More evidence shredding

[antiimperialist]

This time during the Bush administration. Not about a blowjob, but about 9/11

Are right-wingers outraged that these Bush administration officials are not in jail?
No, they aren't. This is what you should link to when they express they fake outrage about Sandy Berger's evidence shredding case.


www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6632-2004May6?language=printer

[central scrutinizer]

1. not LBN

the article is from 2004

[antiimperialist]

3. Moderator move it to the correct location

I'm paying $2.50 for 10 minutes on the internet so due to my rush I clicked on the first discussion group I saw in the list.

[leftofthedial]

2. now why would they do such a thing?

must be nothing. no big deal.

[Taverner]

4. The story gets weirder

Malloy fans will note he had on one of the traffic controllers that day and he reported the man who gave the orders was a big time Bushie.

[leftofthedial]

5. I've spoken with FAA folks (although no 9-11 flight controllers)

about various 9-11 issues

they all go pale and start stammering and say "no comment"

most of them are repukes or "independent" RW authoritarians

[LiberalFighter]

7. All of them involved should had been fired

[zulchzulu]

6. Not shredding... it's called "de-availableization procedures"

...for national security, dontcha know...

[Bolo Boffin]

8. Oh, no, not this again

A manager destroyed tapes that were made in VIOLATION of UNION RULES.

This has been debunked over and over again. Plenty of other actual Bush malfeasance to rely on without having to fake a controversy.

[John Q. Citizen]

9. Which Union rules was it in violation of? I don't recall that being posted.

How did the Union find out about the tape? I don't recall that information either.

The Union knew about the tape, but the top dogs in the FAA and the 9/11 commision didn't know anything about it?

Was there a complaint filed by one or more of the ATC involved in the taping incident?

Who was the Union official?

And why would anyone, Union, management, or whoever suppose that undisclosed "union rules" would justify the willful destruction of evidence?

And, on a broader level, why would the FAA withhold documents and information from the 9/11 commission?

edited to add- bolo, you are on this board almost 24/7 so you may already know about this. Many of the rest of us just check in occasionally, so please be patient. We don't have the time and resources that you do to be able to monitor every article that gets posted here. So even if it looks to be old to you, that doesn't mean it's old to everyone. Thanks, and keep up the good work.

[hack89]

10. Here is a NY Times story

http://www.summeroftruth.org/nyt_06may04.html

[John Q. Citizen]

15. It's interesting, in the WaPo account and in the NYT account there is some

conflicting data.

In the NYT "An F.A.A. spokesman, Greg Martin, said that his agency had cooperated with the 9/11 commission and that that was how the tape's existence had become known at the agency's headquarters."

In the WaPo "The tape's existence was never made known to federal officials investigating the attack, nor to FAA officials in Washington. Staff members of the 9/11 panel found out about the tape during interviews with some controllers who participated in the recording."

So someone is lying about how the existence of the tape came to be known.



Then, there is this from the WaPo.

"According to the report, a second manager at the New York center promised a union official representing the controllers that he would "get rid of" the tape after controllers used it to provide written statements to federal officials about the events of the day.

Instead, the second manager said he destroyed the tape between December 2001 and January 2002 by crushing the tape with his hand, cutting it into small pieces and depositing the pieces into trash cans around the building, the report said.

The tape's existence was never made known to federal officials investigating the attack, nor to FAA officials in Washington. Staff members of the 9/11 panel found out about the tape during interviews with some controllers who participated in the recording.

One controller said she asked to listen to the tape in order to prepare her written account of her experience, but one of the managers denied her request."


But the NYT claims the reason the tape was made was,...."The tape was made because the manager of the center believed that the standard post-crash procedure would be too slow for an event of the magnitude of 9/11. After an accident or other significant incident, according to officials of the union and the F.A.A., the controllers involved are relieved of duty and often go home; eventually they review the radar tapes and voice transmissions and give a written statement of what they had seen, heard and done.

People in the Ronkonkoma center at midday on Sept. 11 concluded that that procedure would take many hours, and that the controllers' shift was ending and after a traumatic morning, they wanted to go home.

The center manager's idea was to have the tape available overnight, in case the F.B.I. wanted something before the controllers returned to work the next day, according to people involved."

