A Violation of the 'Conspiracy Theory' Dictum

[Octafish]

This sums up the complicated, interconnected nature of the criminal world of the BFEE:

A violation of the "Conspiracy Theory Dictum"

By Kerry Tomasi
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jan 3, 2006, 15:09

In the heat of this current battle to rationalize why Bush decided to circumvent the FISA court and illegally spy on whomever he personally felt needed spying on, don't you find it a bit odd that they aren't vociferously and repeatedly invoking the case of Zacarias Moussaoui?

Moussaoui, I'm sure you recall, was the French al Qaeda operative arrested in August 2001 while taking lessons at a flight training school in Minnesota. He wanted to learn how to fly a 747 jetliner, but exhibited little interest in how to take off or land one. He also paid the $8,000 tuition in cash, had recently traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and had connections to an Algerian terrorist group that attempted to crash an airplane into the Eiffel Tower in 1994.

In light of all this, local FBI agents asked headquarters if they could obtain a FISA search warrant for the hard drive on Moussaoui's computer. The FBI denied the request, claiming they didn't feel it met the FISA court's probable cause standard for granting a warrant.

So . . . why aren't we hearing a deafening chorus of Bush administration hacks and whores shouting something along the lines of: "Look what happened with the Moussaoui case! They didn't think they could get a warrant!! Don't you see why the president felt he had to go around FISA in order to keep us safe? Just think . . . if FISA wasn't so bureaucratically obstructionist, 9/11 might have been averted! All those people would be alive!! Alive I tell ya!! Don't you want the president to have the ability to keep us alive?"

On the surface, this line of argument would seem to be just what the Bush backers love -- a case closed, you're either with us or against us, banality. And yet Moussaoui is hardly ever mentioned. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be that the last thing the Bush Cabal wants brought into this discussion is the Moussaoui case?

CONTINUED...

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_386.shtml

[bpilgrim]

1. rush mentioned it yesterday

of course he claims the went for a warrant and FISC turned them down.

it makes it so much easier when you can just lie to your audience and have no fear that the M$M will do their HW.

peace

[Octafish]

12. Why Bushler and his henchmen didn't connect the dots:

The flight instructors where Moussaoui learned to turn a 747 called the FAA and said their student might be a hijacker in training. The FAA said to call the FBI.

The Minneapolis FBI said they were aware of the situation. The flight instructors said a jumbo jet loaded with fuel made one big ass bomb. They begged the FBI to investigate, to no avail according to the flight instructors.

So, the flight instructors called their Congressman, John Oberstar. Oberstar then called the FBI in Washington who finally ordered the arrest of Moussaoui.

Then Ashcan's FBI kept the Minneapolis office from getting a FISA warrant to check out Moussaoui's laptop -- the one containing stolen materials needed to navigate a 747. Who knows what else was on that laptop.

BTW: A historical oddity: one of the Minneapolis flight instructors who spotted Moussaoui, and from whom Moussaoui pirated a CD-ROM of a 747 flight controls, died as the co-pilot of Paul Wellstone's plane.

The facts are there for all to see. These BFEE are mass-murdering traitors.

The Truth will out.

[bpilgrim]

19. they will just lie about it

facts, as we have learned during these horrid 5 years, don't matter to the neoCONs or their M$M cheerleaders, unfortunately.

thank GORE he 'invented' the INTERNETs ;->

peace

[mattclearing]

21. Holy shit. That Wellstone tie-in is shocking.

Small world, ain't it?

[seemslikeadream]

24. Paul Wellstone - ASBESTOS

Senator Paul Wellstone and Mozambique's President Samora Machel
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2167138


The Paul Wellstone crash was.....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=561809

NTSB: Wellstone crash result of pilot error
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=226389

New inquiry into Wellstone death urged
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=932197

W.R. Grace and seven employees indicted over asbestos-contaminated mine
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1219912


More than 100 families win $30 million settlement in asbestos case
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1210891




I started this really lonely battle with good friend Senator Wellstone
Sen. Murray Opposes SB 2290, Praises Dr. Bret Williams, Dr. Harvey Pass, Chris Hahn and MARF


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Remarks by Senator Patty Murray on Asbestos Legislation

http://murray.senate.gov/news.cfm?id=220630

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Mr. President, I rise today to share my serious concerns with the asbestos liability bill now before the Senate. As my colleagues know, this is not just another bill for me. This is something I’ve spent years learning about, educating my colleagues about, and writing legislation to address.

In fact, my work on asbestos started 3 years ago this very month, when I asked the Senate HELP Committee to hold a hearing on asbestos exposure in the workplace. I started this as a really lonely battle with good friend Senator Wellstone. We held press conferences, and it seemed like no one came. Senator Baucus and Senator Cantwell were with us, but it was a very lonely fight.

That’s why today it is so great to watch my colleagues like Senator Daschle, Senator Reid, Senator Dayton and Senator Leahy moving this discussion to such a productive level. They have taken the time to listen to victims, and I think that if everyone did we’d have a much more balanced bill before us today.

I’m pleased that after all these years of working with victims, family members, and doctors -- the full Senate is now engaged in a debate about asbestos.

I am also pleased that many of the things I have been fighting for have been included in this legislation. This bill includes the ban on asbestos that I first introduced two years ago. That is an important acknowledgement of what I told the Judiciary Committee last June, "If Congress is going to prevent any future lawsuits, then Congress must try to prevent any more asbestos casualties, by banning the use of asbestos."

So I am pleased by some of the progress in this bill, but I am also deeply disturbed by what this bill will do to people whose lives have been torn apart by asbestos, to future victims, to family members, and to average Americans who are being exposed to deadly asbestos everyday without even knowing it.

After listening to victims, hearing their stories, and looking them in the eye, there is no way I could vote for this inadequate and unbalanced bill.

I’m Standing Up for Many

As I’ve learned about asbestos over the past three years, I have been troubled by the duplicity of some companies, by the negligence of our own government, and by the absolute horror that asbestos inflicts on people. But throughout this process, I have also been touched by the commitment and optimism of victims. Some of them realize it’s too late for them, but they want to make sure that no other American goes through the horror they have experienced.

After working with them, I know I am not just standing here on the Senate floor as a single Senator. I’m standing here on behalf of all of the people I have been honored to meet and stand with over the past three years.

I’m standing here on behalf of people like Brian Harvey, Gayla Benefield, Bret Williams, Ralph Busch, Marv Sather, and George Biekkola. They were all exposed to asbestos through no fault of their own.

I’m standing here on behalf of family members of asbestos victims. People like Sue Vento, the wife the late Congressman Bruce Vento of Minnesota, Sue Harvey, and Lt. Col. James Zumwalt, the son of Navy hero Elmo Zumwalt.

I’m standing here on behalf of doctors who have labored to save their patients against a merciless killer. Doctors like Michael Harbut, Alan Whitehouse, and Harvey Pass, who not only provided medical care, but worked to raise awareness and call for needed research.

I’m standing here on behalf of public health leaders like Dr. Richard Lemen, the former Assistant Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Phil Landrigan, and people like Andrew Schneider and Barry Castleman – who have worked to warn the public about these dangers.

And, I’m standing here on behalf of researchers and advocates. People like Chris Hahn of the Mesothelima Applied Research Foundation and advocates at the Environmental Working Group.

All of these people have stood with me at press conferences and have testified before Senate hearings calling for us to help the victims and to ban asbestos. We have a real obligation to them, and I’m standing here on the Senate floor today to make sure the Senate does right by people who have been wronged.

George Biekkola

Let me share one of their voices with you. In July 2001, the HELP committee held that hearing I requested on Workplace Safety and Asbestos Exposure. One of the witnesses was Mr. George Biekkola of Michigan, a World War II veteran and a community leader who helped bring a hockey rink to the children of his community.

Those of us who were at that hearing three years ago will never forget what he said. He broke down several times as he read his statement, but his message was clear. He told us that he had spent 30 years working at the Cleveland Cliff Iron Company in Michigan. He operated a hard rock drill and was exposed to asbestos dust. He was forced to retire at the age of 60 because asbestos had scarred his lungs and reduced his lung capacity by one-third.

