suggests that most of the warrants were issues post 9/11. There was a remarkable falling off of the number (which Justice won't release) between Feb. and Sept.

[Lostnote03]

5. Question????

......Is anyone familiar with a report regarding the co-pilot of the Wellstone crash???....I seem to recall a Minn.Star Tribune interview with the owner/instructor of the aviation school that Moussoui attended.....If I recall correctly he stated that the co-pilot of the Wellstone plane also attended there or was associated with the school in one capacity or another....The kicker to the story was that the co-pilot had "inadvertently" placed a CD containing the flight instructions of a commercial aircraft upon Moussouis' computor work station....The article also had some other intriguing comments from associates of the co-pilot.....This article was very unsettling to me at the time and if anyone happens to recall it, please comment upon it....Best Wishes