Snopes. Are they not to be trusted anymore?

[donheld]

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp



Claim: Secret flights whisked bin Laden family members and Saudi nationals out of the U.S. immediately after September 11 while a general ban on air travel was still in effect, and before the FBI had any opportunity to question any of the passengers.

Status: False.Origins: In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, the Federal Aviation Administration immediately ordered all flights in the United
States grounded, and that ban stayed in effect until September 13. (Even then, for that first day commercial carriers were mostly either completing the interrupted flights of September 11 or repositioning empty aircraft in anticipation of the resumption of full service. New passenger flights did not generally resume until the 14th.) During that two-day period of full lock-down, only the military and specially FAA-authorized flights that delivered life-saving medical necessities were in the air. The enforcement of the empty skies directive was so stringent that even after the United Network for Organ Sharing sought and gained FAA clearance to use charter aircraft on September 12 to effect time-critical deliveries of organs for transplant, one of its flights carrying a human heart was forced to the ground in Bellingham, Washington, 80 miles short of its Seattle destination, by two Navy F/A-18 fighters. (The organ completed its journey after being transferred to a helicopter.)

more...

[Richard Steele]

1. Good question. Have they been bought out recently?

Inquiring minds want to know!

[REP]

2. It's A Site Run By A Husband and Wife

They aren't particularly authoratative on anything; they just look up stuff from available sources but they don't have an agenda. Sometimes they get things wrong. I see for this they are using the report from the 9/11 Commission, which most people accept.

[The Backlash Cometh]

21. That's not possible. I saw Richard Clarke testify at the 9/11 Commission.

He confirmed that it happened.

[Downtown Hound]

3. I've never really trusted them

I don't think they're bad people or anything but there's nothing totally authoritative about their information. They're basically the same as wikipedia, in that they get stuff wrong sometimes, and since it's a private site there's nothing anyone can do about it.

[dipsydoodle]

10. Perfect reasoning

I don't trust them either.

[madokie]

34. I don't trust them either as well as wikipedia

I have read a couple things that I know were fact and one or the other say no way

[wakeme2008]

4. I know the Tampa Tribune did an article on the security guards

on one flight. Look around and get information like that and then email them. :)

edited to add

search security saudi flight

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/tampatribune/advancedsearch.html

and you will get two hits on the Phantom Flight from Tampa :)

[Lasher]

5. There is a 'contact us' icon on their home page

Maybe if you tell them they got this one wrong, and furnish unimpeachable supporting documentation, they will change their conclusion on the subject.

They've got a pretty good track record and have been very useful to me. It will take more than this before I lose respect for them.

[skids]

8. Yeah I tried that...

...about the Condi shoe shopping thing where they exculpate her from "having anything useful to do" while her department turned down offers of assistance from several other countries.

They didn't fix it.

[EST]

6. So what's the problem?

I understand that we would like to demonize even further the authors and facilitators of the 9-11 tragedy, but this is exactly as Richard Clarke, the guy who set up the flights and made it all happen, described it.

I recall being a little disappointed that there was no "smoking gun" to be found in this exercise and no real under the cover wheeling and dealing. Too bad--I wanted some of the players to be worse and more diabolical than they turned out to be but reality, although liberal, is still reality.

[niallmac]

7. I am so gullible. Thanks for your post.

They are certainly wrong on this or a lot of respected sources are making stuff up.
So Snopes is not a bank of computer geeks tirelessly seeking the truth?
It's a family run site?

As I live and breathe.

[REP]

15. Definitely NOT a "Family"

They are a couple, and it's their hobby. They're nice people, but they don't get it right 100% of the time, but they do not have an agenda.

[donheld]

27. I believe on this they do have an agenda

There track record on this proves that.

[MercutioATC]

9. There's evidence that this isn't true?

I mean, does anybody have any actual proof that OBL's family members were flown out prior to 9/13?

[wakeme2008]

14. see Tampa Tribune article

in this post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1980078&mesg_id=1980117

:)

[MercutioATC]

16. Yep...that flight was on the 13th....

...after the national airspace was reopened.

...just as Snopes claims.

[wakeme2008]

23. Not per the article

The hastily arranged flight out of Raytheon Airport Services, a private hangar on the outskirts of Tampa International Airport, was anything but ordinary. It lifted off the tarmac at a time when every private plane in the nation was grounded due to safety concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks.

[MercutioATC]

31. The article is mistaken about the closing of the airspace.

The FAA closed the national airspace on 9/11 and 9/12. On 9/13, they began allowing flights.

The flight referenced in the article took place on the afternoon of 9/13, AFTER the FAA had reopened the airspace.