At that hearing he told us, quote, "I thought I’d be spending my retirement traveling out West with my wife, hunting deer up in the mountains. But today, I can’t." He said that he couldn’t exert himself because his heart was weak and that he had to be careful because a simple case of pneumonia could kill him.

He told us, "This isn’t how I thought I’d be spending my retirement, but when I think about the other guys I worked with -- I guess I came out lucky."

He said, "I’m here today to tell you my story so that maybe someone else working in a mine or a brake shop or a factory won’t lose the things I have lost."

He concluded his statement with these words. "Senators, please make sure that what happened to me won’t happen to anyone else . . . Workers like me are counting on you to protect us. Please don’t let us down."

Mr. President, I’m sad to report that George Biekkola died two weeks ago today from asbestosis and mesothelioma. Until the end, he was looking out for other victims. In fact, at his funeral last Saturday, his family displayed a photograph of him testifying at that Senate hearing.

George isn’t with us today, but his words ring as loudly now as they did three years ago – Senators, don’t let us down. That is why I’ve been working on asbestos for the past three years, and that is why I cannot support this inadequate bill.

Mr. President, after all the things that Americans like George Biekkola have been through, after all they have lost, after all their families have lost, and after all they have done to protect others, I will not let them down, and that’s why I cannot support this bill.

Context

Before I turn to the specifics, I want to put this discussion in context. For decades, we’ve been pumping this poison into Americans on purpose and by accident. It’s wrecked lives, families, fortunes, and it’s been a problem for many businesses.

Asbestos is everywhere, and it’s killing us. We’ve got to stop putting this killer in products. We’ve got to stop importing products that contain asbestos. We’ve got to figure out a way to "make whole" everyone who’s been affected by this epidemic, and we need to do it in a balanced way that gives certainty and equity to both victims and companies.

This process has been an education for me because, like many Americans I thought asbestos had been banned a long time ago. In 1989, the EPA did try to ban asbestos, but that effort was overturned in a lawsuit from the asbestos industry. Ten years later in 1999, reporter Andrew Schneider and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published articles about a disturbing trend in the small mining town of Libby, Montana. Residents there are suffering from extraordinarily high rates of asbestos related disease.

At many plants where vermiculite from Libby was processed and then shipped, waste rock left over from the expansion process was given away for free. I learned that people used this free waste rock in their yards, driveways and gardens. This picture shows Justin and Tim Jorgensen climbing on waste rock given out by Western Minerals, Inc. in St. Paul, Minnesota sometime in the 1970’s. According to W.R. Grace records, this rock contained between 2 and 10 percent tremolite asbestos. This rock produced airborne asbestos concentrations 135 times higher that OSHA’s current standard for workers. We have to do right by Justin and Tim, and those are the people I’m thinking about as I look at this bill.

I also learned that our country is far behind others. The United States remains the only industrialized country beside Canada that has not yet banned asbestos. More than 30 million pounds of asbestos are still consumed in the United States each year.

A Continuing Danger

I learned that asbestos is still found today in over 3,000 common products in the US, including baby powder, cosmetics, brake pads, pipes, hair dryers, ceiling tiles and vinyl flooring. It is still legal in 2004 to construct buildings with asbestos cement shingles and to treat them with asbestos roof coatings. It is still legal to construct new water systems using asbestos cement pipes imported from other countries. It is still legal today for cars and trucks to be made and serviced with asbestos brake pads and linings.

Workers in this country are still being exposed to dangerous levels of asbestos. According to OSHA, "an estimated 1.3 million employees in construction and general industry face significant asbestos exposures on the job."

Washington State Impact

Asbestos has taken a particularly large toll on the people of my state. According to a recent report by the Environmental Working Group, King County has the fourth-highest number of deaths related to asbestos in the country. Three other counties – Kitsap (24th), Pierce (28th) and Snohomish (52nd) all rank in the top 100 for asbestos-related deaths. Overall, Washington state ranks eighth in asbestos-related deaths nationwide.

Just last week in Spokane, Washington our state Department of Health announced that 100 former workers at a vermiculite factory likely inhaled deadly asbestos fibers and should seek advice from their doctors.

They also warned that the children and spouses who lived with these workers could become ill from particles that were carried home with loved ones on clothing, skin and in hair. Given the known dangers of this mineral, we should all be asking - why are we still using it? Why are we still adding it to products on purpose where there are perfectly acceptable substitutes?

My Work on Asbestos

Americans in every walk of life and in every corner of this country have been exposed, and we’ve got to protect them. That’s why I’ve worked to do a series of things over the past few years. On June 18, 2002, I introduced the Ban Asbestos in America Act. I reintroduced this bill again last May as Senate Bill number 1115. I want to thank all the Senators who have cosponsored my bill: Senators Baucus, Boxer, Cantwell, Daschle, Dayton, Durbin, Feingold, Feinstein, Hollings, Jeffords, Lautenberg, Leahy and Reid.

I’ve pushed the EPA to warn homeowners about the dangers of Zonolite insulation, which today is in the attics of 35 million homes, schools and businesses. I’ve urged the EPA to warn brake mechanics about the deadly asbestos dust they are exposed to on the job. I’ve asked OSHA to increase its efforts to enforce existing regulations that attempt to protect automobile brake mechanics.

I’ve shared my concerns with legislators in Canada, the country that is the largest source of America’s asbestos imports. I testified at a hearing on Libby, Montana, and I testified before the Judiciary Committee last July.

Asbestos liability is a real problem. It’s a problem for victims, and it’s a problem for companies. We need a balanced solution. Unfortunately, this bill falls short in 6 ways.

6 Problems with this Bill

First, it is unfair to victims because the awards are too small – even smaller than many would get if they were allowed a day in court.

Second, it could lock future victims out of getting help because the trust fund is inadequate.

Third, it keeps Americans in the dark about the dangers of asbestos. It does not include the education campaign that we know is needed and that I have been pushing for over the past three years.

Fourth, it falls short on research, tracking and treatment for asbestos diseases.

Fifth, it makes family members jump through too many restrictive hurdles.

Sixth it allows insurance companies to place liens on the awards that family members receive - unfairly reducing the award they deserve and treating them much differently that other federal compensation programs.

Let me discuss each of those in detail.

1. Awards Are Too Small

First, the awards are too small. Many people who have had their lives torn apart by asbestos will actually do worse under this bill than they would in court. For example, awards for lung cancer victims who have more than 15 years of exposure to asbestos are limited to $25,000 - $75,000, even though most victims will die within a year. Victims with asbestosis who have lost 20% to 40% of their breathing capacity – many who will be disabled for life – will receive only $85,000. That is far less than their lost wages and medical costs. This bill gives them less than they deserve. At the same time, it blocks the courthouse door to victims who have staggering medical bills, lost wages and other damages. I don’t see how Congress can leave asbestos victims worse off than they are today, but that’s what this bill would do.

2. The Trust Fund is Too Small

Second, the trust fund is too small to compensate all victims, but that is just one of the problems with this trust fund. I believe a successful trust fund would provide fair and adequate compensation to all victims and would bring reasonable financial certainty to defendant companies and insurers. To do that, the trust fund must include four things: fair award values, appropriate medical criteria, adequate funding, and fast processing.

The system for processing claims must allow victims to get prompt payments without the complications, time and expense of a traditional lawsuit. Unfortunately, the trust fund in this bill falls far short of what is needed. I have already discussed how the award values are unfair.

In addition, the trust fund is not adequately funded. In fact, the trust fund in this bill has been slashed dramatically from the original Hatch legislation. In the Judiciary Committee’s bill, the trust fund was $153 billion. But in this bill, the trust fund has been slashed by over $40 billion.

Now, the trust fund didn’t just shrink on its own. It was reduced after closed-door negotiations that included only one side – the defendant companies and the insurance industry. It was not based on the actual needs of victims. Instead, it was based on what insurers and businesses were willing to pay. This one-sided agreement reduced the funding provided in S. 1125 by more than $40 billion. Making matters worse, an additional $10 billion in contingent funds does not become available for 24 years. The United States Senate should not adopt a policy of adjusting award values just to meet an arbitrary and artificial limit reached in a backroom with only one side present.