So we still don't know why the tape was made, (For writing reports by ATCs or for the FBI who never got it?)or why it was destroyed. (Union rules or FAA rules? and which rules? ) We do know that the managers involved were ordered to preserve all records. Which they apparently didn't do.

My belief is there was something on that tape that someone didn't want out there. Whatever it was, we will never know. It could be relevant to the whole 9/11 mystery, or it could be just something a manager felt would look bad for him or her.

Either way, it's just another example of the non-investigation of the events leading up to, during and after 9/11 that we have become accustomed to. It's simular to the non-investigation of the JFK assassination, the non-investigation of the Nixon White house, the non-investigation of Iran/Contra, the non-investigation into the S&L rip-off, the non-investigation of the Anthrax attacks, and it just keeps on going.

Our government has become one massive ongoing cover-up. The only up side is that most people know it.

We need a real investigation.

[hack89]

17. It's too late for a real investigation.

People's memories don't improve over time and if there was a conspiracy all the written evidence is long gone. Beside, what has prevented anyone with real knowledge to leak it anonymously via the internet? The NSA and CIA leaks are proof of that. Unless you believe that every single member of the US intelligence community was either in on the plot or approved of it, you have to believe that it would have been leaked as part of their guerrilla war against Bush and the neo-cons.

[John Q. Citizen]

28. Too late? There are crimes prosecuted all the time that are older than 5 years.

And most of them aren't leaked on the internet, Hack, surely you don't believe that?

Are they prosecuting the NSA and the CIA? I hadn't heard.

Good. I hope they convict. Do you have a link?

[hack89]

29. You are not paying attention

The NSA and CIA are leaking like sieves to punish Bush and Cheney for manipulating pre-war intelligence and making them look stupid. If there was government involvement they would know. And it would be leaked.

That's the biggest problem with 911 CTs - five years gone by and not a single name. Not a single detail on how it was done. Five years and still nothing more then endless analysis of internet video and parsing the NIST report. With all this attention you would think that the truth community could come up with something even remotely resembling hard evidence that would be admissible in court.

[John Q. Citizen]

31. If the government has evidence that is admissiable in court, you'd think they'd

indict someone.

But they haven't.

You want to blame that on people who are questioning the governments ever changing version of events?

Figures.

I see they let the "mastermind" of the British liquid bomb plot go "for lack of evidence." I suppose you want to blame that on me also? You never learn, do you.

Your faith in the government is kind of touching, really. It harkins back to a simpler and more innocent era.
It's faith based, but hey, you can believe what you want.

[hack89]

32. There will never be another investigation ..

and it makes no difference what you and I think. There is enough dirt to damage Democrats and Republicans both, and that reason alone is enough to ensure there will be no investigation.

[John Q. Citizen]

35. I agree with you as far as a commission style investigation goes, and for the

reasons you gave.

But I wouldn't be surprised if some ambitious prosecutor did an investigation via the grand jury route.

[Old and In the Way]

11. Pretty thin reasoning to hide behind.

The most important moment in our American history and the people who were directly engaged and recording their recollections, have their words trashed. I believe they are all now gagged from discussing that information, too. Actions that cover potential criminal wrong doing - OK....violating "union rules" to expose the truth - not OK.

[Bolo Boffin]

12. MercutioATC has explained all of this.

I think you have a star, you can do a search on it.

The manager doing the interviewing wasn't being malicious, and all the ATCs cooperated, under the circumstances. I believe someone else noticed later that it was in violation of the contracts.

The manager then took it upon himself to break the tapes apart, after all the interviewees were re-interviewed correctly. Nothing substantial was lost.

[Bryan Sacks]

13. again with the excessive credulity

Bolo, the NYT article makes it perfectly clear that it was NOT the union's rules which resulted in the destruction of the tape. The FAA's rules were apparently violated. But the FAA's rules should not necessarily govern in a situation like this. Rules are not absolute. The last line of the WaPo article nails the point: when something like this happens, the stench of impropriety persists - whether or not something is actually being covered up.

When you say 'nothing substantial was lost', you may as well be saying ' Jesus is lord and savior'. Neither statement can be verified (the tape was DESTROYED, remember).