That aside, the airspaced was never closed to U.S. government and military aircraft. Since the U.S. government chartered this flight, it could have taken off on the 11th or 12th had they wanted it to.

No conspiracy...no breaking of the rules...

...and Snopes' listing is correct.

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. Eh, was I the only one watching the 9/11 Commission intervews?

On edit. not prior to 9/13. However, does snopes even confirm the truth, that they were flown out at all?

[bluestateguy]

11. Snopes is a good website

They may not always tell us what we want to hear, but its the best urban ledgeds website out there.

[w4rma]

26. They changed the page to before they apologized to Michael Moore

about this. They had it up as "true" and they had a link to a NY Times article showing it is true. It was a very long and well written explanation and they have now removed that from their site.

[praeclarus]

12. Tampa Tribune

Linky....

http://web.archive.org/web/20011108145853/http://www.tampatrib.com/MGA3F78EFSC.html

There are some non-anonymous sources quoted in this article.
Also some denials.

[wakeme2008]

13. First Welcome to DU

:hi:

I linked to the search page and this an another article are listed but you have to buy them. Thanks for the direct link.

This was also covered in Dick Clark's book.

Snopes it on that river in Egypt on this. :shrug:

[SledDriver]

17. poor posture...

They tend to lean to the right.

[charlie]

18. They fuxxored themselves on this issue

when they departed from their just-the-facts oeuvre and made their intial assessment largely a polemic against Michael Moore, instead of just dealing with the rumor. A snippet from the original article's close:

Some folks play fast and loose with the facts when they've an axe to grind, however, and in Moore's case his axe is "the dastardly Republicans and how they're responsible for every ill ever visited upon the USA." In this case, inventing a bin Laden jet that secretly flew out of the country while the rest of us were barred from the skies, and peopling it with folks who were spirited out of the FBI's grasp by a U.S. president intent upon paying back some unnamed (but darkly hinted at) favor, is a handy way of reinforcing the stereotype of Republicans as callous and greedy politicians whose paramount values involve money, not people.

Of course, this invited a tide of angry letters, especially when some points of their analysis turned out to be as incorrect as they claimed Moore was. Page revisions followed, including changing the original charge they were debunking, and eventually they posted an apology to Moore himself. As you can see, the page is now dry and neutral as can be, nary a mention of Moore, but bits and pieces of the original "hit" piece are preserved on other web sites.

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. Richard Clarke testified to the validity of this "rumor" at the 9/11

Commission. Snopes needs to remove their resident conservative before their integrity follows the same path as the Republican party.

[On the Road]

20. On the Pentagon Crash,

They adhered to the conventional view that the hijacked jetliner hit the building, which I have come to agree with.

But they used an obviously incorrect explanation for the damage, claiming that the wings had folded up against the sides of the fuselage as it entered the building.

I emailed them and got a snarky response.

[QuettaKid]

24. NEVER trusted them to begin with.

they completely missed the Q33 story.

[w4rma]

25. Snopes changed it back to well before their apology to Michael Moore.

September 07, 2003
…
Last word

Snopes has updated that 9/11 page again, and this time they've included an apology to Michael Moore. It took a little prodding, but they did the right thing, and as far as I'm concerned, the matter is finished.

Afterthought: unless they pull something like this again, of course.
posted by Tom Tomorrow at 09:54 AM
http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2003_09_07.html#001041

Snopes does the mea culpa

Local blog Shock and Awe recently took a fair shot at Snopes.com (the Urban Legends Reference Pages, also SoCal based) for a screed against Michael Moore over his remarks about the secret flights of bin Laden family members after 9/11. Now Snopes' Barbara Mikkelson has apologized publicly on her site.

There's no good excuse for my having gotten vitriolic about Michael Moore as I attempted to address the substance of what he said. I regret having done that because it's just flat-out the wrong thing to do under any circumstance. Michael, if you're out there, please know that I am sorry for having said hurtful things. The world is full enough already with pain and miserableness for me to want to add to it or to want to direct any of it your way.

Good for her. I find Snopes.com generally a bit quick to debunk based on non-definitive info, but think they do good work. Back when it was the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, the site ran some erroneous debunks of local history legends, but as I recall they graciously fixed them. Update: The commenters at Shock and Awe find Snopes quite pro-Bush.
…
Updated 5:50 p.m.
http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2003/09/snopes_does_the.html

Here is what the page looked like before their mea culpa to Michael Moore:
http://agonist.org/annex/snopes2

Much more information:
http://www.agonist.org/archives/007922.html#007922

I suggest that folks tell Snopes on their message board to put the old information back up from when they had this listed as "true" and they had apologized to Michael Moore about it.