Not only was this figure arrived at in an unfair way, but it’s clear that it is not enough to meet the needs of current and future asbestos victims. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the cost of this bill at $134 billion. This bill only provides $109 billion – so there is a significant shortfall already.

But there is very good reason to believe that the shortfall will be even larger. Recent claims in the Manville trust shows much higher than expected claims for many asbestos diseases. Those claims also show that recent mortality and morbidity data increase the likelihood that the number of asbestos related diseases and related claims will exceed current estimates.

If this fund becomes insolvent, it will leave victims without the help they need. Because of that possibility, last year, Senators inserted a number of protections during the Judiciary Committee mark-up.

Important Protections Were Removed

Tragically, the bill before us today throws away those carefully-crafted, bipartisan protections.

For example, we had protections for victims in case the trust fund became insolvent. Those protections in the Biden amendment were stripped from this bill.

We had protections that guaranteed that asbestos victims would preserve their legal rights until the trust fund is operational. That’s important because if this bill becomes law, it will end up in court, and there will be no mechanism for victims and their families to get help while this law is tied up in court. We solved that problem with the Feinstein amendment, but again -- those protections were stripped from this bill.

So overall this trust fund is inadequate. If we are going to lock the courthouse doors to victims, we’ve got to be 100 percent certain that the trust fund will have enough money to cover all of the 600,000 current claims -- and the thousands more that may be filed later. This is especially important because asbestos diseases have a very long latency period – often decades long – making it hard for us to predict today who will need help in the future.

If we pass this inadequate trust fund, my constituents – and hundreds of thousands of other Americans -- will be left out in the cold with only the faded memories of their loved ones to carry them through this tragic ordeal.

3. No Public Education Campaign

My third concern with this bill is that it keeps Americans in the dark about the dangers of asbestos exposure. This bill completely drops the education campaign that was in both of my asbestos bills. One of the reasons why asbestos takes such a deadly toll is because people are unaware that they are being exposed it.

Ralph Busch of Spokane

Ralph Busch exposed himself and his wife to asbestos when he renovated his home. He never knew about the dangers until he happened to read a story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Today, his dream house is abandoned, his credit is ruined, and his health is a constant worry. Ralph Busch did not do anything wrong. He couldn’t have known about the danger of Zonolite insulation. There is no way that Ralph Busch could have known that by buying and renovating an old house he would eventually expose his family to dangerous levels of asbestos.

We must make sure others do know about this public health risk by providing additional resources to educate the American public about the dangers of worksite and home exposures to products that contain asbestos.

We must also provide safety information to homeowners on what they can do to prevent asbestos exposures at home, particularly in the attic and basement.

Workers Unaware of Dangers

In addition to homeowners, many workers are exposed to asbestos on the job. Often they are not aware of the danger, and they don’t have the protective equipment they need.

I am heartened to hear that EPA, ATSDR and NIOSH are now proactively reaching out to consumers and workers to warn them to stay away from vermiculite attic insulation. But, I am very concerned that the EPA, prodded by a request from the law firm of the former acting agency administrator, is considering revising its "Guidance for Preventing Asbestos Disease Among Auto Mechanics" to convey the false impression that brake repair work is no longer a risk.

Clearly, any effort by the EPA to downplay these risks flies in the face of current Congressional intent regarding the inherent health problems with exposure to asbestos in the workplace. I sincerely hope that EPA will not bow to the pressure of the industry and in fact strengthen its guidance for brake mechanics.

4. It Does Not Do Enough for Research, Tracking and Treatment

My fourth concern is that this bill does not do enough for research, tracking and treatment.

I want to thank the Senator Hatch for including some modest resources in his latest version of the bill – which should be used to establish mesothelioma research and treatment centers around the country. Yesterday I was pleased to hear Senator Hatch say that he would be willing to explore additional funding for asbestos research and treatment centers. These centers will be critical as the medical community works to develop new treatments and protocols for the variety of deadly cancers and diseases that exposure to asbestos brings to workers and their families.

Unfortunately, not included in S. 2290 are the resources needed to track the victims of mesothelioma and other asbestos causing cancers, and to conduct additional research about the harmful effects of this deadly material.

These are areas that doctors and other experts have told me time and again we must invest in. I heard from some of those doctors last month at a press conference I held, which Senator Reid and Senator Dayton attended. At the press conference, Dr. Bret Williams of North Carolina said, "As a doctor, a cancer patient, a husband and father, I am asking my government to take a stand. Fix the problem. Give us hope. Fund a mesothelioma research program. Please invest in a cure."

A surgeon from Detroit, Dr. Harvey Pass, told us that progress on asbestos diseases requires funding, and he said that funding, "remains absolutely insufficient to set up the type of collaborative approaches that already exist with lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer."

So the fourth problem with this bill is its inadequate support for research, tracking and treatment of asbestos diseases.

5. Treats Family Members Unfairly

My fifth concern with this bill is the way it treats family members. Under this bill, family members of victims will be forced to jump through an additional series of hoops, reducing the likelihood they will ever receive an award.

Susan Lawes & Spokane Families

Let’s remember, these family members have lost their loved ones. In many cases they are vulnerable themselves because they came into contact with asbestos fibers through a family member. Take the case of Susan Lawes. Her father was a pipe fitter and was exposed to asbestos on the job. When he came home from work, asbestos fibers were still on his clothes. He’d walk through the door after the end of a long day and give his daughter a hug. Last month, Susan was diagnosed with an asbestos disease. As she told me, I am literally dying because I hugged my dad.

Susan and so many people like her are not treated fairly under this bill. The children and the spouses of workers should not have to prove five years of exposure to asbestos from their husbands and fathers as they would under this bill. They also should not be forced to appear before a special Physicians Review Board in order to determine their medical condition and whether they are eligible for a compensatory award.

It’s the same for people in Spokane, Washington. Spokane is one of the 22 sites that EPA has determined is still contaminated. Why are we forcing these innocent victims of take-home asbestos exposure to jump through extraordinary hoops to determine their eligibility for an award?

So my fifth concern is the unfair way this bill treats family members – making them jump through hurdles that reduce the chance they will ever get the help they need.

6. Allows Insurance Companies to Reduce Victims’ Awards

Finally, this bill allows insurance companies to reduce any awards that victims actually receive – something that is not found in similar federal plans.

This bill allows insurance companies to place liens on the awards that victims and family members receive.

I find it unconscionable that health insurance companies and other entities can recoup their costs by placing liens on the awards family members receive in compensation for their loss of a father, a husband, a son or a daughter.

These workers were often the only breadwinners in their households, but this bill tells their surviving family members that they can be sued by their health insurance provider for a substantial part of an award – an award that as I’ve shown may already be inadequate.

What’s especially disturbing is other federal compensation program do not allow this type of action, but for some reason, asbestos victims are being given fewer protections. The awards provided to victims in federal compensation programs like the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program and the Ricky Ray Hemophiliac Relief Fund Act are not subject to liens by workers compensation insurers. I don’t know why the authors want to treat asbestos victims differently, but I do know that it is not fair, and it’s one of the reasons why I can not support this bill.

So Mr. President, in the end, this bill falls far short of what victims deserve.

The awards are too small.
The trust fund is inadequate.
It fails to educate Americans about the dangers of asbestos.
It falls short on research, tracking and treatment for asbestos diseases.
It puts unfair burdens on family members.
It allows insurance companies to reduce a victim’s award.
I’ve been fighting on this for years, and it makes no sense that we could squander this moment with a bill that is so inadequate. George and Gayla and Ralph and Marv and Bret and Brian all deserve so much better, and I will continue to fight for them.

Mr. President, regardless of what happens with this bill, the one thing we must do is ban asbestos, and I assure my colleagues I will keep fighting for that. I do want to pass a law. We need a real solution. I don’t want companies going bankrupt. I don’t want victims going without the help they need. I still think we can do it, and I will continue to fight for a balanced and fair bill that will do right by victims across the country. We really have an obligation to them and their families. I’ve been fighting for them for three years, and no matter what happens this week, I’m not going to stop now.