[Bolo Boffin]

14. I think I'll go with Mercutio's word on it.

Perhaps I'm not remembering the union/FAA part right, but I find him a bit more credible on the "nothing substantial was lost" than your idle dismissal.

[John Q. Citizen]

16. No one can know whether anything substantial was lost or not. It's like

the Nixon tape with the gap.

Maybe Dick was cussing out his wife and didn't want it to get back to her or maybe he was discussing the details of the JFK assassination. How would we know?

But to make a blanket assertion that "nothing substantial was lost" is ridiculous on the face of it.

How can we know, since whatever it is, is lost. And, one must assume, since the managers were ordered prior to destroying the tape, to preserve all evidence, that whatever was on that tape, they didn't want others to know. Plus, the manner the tape was destroyed suggests the manager didn't want anybody to try to even attempt to retrieve it.

[Bolo Boffin]

18. I agree that the manager didn't want anyone to retrieve it...

...but since there seems to be no outcry from the ATCs themselves, I once again offer my reasonable doubt that anything of substance was lost in the subsequent interviews.

[John Q. Citizen]

19. The one controller apparently saw something in the tape of value, even

if that person was denied access.

And the fact that the ATCs were the source of the info that there was a tape shows that it wasn't exactly forgotten by them.

Who knows?

You know, our former Republican Governor, Judy Martz, was involoved in a scandle when she laundered the clothes of a fellow Republican right after he was involved in a fatal one car accident involving drinking. She said it was just being motherly, but since the accident was manslaughter, nobody really bought her story and everybody pretty much figured she was trying to cover for the guy.

The guy (a Repo staffer) and his buddy (a Repo state official) had been drinking and the guy driving tried to pretend the guy who died was driving.

Of course, that wasn't handled by a commission, but was investigated as a crime by the state police, and the guy was convicted.

Martz never was charged with obstruction or evidence tampering, but she did have one of the lowest approval ratings on record for a MT governor, and partly for that. We still don't know if anything of substance was washed out of the guy's clothes.

[Bolo Boffin]

20. Hm.

What's the approval rating of that manager, then?

[petgoat]

21. You're the one with the idle dismissal, bolo, not Prof. Sacks nt

[Bolo Boffin]

24. Consider yourself idly dismissed. n/t

[Bryan Sacks]

22. Again, you really just don't understand

Read the post, bolo. I have no idea what may or may not have been lost. Even if Mercutio, who I agree is a credible source on ATC stuff, was not THERE after all, and is likely reporting thirdhand info.

The bigger issue which you continue to miss is the appearance of impropriety. It simply does not matter if nothing was lost. The appearance of impropriety cannot be afforded, see?

In your world, people are asked to take the word of kindhearted authorities who remain above censure. No thanks.

on edit: added "on ATC stuff"

[Bolo Boffin]

23. Great - you've got "appearance of impropriety."

Too bad you don't have any actual impropriety to point to, just the appearance.

[petgoat]

25. I suppose if a stranger took your seven year old niece to a motel room

overnight, you'd think that was okay in the absence of proof that
something happened?

[Bolo Boffin]

26. There's no "appearance of impropriety" that blatent here.

You are awfully quick on the draw with foul imaginings, though.

[petgoat]

30. Cutting a tape into little pieces and scattering the pieces into

multiple trash cans is not blatant enough for you?

And who's got the foul imaginings? I imagined only a case of
clear appearance of impropriety that everyone can
relate to. I've been using this example for years in debates
with freepers who claimed we should trust Bush because he was
a good man, and shouldn't worry about his adherance to the law
or the appearances of whitewash in the 9/11 investigations.

You're the one whose imaginings are foul.

[Bolo Boffin]

33. Why did you personalize it to "my" niece?

Wait, don't answer that.

[Bryan Sacks]

27. so long as otherwise intelligent people aren't concerned. . .

with the mere appearance of impropriety, those with the wherewithal to cover up foul deeds have every motivation for doing so. After all, the absence of evidence is practically evidence of absence - isn't that what you're intimating, Bolo?

[Bolo Boffin]

34. I want you to compare something, "Professor."

The appearance of impropriety of a manager destroying evidence of HIS wrongdoing - a taped interview...

and the "appearance of impropriety" of 19 members of al-Qaeda on 9/11.

I think you have the appearance of "overreacting".