[w4rma]

28. Here is a copy of *some* of what Snopes used to have before this bad edit

Snopes Apologies -- Credibility Restored

Snopes has positive credibility now, in my book. I http://shock-awe.info/archive/000858.php">originally wrote:

Would it have been that hard for them to just fess up, say "we blew it on this one," and apologize to Moore for their little screed against him?

Until we see something of that sort from Snopes, their credibility rating is zero.

Snopes has updated http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flight.htm">their page and they have this to say:

I owe Michael Moore an apology. In a January 2002 interview with Al D'Amato and Alan Colmes of the FOX Network, Michael Moore said:

Why did this country allow the bin Laden family, two days after — two days after September 11 — to fly around America and pick up all the bin Laden relatives, about 24 of them, and take them to Europe? Not a single one of them was interrogated by the FBI.

That set me off on a tirade, and it shouldn't have. Part of Mr. Moore's statement has since been proved to be correct — during the ban on air travel, some Saudis (including members of the bin Laden family) were transported by air to assembly points in the U.S. in preparation for their leaving the country. In an earlier version of this article, I ranted and raved about his avowing bin Laden flights had taken place while no one was allowed to fly. Yet some did, at least within the U.S.

I shouldn't have yelled at him. He was right about that.

Actually, I shouldn't have yelled at him even if he'd been dead wrong about everything. There's no good excuse for my having gotten vitriolic about Michael Moore as I attempted to address the substance of what he said. I regret having done that because it's just flat-out the wrong thing to do under any circumstance. Michael, if you're out there, please know that I am sorry for having said hurtful things. The world is full enough already with pain and miserableness for me to want to add to it or to want to direct any of it your way.

This is exactly what I asked for, and I am a big believer in second chances and repentance. Thank you, Barbara Mikkelson, for admitting your mistake and apologizing to Michael Moore.

Now, if only we can get Michael Moore to apologize to the San Diego Police, the janitor, and Activist San Diego's organizers. I'm an equal-opportunity truth-seeker: I don't let anyone get away with cover-ups.

Snopes did the right thing in this case (although I am still a bit wary, I believe in forgiveness) -- but let's not forget that Michael Moore himself has done some shady Web coverups as well. Snopes responded right away, while Michael has yet to respond to either (a) the claim that he acted poorly in San Diego, or (b) the removal of his "police RAID" post from his site.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040225194513/http://shock-awe.info/archive/000860.php

[donheld]

29. Too many of your links just don't work

:shrug:

[w4rma]

30. I only copied what I saw. Many sites are gone now. I've fixed most links.

You can use the Wayback Machine to look at the content of some of the now missing sites if you want.

[lectrobyte]

32. Did you miss this part?

After the airspace reopened, nine chartered flights with 160 people, mostly Saudi nationals, departed from the United States between September 14 and 24. In addition, one Saudi government flight, containing the Saudi deputy defense minister and other members of an official Saudi delegation, departed Newark Airport on September 14. Every airport involved in these Saudi flights was open when the flight departed, and no inappropriate actions were taken to allow those flights to depart.

[bryant69]

33. Of course they are not to be trusted - they Questioned MIHOP

Remember o MIHOP faithful, anybody who questions the sacred doctrine must be a bush proxy

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[lonestarnot]

35. hmmmmf snopes.

[Igel]

36. Snopes is in keeping with my memory of

the articles.

They may have been moved about in the US by air, but that's not the claim being rebutted. They left when the flight ban was announced.

This created a bit of outrage. Quickly questions arose as to whether they snuck out without the FBI's being aware. But the FBI said they ahd cleared the people that left. Whether it's true that they actually examined each person and did due diligence hasn't been said, details are lacking in this regard; the claims on one side are simply 'FBI cleared them to go', while the claims on the other side are that * intervened and stated that they were cleared. The first is true inasmuch as stating they're cleared to go is the act necessary in clearing them; the second set of claims is unproven.

That's pretty much where it stands.

[w4rma]

37. The FBI knew about them, but were prevented from questioning them. (nt)

[JuniperLea]

38. Too funny!

The B/F and I were just discussing Snopes last night... we were joking around in the checkout line at the grocery store, reading tabloid headlines and acting like they were true. He read one and said, nope, Snopes already debunked that one. To which I replied, so who checks up on Snopes?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

This world has made a bona-fide, dyed in the wool skeptic of me and I am likely to distrust most anyone... especially those who hold themselves as the be-all and end-all in information.

No person or website or publication is 100% correct 100% of the time. That is the only truth I hold as absolute.