*** POSTED APRIL 22, 2004 ***

[Just Me]

29. kickety kick

:kick:

[Octafish]

30. Michael Guess was his name.

The guy's hometown, Benton Harbor, Michigan was next door to mine.

I've will try to track down the Minneapolis Star-Tribune articles, but I don't have the time at present.

This one, from a GOOGLE cache, is a doozy:

The Grounded Man

by Dean Staley, photo illustration by Per Breiehagen

EXCERPT...

At 10:45, Prevost and Moussaoui took a shuttle van a mile and a half to the Pan-Am classroom building to start ground school. Michael Guess, a twenty-one-year-old support worker, met them at the reception desk. Guess set them up in a room with a projector and a PowerPoint presentation on the systems of the 747-400. (Guess, an aspiring pilot himself, would die a year later copiloting the flight that crashed and killed Senator Paul Wellstone in the woods of Northern Minnesota.)

CONTINUED...

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:Oagr1Ffcf-QJ:www.rakemag.com/features/detail.asp%3FcatID%3D61%26itemID%3D20668+michael-guess+moussaoui&hl=en

The article is a must-have. If you've time, please download before it's gone from GOOGLE.

[mattclearing]

31. That article is chilling.

I had no idea there was such a detailed account of Moussaoui's training. Excellent.

[Just Me]

35. Chilling. Yes. What is happening, has happened in this "democracy",....

,...isn't everything in the textbooks, EH?

[leveymg]

52. Reminds me of The Pelican Brief

Apparent political assassination to prevent enforcement of a big corporate pollution liability. There's an element of The Manchurian Candidate in here, as well, with the Co-pilot. One can only wonder.

[HereSince1628]

2. They CAN'T bring up Moussaoui without looking incompetent

That mistake is way to radioactive to bring out of deep storage.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

6. That's my take as well.

Well, that and the fact that they claim that 9/11 could not have been prevented before the PATRIOT Act, illegal spying, etc.

[HereSince1628]

7. Yes. I think that is exactly so.

[Octafish]

23. Either Bush and company are criminally negligent or they are traitors.

Now that this FISA stuff is in the public eye, it's a good time to remember ALL the stuff.

Whistle Blowers Coleen Rowley and Kenneth Williams and the New Families:

the Bushes, the Royal Saudis and the Bin Ladens

Nipawin - Monday, May 27, 2002 - by: Mario deSantis

"All the answers, everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's organisation, can be found in Saudi Arabia... the main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia" by John O'Neill, FBI Special Agent

In writing her thirteen page letter directed to Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI, the twenty one year FBI veteran Coleen Rowley had to invoke the whistle blower legislation in order to protect her professional career and her family.

In this letter, Rowley accuses the FBI headquarters in Washington of corrupting her request for surveillance and search warrants of terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, charged the FBI of mishandling relevant information on terrorism, and charged the FBI of incompetence as top FBI bureaucrats are more concerned with their promotion than doing their job in fighting the threats posed by terrorism. In the end, Coleen Rowley suggests that if the FBI would have done its job, the extent of the calamity of the 9-11 attacks would not have occurred.

Rowley and her colleagues at the Minneapolis office were so disappointed by the roadblocks set up by the Washington headquarters that they began to refer their concerns on terrorism to the CIA; as a consequence, prior to the 9-11 attacks, both the CIA and the FBI had shared the information related to terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui taking flight instructions on how to steer a Boeing 747 in the air and with no interest on either taking off or landing the plane.

In the meantime, at the FBI office in Phoenix, special agent Kenneth Williams wrote a memo on July 10 referring to the possibility that Al-Qaeda operatives were attending U.S. flight schools. This memo was received by John O'Neill, director of counterterrorism at the FBI office in New York, and this same memo ended up on the desk of Dave Frasca, head of the FBI's radical-fundamentalist unit in Washington.

Williams discussed his concerns of Al-Qaeda operative attending US flight schools with CIA agents as well. It is interesting to notice that all the mainstream media reports that Rowley's memo requesting surveillance and search warrants of terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, and William's memo concerning Al-Qaeda operatives attending US flight schools, both ended up on Dave Frasca's desk at the Washington headquarters. It appears to me that mainstream media is deliberately ignoring the role of FBI Special Agent John O'Neill, who later died in the attack of 9-11 at the World Trade Ceneter on his second day of his new job after resigning from the FBI in later August.

CONTINUED...

http://ensign.ftlcomm.com/desantisArticles/2002_600/desantis648/whistleblowers.html

Things may work out, HereSince1628. After all Bush and Co. have done to destroy America, perhaps Osama and Moussaoui may actually do us a service by helping point out who the real traitors are...

[Just Me]

25. They are criminals and they are traitors.

They have betrayed "the people", the Constitution, and U.S. laws and they have intentionally exploited this nation putting at risk the health and security of its people. They are criminals and they are traitors.

[Octafish]

37. Got that right.

Thanks, Just Me!

Know your BFEE Crime Line

Some DUers don't believe there's a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy or even a Bush Family Evil Empire.

Hey, I'm a Democrat and respect other's opinions and views.

But I do believe in the VRWC and BFEE, perhaps more accurately termed the Bush Transnational Criminal Enterprise. Here's why:

Bush Crime Line

• Vietnam
• Bay of Pigs
• Chile
• Watergate
• October Surprise
• El Salvador
• Reagan Survives Hinckley and Bush
• NAZI Ethnics for Reagan-Bush
• Voodoo Economics
• INSLAW/Promis
• Haiti
• Iraq-gate / Banca Nazionale del Lavoro arms to Saddam
• BCCI International Money Laundering for Terrorists & Intelligence Community arming Dr AQ Khan
• Savings & Loan scandal in general and Silverado in particular
• Iran-contra Guns/Drugs/Martial Law
• Gulf War I Glaspie Gives Go-Ahead
• Selection 2000 Shreds US Constitution
• Tax Cuts for UltraRich
• Criminal Justice Department
• Suicidal Environmental Policy
• ENRON Energy Policy
• 9-11 Criminal Negligence, at best; Treason, most likely
• Illegal Iraq Invasion
• Paperless Selection 2004

It’s interesting in reviewing the above list, just how much ultra-right, conservative Republican leadership has really been. More than a listing of criminality, the list demonstrates there have been many treasonous activites against “We the People” through “business opportunities” in the finance, energy, and defense industries.

There is one FAMILY name that runs through all the history, the four decades since the JFK administration. Since the very hour of President Kennedy’s death, and through the list of sinister events and unrelenting criminality noted above — a record of infamy stretching back 41 years today — appears the name George Herbert Walker Bush, a tradition continued by his son, George Walker Bush, current mini-beard of the BFEE.

PS: Many good DUers have shown me the connections stretching back to World War I and even the Spanish-American War. They don't call them the "Merchants of Death" for nothing.

[mod mom]

3. Al Franken had a guest on yesterday that said the Moussaoui case was

one of the four cases denied by FISA. He asked that his staff check this fact, because he couldn't understand why the * administration wouldn't be screaming it as an example as to why bypass the FISA courts. I never heard the outcome of that research. This explains why it isn't used-it was circumvented by higher ups at the FBI. Certainly they would have the knowledge that of the 19,000 requests only 4 were denied. Plus the hx of Moussaoui would certainly raise suspicion so why would those FBI officials think FISA would deny this request? . The fact that the FISA courts were filled by judges selected by Chief Supreme Court Justice Rehnquist and that they virtually rubberstamped request had to be known.

I would like to know who those FBI officials are that denied forwarding this to FISA. Anybody know?

[BeFree]

4. Good Point, Mod mom

Are we ever gonna get a dem senator to ask this question? Or anyone from M$M to begin an inquiry?

And.... isn't it odd that not one person has ever been indicted for helping any of the 19 hijackers? After all, they had to have had tremendous help to get around the country for the years before 9/11.

