Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass on 9/11: "This was an inside job."

[stickdog]

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/11/massport_conference.htm

Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., emerging from an evening briefing for lawmakers at Capitol police headquarters, said he thought the state's congressional delegation would converge in the next few days around the issue of how the hijacking could have happened at Logan.

"This was an inside job," said Neal. "We should be mindful of that in and around Logan."

...

Lawless said Globe Aviation Services Corp. operates security checkpoints for American Airlines at Logan. Danielle Crosby, the human resources manager for the Boston office, refused to comment, referring calls to the company's headquarters in Irving, Texas. A woman who answered the telephone at the headquarters also refused to comment.

Lawless said Huntleigh USA Corp. provides checkpoints for United Airlines. No one answered the telephone at the company's Logan office Tuesday. A woman who answered the telephone at the company's corporate headquarters in St. Louis, Mo., refused to comment.

[Richard Owl Mirror]

1. Among the many issues our Nation faces today, .......

Among the many issues our Nation faces today, and the issues which both candidates have addressed, there is one issue of major importance which has gone unreported. The relationship between a think tank in Washington called The Project for the New American Century ~ http://www.newamericancentury.org/
The founding members of this think tank are Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, I. Lewis Libby, Richard Perle, Jeb Bush and others.
When the new Bush Administration took power it included: Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant to the President I. Lewis Libby, and Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle.
The stated goals of this organization is total global domination by the United States of America and it appears that these powerful men have implemented their personal goals despite the citizens agreement regarding their policies. I would like the President to level with the American people on the influence this small group of powerful men is having on how our Government conducts itself in World affairs. One very disturbing quote from a policy paper written by these men in 2000 reads as such: http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
"In this 2000 report, PNAC predicted this more assertive defense policy would come about slowly,
unless there were "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor."
For those men, who are at the heart of power in our government to actually seek "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor." in order to promote their vision around the world frightens me to no end. In good conscience, I can not vote for a president who would allow a small think tank to determine our Nations policies. When Bush assumed the Presidency, the men who created and nurtured the imperial dreams of PNAC
became the men who run the Pentagon, the Defense Department and the White House.
When the Towers came down, these men saw, at long last, their chance to turn their White Papers into substantive policy.
Using our treasury as well as the blood of our men & women in these battles for supremacy whereby only the members of this elite group will truly benefit and the rest of "We, the people..." are mere cannon fodder and worker/slaves to their machine.

[stickdog]

2. Look who's going to bat for Huntleigh

http://www.bork.com/huntleigh/

Yep, this line of inquiry is looking promising:

http://www.union-network.org/uniproperty.nsf/0/06305a741da91537c1256a76003a5132?OpenDocument

On June 26, 2001, representatives from UNI affiliates in the Netherlands and North America will be quizzing the management of the airport security company ICTS.

Huntleigh USA employs nearly 800 pre-board screeners, baggage claim attendants, skycaps, and wheelchair attendants at the three airports. Huntleigh is hired by major airlines, including its largest West Coast client Southwest, to service the terminals. But despite providing critical security work, Huntleigh workers do not earn enough to meet a basic family budget. For example, Pre-Board Screeners who check baggage for weapons and explosives, typically earn annually from $14,000 in Oakland to $19,000 in Los Angeles. Workers do not earn all-important family medical benefits, nor do they enjoy a voice at work to make sure passenger and workplace safety issues are enforced. This combination of low wages and high stress work results in an alarmingly high turnover rate. A U.S. General Accounting Office Survey reported a turnover rate among screeners at LAX of 88% annually and at Sea-Tac of 140% annually.

Huntleigh has responded to the workers' concerns with threats and intimidation targeted at union supporters. The company has been charged with violating federal labor law at all three airports. In Seattle, the National Labor Relations Board has issued a complaint against the company for interfering with workers' right to organize.

The Service Employees International Union will question Huntleigh's anti-worker practices during the annual meeting of Huntleighs' parent company, ICTS International, being held in the Netherlands this week. SEIU will also shed light on ICTS's own strained labor relations in Europe. Michael Baratz of SEIU will address shareholders on Tuesday, June 26.

http://www.union-network.org/uniproperty.nsf/0/4c6f0ba768119014c1256af500217f48?OpenDocument

Despite its troubles, the American airport security business has drawn the interest of foreign suitors with deep pockets. Since January 2001, European security companies have acquired three of the four largest American companies: Huntleigh, Argenbright and Globe Aviation Services.

Globe is a former subsidiary of Borg-Warner Security Corp. of Chicago, a diversified security company that provided guard service under various names, including Loomis and Wells Fargo. In the late 1990s, Borg-Warner reported declining earnings, and the stock tumbled. It sold off a major division and refocused its operations under a new name, Burns International Services Corp. In September 2000, Securitas AB of Sweden, one of the world's largest private security companies, bought Burns along with its Globe subsidiary for $457 million.

Huntleigh USA also went on the block, but it fetched far less than its competitors. Owners Bill and Sandy Glassman of St. Louis sold 80 percent of Huntleigh to ICTS International N.V. of the Netherlands for $5.4 million in January 1999. Two years later, they sold ICTS the rest for $1.9 million, according to an ICTS filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. ICTS paid much less for Huntleigh than the other European companies paid for their takeover targets, he said, because ICTS "assumed some debt, too." He declined to elaborate.

Like Argenbright, Huntleigh came under criminal investigation in Philadelphia, as federal prosecutors examined its records on training and background checks. Huntleigh responded to a grand jury subpoena in May 1999, ICTS said in an SEC report earlier this year. No charges have been filed.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0108/p1s2-woeu.html

The biggest firm in the profiling business is International Consultants for Targeted Security (ICTS), an Israeli company based in Holland whose employees at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris found Mr. Reid so suspicious as he sought to board a Dec. 21 American Airlines flight that they turned him over to the French police. The police did not find Reid's name on a list of suspects, and his papers were in order, so they allowed him to fly the next day.

ICTS has contracts with more than 100 airlines worldwide, including many of the big US and European carriers, and employs 5,000 people at 50 airports in 12 European countries, according to Zamir Eldar, head of European operations for ICTS.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/050504Madsen/050504madsen.html

The Israeli firm ICTS, which now provides profiling services to almost 100 airports, is headed by Lior Zucker, a former El Al security officer.

From 09/12/01:

http://www.cincypost.com/2001/sep/12/privat091201.html

Sandy Glassman and her husband, Bill Glassman, of St. Louis are former owners of a security firm that provides personnel to airports. They sold their last segment of the company, a piece of Huntleigh Corp., in January. One of Huntleigh's clients is Logan International Airport in Boston, the departure point for two of the four planes hijacked Tuesday morning.

Huntleigh is now owned in full by ICTS International NV, based in the Netherlands. Huntleigh is still based in St. Louis. Company officials couldn't be reached to comment.

Sandy Glassman said: ''I am just stunned. ... I know nothing, but the concept of four different people getting weapons through security - it just doesn't happen.''

[LARED]

3. I'm curious

When Rep. Neal said "this was an inside job," do you think he was talking about someone working at the airport sympathetic to the hijackers that helped them, or do you think he was talking about some sort of covert government operative.

Maybe both?