[mod mom]

5. A little goggling appears to point the finger at Marion "Spike" Bowman,

FBI Deputy General Counsel, but guess what? He received the "Presidential Rank Award" after 911. hmmh...

Also look at the murky reporting of the facts:

FBI Agent Colleen Rowley submitted a request for a FISA warrant to examine the laptop of alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui several weeks before the September 11 attacks (that laptop is now known to have contained information that might have helped expose the hijacking plot, but that also included substantial information on crop dusting that just as likely might have led agents on a wild goose chase.) The bureaucratic response is known by this committee: FBI headquarters denied Rowley's request, believing the application was insufficiently supported by evidence that would pass FISA court scrutiny - with no indication that any analysis or connection was made with the other evidence, indicated below, that might have met the FISA court's requirements.

For example, prior even to Rowley's request, FBI Agent Kenneth Williams submitted a memo to the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit citing concerns about the number of Islamic fundamentalists receiving training at Arizona flight schools. This memo was neither acted upon by FBI headquarters nor combined with Rowley's later request for a FISA warrant. In testimony to this committee, Williams also indicated that he had communicated his concerns to the CIA, with similar results.


http://www.cdt.org/testimony/020731berman.shtml


February 25 - Grassley Introduces Legislation in Response to ...... Moussaoui. Minneapolis field agents had tried to get a FISA warrant to search Moussaoui's property, but were denied by FBI headquarters. ... 
http://grassley.senate.gov/releases/2003/p03r02-25.htm


yet this is how Newsweek reporters Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman (10/01/2001) describe it:

Nevertheless, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attack, the rejection of the FISA warrant has produced tension between field agents in Minneapolis and their Justice Department and FBI superiors in Washington. Officials in Washington are adamant that there was insufficient grounds to approve the warrant based on what was produced by Minneapolis agents. “There does not seem to be any disagreement that the legal standards weren’t met,” said one top U.S. law enforcement official. The law requires the bureau to show evidence that the suspect is an “agent” of a foreign power or terrorist group, something the Minneapolis field agents never had, the officials said. 

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3067609/

Am I not understanding the process correctly? It appears to me that the request never made it to the FISA Courts.

[Octafish]

9. FBI Rowley thought there was a mole at FBI Washington HQ.

And with good reason.

FBI's Dave Frasca got the info from Minneapolis and all the other field offices reporting suspicous characters at the nation's flight schools.

Instead of jail, Bush promoted Frasca. Must've been doin' a heck of a job.

Here's what Minstrel Boy found a ways back:

The 9/11 whistleblowers-get-screwed data dump

Edited on Fri Mar-26-04 02:29 PM by Minstrel Boy

Some who’ve spoken up, and paid the price. I'd say that "incompetence theory" cannot explain what these people faced.

Michael Springman

WHO: Twenty-year State Department veteran, and former head of the visa bureau in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

CLAIM: He was repeatedly overruled by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to bin Laden recruits so they could receive training in the United States. Says this continued at least until the summer of 2001. (Notably, 15 of the 9/11 hijackers first entered the US through Jeddah.) Springman protested.

RESULT: Fired. Springman says he believes that the victims of 9/11 "may have been sacrificed in order to further wider US geopolitical objectives."
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=104&row=1
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2002/02/521.shtml
http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/dispatches/audio/020116_sp...


Sibel Edmonds

WHO: FBI translator

CLAIM: That a Turkish "spy ring" operated in the translation department with the apparent protection of FBI brass, falsifying intercepts containing explicit, actionable warnings of 9/11. That members of this ring were involved with the subjects of the intercepts. And that high-ranking officials asked her to falsify her translations and bribed her to keep quiet.

RESULT: Fired. After taking concerns to upper management, was dismissed with only one reason offered: "for the convenience of the government." Escorted from building by agents who said "We will be watching you and listening to you. If you dare to consult an attorney who is not approved by the FBI, or if you take this issue outside the FBI to the Senate, the next time I see you, it will be in jail." Told by John Ashcroft that he was invoking "State Secret Privilege and National Security" to keep what she knows from reaching the public.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/spy/edmonds.htm
http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=8516
http://tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article...


Robert Wright

WHO: FBI special investigator

CLAIM: That FBI agents assigned to intelligence operations actually protect terrorists from investigation and prosecution. That the FBI shut down his probe into terrorist training camps, and he was removed from a money-laundering case that had a direct link to terrorism. Says the FBI "intentionally and repeatedly thwarted his attempts to launch a more comprehensive investigation to identify and neutralize terrorists."

RESULT: Suspended and ordered to remain silent. Subject of at least three internal FBI investigations. Has written a book that the FBI is not only refusing to allow publication, but is not permitting anyone to even see it.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_2469.shtml
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/37/news-crogan.php


Lt. Col. Steve Butler

WHO: Vice Chancellor for student affairs, Defense Language Institute in Monterey.

CLAIM: In a letter to the editor of a local paper, Butler wrote "Bush knew of the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. What is...contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain." During Butler’s term as chancellor, 9/11 hijacker Saeed Alghamdi was enrolled at the Defense Language Institute.

RESULT: Disciplined, lost his position and threatened with court martial.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mcherald/3406502.htm
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.06E.butler.bush.htm
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/com/21220698.html


Indira Singh

WHO: "Risk architect" consultant to JP Morgan Chase.

CLAIM: That Ptech, a software company founded by a Saudi financier on the terrorist watch list, had troubling access to sensitive US institutions, which was apparently of no concern to the institutions involved or the FBI. For instance, a "person of interest" from Ptech “had a team in the basement of the FAA for two years” before 9/11. One of Ptech’s projects gained it access to "all information processes and issues that the FAA had with the National Airspace Systems Agency."

RESULT: Warnings went ignored by institutions and the FBI. Told to keep quiet. Subject to surveillance and threats.
http://www.madcowprod.com/index45.html


Colleen Rowley

WHO: FBI field agent, Minnesota office.

CLAIM: That FBI head office perversely thwarted the investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui, throwing up unusual roadblocks which prevented exposing the terrorist use of flight schools in the summer of 2001. That Dave Frasca of the Radical Fundamentalism Unit altered her report, rendering it impossible for the FBI to pursue the matter further.

RESULT: After 9/11, Frasca – the senior official who altered Rowley’s report and sat on the Minnesota office's request to investigate flight schools, even though he had received a similar request from the Phoenix office – is promoted and commended.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MOO208B.html


John O’Neil

WHO: Former FBI head of antiterrorism.

CLAIM: That his investigations into al Qaeda in general and the Cole bombing in particular were subverted by senior officials, and the situation had become much worse under Bush. Authorisation to re-enter Yemen to investigate the Cole denied by US Ambassador Barbara Bodine. Quit the FBI under a cloud.

RESULT: Killed in the World Trade Center.
http://www.hereinreality.com/johnoneill.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/

ORIGINAL DU Thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1293947

Thanks for adding to the record, mod mom.

[eridani]

38. Yes. This is very good.

Please put it in the Research section too.

[blm]

54. INVALUABLE info in this post, Octafish. PLEASE READ, FOLKS!!!!

.

[SmokingJacket]

10. Forward this to Franken.

Thanks for doing the research.

[skids]

36. So was it, or wasn't it?

The article from the OP seems to assume it was. A fairly important question, maybe one that deserves it's own thread...

[mod mom]

44. It appears to me that it was stopped by FBI HQ. I agree with you it is

an important question. Possibly another BFEE misinformation campaign.

[Junkdrawer]

8. They got promoted....

I'm not kidding. Read Rowley's memo begging for a FISA warrant and the downright silly arguments the FBI supervisors used to not even apply, and you'll read the beginnings of the LIHOP theory.

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

[mod mom]

13. I loved this excuse as to why ignore French Intelligence:

"posited that the French information could be worthless because it only identified Zacarias Moussaoui by name and he, the SSA, didn't know how many people by that name existed in France."

from Cynthia Rowley's letter

[Octafish]

32. Dave Frasca rings a bell.

The guy did such a great job of keeping his wug shut, Smirko promoted him.

The cutting edge of the U.S. Government's pre-September 11 "do nothing policy" in regards to Al Qaeda terrorists.

The FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit in Washington D.C.

by Steve Moore
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation (CRM), globalresearch.ca , 18 August/ août 2002

Global Outlook , Issue No 2 9-11: Foreknowledge or Deception? Stop the Nuclear Threat. Now available (for details click here) .
Order by phone from publisher. Call (toll free) 1-888-713-8500.

Dave Frasca is the key supervising special agent in the charge of the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit in Washington D.C. According to Newsweek (June 3, 2002, p. 25) "Frasca was the agent in charge of the Moussaoui case and his office also received the Phoenix memo." The New York Times also confirms that the "FBI clearinghouse for Al Qaeda intelligence was the Bin Laden and Radical Fundamentalist Units...The units had complete access to the Phoenix memorandum, the Moussaoui case and the Ressam debriefings." (Ressam is the man with the bomb intended for the L.A. Airport who was arrested at the Canadian border in December, l999) (New York Times, May 27, 2002, p. A11)

Despite intense criticism of Dave Frasca by FBI agent Rowley in her famous report, she has never revealed publicly his name. Yet Patrick J.. Leahy (an anthrax target), Democrat of Vermont; Charles E. Grussley, Republican of Iowa and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania "have identified Dave Frasca" as the cutting edge of the U.S. Government's pre-September 11 do nothing policy in regards to Al Qaeda terrorists.

This short article will detail the key supervisory role Dave Frasca played in the events of September 11.

First some background facts. On August 6, 2001, President Bush received a briefing by the CIA titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." (National Post, May20, 2002, p.1) The report was prepared at Mr. Bush's request after he became alarmed at warnings of "an impending attack in the summer of 2001." (National Post, May 20, 2002, p. A9) At the time, Bush was concerned about "domestic targets." Yet According to Jonathan Freeland (writing in the National Guardian, May30-June5, 2002 p. 11) "Vice President Dick Cheney sat on a Counter-Terrorism Bill passed to him in July, 2001. The Attorney General John Ashcroft refused a demand for more FBI anti-terrorism agents. The Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield did not deploy a predator drone aircraft which the Clinton Administration had used to track Bin Laden. National Security Advisor Condi Rice was warned by her Clintonite predecessor that she should spend more time on Al Qaeda than any other issue." She didn't

So on the one hand, we have the July unspecified "threat assessment", which has never been revealed, that caused President Bush to request the August 6th "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." report which was also classified. On the other hand, cabinet members are involved in cut backs and go slows in regards to anti-terrorist actions by their departments. Even though they undercut the personal security of the American people, there is evidence that cabinet members took the threats as a real personal danger to themselves. For example, Attorney General John Ashcroft, who presides over the FBI, was getting enough disturbing indications of an attack that he "begin using only chartered planes on private as well as public business." (Paul Knox "A Problem Named Ashcroft" Globe and Mail, June 7, 2002, p.

When the possibility came up of a Al Qaeda sucide-hijack smashing into CIA headquarters in 1995, "FBI agents descended upon flying schools in 1995." (San Francisco Chronicle, March 6, 2002, p. A11) This was the swift government response to police interrogations of Abul Hakim Murad and Ramzi Yoursef who were convicted in the United States and sentenced to life in prison for a plot to blow up 12 U.S. bound airlines flying out of Asia. Murad attended flight schools in New York, Texas, California and North Carolina. According to Filipino police report of 1995, "Murad's idea is that he will board an American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger, then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at CIA headquarters." Robert Delfin, Chief of Intelligence Command for the Philippines Police says, "We shared that with the FBI." (San Francisco Chronicle, March 6, 2002, p. A11) Murad was also in touch with 10 other Middle East men training in U.S. flight schools.

CONTINUED...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MOO208B.html

So, why did Bush promote the FBI guy who disregarded all these FBI warnings? As Minstrel Boy said: "There must be a good reason for it."

[leveymg]

47. Frasca knew about the CIA-Saudi domestic operation that tracked

the al-Qaeda cell inside the US, what DIA had dubbed the "Brooklyn Cell". He was promoted because he kept his mouth shut after that illegal, warrantless surveillance operation screwed the pooch on 9/11. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00257.htm

Bowman knew about it too, but less than Frasca. Bowman got a bounus and a plaque on the way out the door for his role in stalling FISA requests from unwitting field agents, such as Rowley.

[mod mom]

48. Thank you for this info. So the Moussaoui request never made it to

FISA- correct?

[leveymg]

49. Correct. It was tied up by Frasca and Bowman at

FBI HQ. Frasca made changes to the warrant request, and Bowman refused to forward it to the FISA Court on spurious grounds that it hadn't been shown that Moussaoui was an agent of a foreign power.

CIA had the information Rowley wanted to link Mossaoui with al-Qaeda. On his way to the US, Moussaoui had stayed at the same al-Qaeda safehouse in Kuala Lumpur that hosted a terrorist summit in early January 2000. The CIA had videoed the Flt. 77 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, there as they met with Atta's roommate before the pair entered the US on January 15, 2000. As the CIA watched, the 9/11 hijackings and the attack on US naval ship (USS Cole) in Aden were planned in that condo off a golf course in Kuala Lumpur.

The failure of the CIA UBL unit to turn over its files in the Moussaoui case pales by comparison to its outright refusal to cooperate with the FBI's National Security Office earlier in the summer of 2001 as that unit searched for al-Hazmi and al-Midhar. That stonewalling led to FBI counterterrorism chief John O'Neill's decision to quit weeks before 9/11 in the face of trumped up charges that he had lost classified al-Qaeda investigative materials.

[SmokingJacket]

11. Good essay, thanks. nt

[Octafish]

41. You're welcome, SmokingJacket! The Bush Organized Crime Family...

...long ago figured out that if they make things sufficiently complicated, go above and beyond the Guinesses Book of Records for frequency and scale of criminality, and make their treasons great and public, the press will be unable to follow.

Here's my opinion, with links and, more importantly, the resources of DU:

The Bush Organized Crime Family

... A/K/A...

Bush, Inc.
The Bush Crime Syndicate.
The Bush Family Evil Empire.
The Secret Team.
The Shadow Government.
The Octopus.
The Zeroes with a Thousand Aliases.

Whatever name it uses, the BFEE operates to:

• Command the world's mightiest military for personal gain.
• Control the physical and intellectual property of the United States.
• Manipulate the American public through fear and intimidation.
• Penure the nation's middle class to the benefit of the wealthiest individuals and powerful corporations.
• Rob the mineral resources of the world's nations.
• Enslave the world's free peoples.
• Kill those who oppose them.
• Destroy the Constitution of the United States of America.

Anyone doubt me? Post why and prepare to be informed.

Those with me? Feel free to add and discuss.

Original DU thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=875102#875121

That stuff sounds crazy. But sounding crazy doesn't mean it's not true.

[Clara T]

14. Interesting

Yep, nothing like a bit of 'good old luck' when you're advocating a long term (1,000 year?), fundamental and unprecedented takeover of the geopolitical/military landscape of the entire planet, as well as a subsequent dismantling of the Bill Of Rights here at home (in order to "discourage" the inevitable smattering of dissent).

Imagine how overwhelmingly frustrating it might have been for all those PNAC members if the "catastrophic and catalyzing event" of 9/11 had not so fortuitously come along during George W's reign! All those years of planning, going all the way back to the Ford administration and the end of the Cold War, all the secret meetings and the positioning of the "right people" in the right places to be ready at the right time, all the media they had been buying up . . . all their hard work would have been for naught, just going to waste, with little hope of coming to fruition.

Heck, had 9/11 not occurred, these folks -- realizing the window of opportunity could very well close upon them -- might have gotten so desperate they may have been tempted to put together another "Operation Northwoods" type of plot or something.

In case you're unfamiliar, "Operation Northwoods" was a top secret Pentagon plan that was submitted to Defense Secretary McNamara in 1962. The scheme called for the staging of actual 'terrorist' attacks, including airline hijackings and crashes, against U.S. civilian and military targets in order to deceive the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Fidel Castro. The plan was flatly rejected by President Kennedy, infuriating those in the Pentagon who had devised it.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_386.shtml

[Octafish]

42. Live and Learn.

...and the Truth shall set us free. Case in point: 9-11. There seem to be two explanations why George W Bush has zero interest in investigating the events leading up to that horrible day. First, he seems criminally negligent in his role as commander-in-chief. Second, he seems engaged in a conspiracy of treason.

This isn't news to you, Clara T.

If this is news to your, Dear Reader, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, especially all the young Republicans'. Think. There is still time.

9/11 Cover-up Two-Page Summary

Was 9/11 Allowed to Happen?

Summary of 9/11 Timeline Developed by Paul Thompson

SNIP...

America’s top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in US cities to trick the public into supporting a war against Cuba in the early 1960s. Approved in writing by the Pentagon Joint Chiefs, Operation Northwoods even proposed blowing up a US ship and hijacking planes as a false pretext for war.

CONTINUED with lots o' links...

http://www.wanttoknow.info/911timeline2pg


Here's the work of a crew dedicated to discovering the Truth about 9-11, THE COMPLETE 9-11 TIMELINE:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline /


Here's an archive chock full o' mainstream media coverage on 9-11, much no longer available online:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/archiveprior_knowledge.html

Operation NORTHWOODS, for those new to the subject, is evidence many of the nation's military leadership are criminally insane. President Kennedy fired Gen. Lemnitzer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for submitting the treasonous plan. It was kept secret for 40 fucking years.

[Solomon]

15. Because Moussaoui was "our" guy. One of the patsies set up by us.

That's why.

[Octafish]

45. Open and Shut.

Slam dunk.

Open and Shut

Four years later, we still have ten big questions

by Jarrett Murphy
December 5th, 2005 6:30 PM

EXCERPT...

9. What exactly did Zacarias Moussaoui plan to do?

Was he the 20th hijacker? Or was he supposed to pilot a fifth plane on September 11? Or was he a backup for Ziad Jarrah, the Flight 93 hijack pilot, whose disagreements with Mohammed Atta almost got him dropped from the plot? Or was he a pilot for a "second wave" of attacks, as captured Al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is quoted saying in the 9-11 Commission report?

Last April, Moussaoui pled guilty to conspiracy charges, but claimed that he had nothing to do with 9-11 and instead was planning a separate attack to try to free Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman.

The Department of Justice hasn't said publicly exactly what Moussaoui did—stating in court filings merely that Moussaoui "participated" in the 9-11 plot—but it does want to execute him for his alleged role

SOURCE:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0549,murphy,70685,6.html

Gee. Why wouldn't what's probably the most intrusive (to put it kindly) Justice Department in U.S. history be interested in a guy who was ID'd by his instructors as a probable terrorist?

[meganmonkey]

16. That makes so much sense

I think I might throw up...

:hide:

(for clarity - I am NOT being sarcastic. It really does make sense...)

[Octafish]

51. Flight School warned FBI...

...they said "Forgedaboudid." So the flight school instructors called their Congresscritters who got the FBI in Washington to take action.

Minny flight trainer & Moussaoui

Eagan flight trainer wouldn't let unease about Moussaoui rest

Greg Gordon, Star Tribune
December 21, 2001FLIT21
Last update: January 5, 2002 at 10:15 AM


EXCERPT...

"From what I've heard, the school was clearly more alert than federal officials," Sabo said.

Oberstar said "alarm bells" should have gone off at the FAA when Pan Am reported Hanjour's limited English skills -- as least as far as his pilot's training went. He also said he had no major complaints about the FBI's Minneapolis office. But he added that the office's response to the Eagan flight instructor's calls was so "bureaucratic" that a less-determined tipster might have stopped calling.

Sabo, who is the senior Democrat on a House appropriations transportation subcommittee, declined to discuss specifics of his briefing from Pan Am. But he said he would give the school "an A-plus for ... seeing a problem, reporting it and continuing to pursue it."


SNIP...

In the meantime, Oberstar said, the instructor voiced his suspicions about Moussaoui to colleagues, one of whom offered the number of an FBI friend who could advise whether the information should be reported. When the instructor phoned, the FBI agent strongly urged him to pursue the matter but gave him the wrong agent to call, the sources said.

The instructor made three more calls before reaching the right agent on Aug. 15, the sources said. Moussaoui was arrested the next day and held on an immigration violation.
The FBI then checked Moussaoui's name with foreign intelligence agencies, and was warned by the French intelligence service that he may have terrorist connections. But the Minneapolis agents were unable to persuade FBI lawyers in Washington, D.C., to seek a warrant to search his possessions under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires evidence that the suspect is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist group.

Frustrated local FBI agents visited the school a couple of times before Sept. 11, trying to obtain enough evidence for a warrant, a source said.


CONTINUED...

http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/Covert_Actions/Flight_School_Warned_FBI,_FAA_(again_and_again)

Small world. And very, very bad.

[bobthedrummer]

17. There seems to be a lot of that being discussed today Octafish.

Right here at DU.

[Octafish]

20. Never understood why so many can't connect any dots on their own.

Reminds me of someone.

Here's a blast from the past on the subject:


A Short History of “Conspiracy Theory”

Edited on Tue Jul-12-05 11:11 PM by Octafish

About three years after the death of President John F. Kennedy, it became a matter of official CIA policy to denigrate anyone who disagreed with the Warren Commission conclusion of Oswald as the lone gunman. So, the agency ordered its "media assets" to label anyone who disagreed with the Big Lie as a "conspiracy nut." Ever hear Corporate McPravda say anything nice about Jim Garrison or Oliver Stone?

Here's background:

How the CIA Killed History

by Ace R. Hayes
(May/June 1997 issue)
From the Portland Free Press

Editor's note: Three decades ago (4 January 1967), the CIA produced adocument (#1035-960), "Countering Criticism of the Warren Report." This document was partly declassified under an FOIA, September 1976. It is the blueprint for employing "CIA media assets" to smear critics of the Warren Commission. The justification for this perversion of truth, justice and democracy was clearly stated: "Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society."

CONTINUED…

http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/news/ciakillhistory.ht...

Read this CIA document 1035-960 here:

Countering Criticism of the Warren Report

http://www.jfklancer.com/CIA.html

The term “conspiracy nut” soon evolved into “conspiracy theorist” as code for “psychotic,” “paranoid” or “kook.” Consider how quickly that label, once pinned on a person, prevents any further consideration of the person’s rhetoric, writings or discoveries.

So people who wonder why the “government” doesn’t give two figs for finding out who killed President Kennedy, a Liberal Democrat, who worked every day of his time as President to keep the peace, make life better for ALL Americans, and make the world a better place (which is a lot more than most presidents since have done or even tried) are called “nuts.”

That's what Allen Dulles, J Edgar Hoover, and their stooges and sub-stooges in Congress and the White House worked to do. And to think so many today continue their work, spreading lies. The hell with such people.

Here’s a bit of real work by David Talbot. The editor of Slate.com, Talbot’s a more accomplished journalist, writer, researcher and an all-around better source than Kos ever will be, IMFO.

The Mother of All Cover-Ups

Forty years after the Warren Report, the official verdict on the Kennedy assassination, we now know the country's high and mighty were secretly among its biggest critics

by David Talbot
This article first appeared in the September 15, 2004 issue of Salon.com

EXCERPT…

There is one sanctuary where the Warren Report is still stubbornly upheld and where its manifold critics can expect their own rough treatment: in the towers of the media elite. Fresh from assaulting Oliver Stone, not only for his film but his very character (a media shark-attack in which, I must confess, I too once engaged), the national press rushed to embrace Gerald Posner's bold 1993 defense of the Warren Report, "Case Closed," making it a bestseller. ("The most convincing explanation of the assassination," historian Robert Dallek called it in the Boston Globe.) And the 40th anniversary of JFK's murder last November sparked a new cannonade of anti-conspiracy sound and fury, with ABC's Peter Jennings making yet another network news attempt to silence the report's critics. Most of the press lords and pundits in the 1960s who allowed themselves to be convinced that the Warren Report was the correct version of what happened in Dallas -- whether because they genuinely believed it or because they thought it was for the good of the country -- are now dead or retired. But after buying the official version for so long, it seems the elite media institutions have too much invested in the Warren Report to change their minds now, even if they're under new editorial leadership.

One of the great ironies of history is that while the media elite was busily trying to shore up public confidence in the Warren Report, the political elite was privately confiding among themselves that the report was a travesty, a fairy tale for mass consumption. Presidents, White House aides, intelligence officials, senators, congressmen, even foreign leaders -- they all muttered darkly among themselves that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy, a plot that a number of them suspected had roots in the U.S. government itself. (In truth, some high media dignitaries have also quietly shared their doubts about the official version. In 1993, CBS anchorman Dan Rather, who did much along with his network to enforce the party line on Dallas, confessed to Robert Tannenbaum, the former deputy chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, "We really blew it on the Kennedy assassination.")

Thanks to tapes of White House conversations that have been released to the public in recent years, we now know that the man who appointed the Warren Commission -- President Lyndon Johnson -- did not believe its conclusions. On September 18, 1964, the last day the panel met, commission member Sen. Richard Russell phoned Johnson, his old political protege, to tell him he did not believe the single bullet theory, the key to the commission's finding that Oswald acted alone. "I don't either," Johnson told him. Johnson's theories about what really happened in Dallas shifted over the years. Soon after the assassination, Johnson was led to believe by the CIA that Kennedy might have been the victim of a Soviet conspiracy. Later his suspicions focused on Castro; during his long-running feud with Robert Kennedy, LBJ leaked a story to Washington columnist Drew Pearson suggesting the Kennedy brothers themselves were responsible JFK's death by triggering a violent reaction from the Cuban leader with their "goddamed Murder Inc." plots to kill him. In 1967, according to a report in the Washington Post, Johnson's suspicious gaze came to rest on the CIA. The newspaper quoted White House aide Marvin Watson as saying that Johnson was "now convinced" Kennedy was the victim of a plot and "that the CIA had something to do with this plot." Max Holland, who has just published a study of LBJ's views on Dallas, "The Kennedy Assassination Tapes," intriguingly concludes that Johnson remained haunted by the murder throughout his tenure in the White House. "It is virtually an article of faith among historians that the war in Vietnam was the overwhelming reason the president left office in 1969, a worn, bitter, and disillusioned man," writes Holland. "Yet the assassination-related tapes paint a more nuanced portrait, one in which Johnson's view of the assassination weighed as heavily on him as did the war."

Critics of the Warren Report's lone-assassin conclusion were often stumped by defenders of the report with the question, "If there was a conspiracy, why didn't President Kennedy's own brother -- the attorney general of the United States, Robert Kennedy -- do anything about it?" It's true that, at least until shortly before his assassination death in June 1968, Bobby Kennedy publicly supported the Warren Report. On March 25, during a presidential campaign rally at San Fernando Valley State College in California, Kennedy was dramatically confronted by a woman heckler, who called out, "We want to know who killed President Kennedy!" Kennedy responded by saying, "I stand by the Warren Commission Report." But at a later campaign appearance, days before his assassination, Bobby Kennedy said the opposite, according to his former press spokesman Frank Mankiewicz. When asked if he would reopen the investigation into his brother's death, he uttered a simple, one-word answer: "Yes." Mankiewicz recalls today, "I remember that I was stunned by the answer. It was either like he was suddenly blurting out the truth, or it was a way to shut down the questioning -- you know, 'Yes, now let's move on.'"

His public statements on the Warren Report were obviously freighted with political and emotional -- and perhaps even security -- concerns for Bobby Kennedy. But we have no doubt what his private opinion of the report was -- as his biographer Evan Thomas wrote, Kennedy "regarded the Warren Commission as a public relations exercise to reassure the public." According to a variety of reports, Kennedy immediately suspected a plot as soon as he heard his brother had been shot in Dallas. And as he made calls and inquiries in the hours and days after the assassination, he came to an ominous conclusion: JFK was the victim of a domestic political conspiracy. In a remarkable passage in "One Hell of a Gamble," a widely praised 1997 history of the Cuban missile crisis based on declassified Soviet and U.S. government documents, historians Alexksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali wrote that on November 29, one week after the assassination, Bobby Kennedy dispatched a close family friend named William Walton to Moscow with a remarkable message for Georgi Bolshakov, the KGB agent he had come to trust during the nerve-wracking back-channel discussions sparked by the missile crisis. According to the historians, Walton told Bolshakov that Bobby and Jacqueline Kennedy believed "there was a large political conspiracy behind Oswald's rifle" and "that Dallas was the ideal location for such a crime." The Kennedys also sought to reassure the Soviets that despite Oswald's apparent connections to the communist world, they believed President Kennedy had been killed by American enemies. This is a stunning account -- with the fallen president's brother and widow communicating their chilling suspicions to the preeminent world rival of the U.S. -- and it has not received nearly the public attention it deserves.

CONTINUED…

http://home.earthlink.net/~jkelin1/talbot.html

People who advance or doubt “conspiracy theories” when they are disagreeing with the “official story” are not nuts. They are not even “theorists.” They are Truth Seekers.



Inquisitive. Intelligent. Kind. Brave. Peaceful. Democrats.

Original DU Thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4086438

Most important: You, OTOH, connect a heck of a lot of dots. Are you a college professor, Bob?

[democraticinsurgent]

28. Connecting the dots getting easier by the day

Kicked and recommended. Octafish, great work as usual. Never had seen that Talbot article about LBJ and Bobby Kennedy. Wow. No wonder they killed him when they did. That's a pretty huge reason to keep him from the White House.

[JohnyCanuck]

18. Many a true word spoken in jest.

....... She wrote in a followup report that some field agents were frustrated enough to joke that key officials at FBI headquarters "had to be spies or moles . . . who were actually working for Osama bin Laden to have so undercut (our) effort."

[Octafish]

53. How All the President's Men Buried Coleen Rowley.

Excellent point, you make, JohnyCanuck.

Here's where their criminality and treason comes out:

Famous for 15 Seconds

How All the President's Men Buried Coleen Rowley

by Steve Perry
June 13, 2002

The daily news cycle is a hungry beast with a short memory, so maybe it should come as no surprise that the revelations of Minneapolis FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley came and went so quickly. Still, you've got to credit W and company. The administration has dispatched her story with impressive speed and political acumen.

First they took advantage of the cover afforded by the Rowley firestorm to announce sweeping rollbacks in the U.S.'s meager edifice of rules against indiscriminate domestic spying, rules spawned by the exposure of prolific FBI abuses in the 1960s. Under the new guidelines set forth in John Ashcroft's little-noted May 30 diktat, there is no longer any pretense that intelligence agencies need "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity to mount prolonged fishing expeditions into the affairs of private individuals.

The administration then turned to defusing Rowley's story. Hence the rushed announcement of plans to reorganize the entire intelligence apparatus, even though the particulars are so ill-formed that Bush has no intention of soliciting funds for it this year. Thus, too, the sudden fanfare regarding the arrest of Jose Padilla a month earlier. After the Padilla story had simmered for a couples of days, the administration cheerfully conceded it was less than advertised. It was unlikely Padilla would ever be prosecuted; as a Defense Department deputy told CBS, "I don't think there was actually a plot beyond some fairly loose talk."

Job well done. Padilla served his purpose, which was to steal the last bit of thunder from Rowley's Congressional testimony a few days earlier. There's no mystery as to motive: Her disclosures concerning quashed pre-9/11 leads (along with news of the FBI's so-called Phoenix memo and some unattended CIA leads) called into doubt a main premise of the Bush program-the frantic contention that what we need most going forward is a vastly expanded repertoire of police powers and resources.

SNIP...

Once the immediate embarrassment engendered by Rowley has passed, we're bound to see her complaint spun a different way. Why, pundits will be prompted to ask, did FBI administrators refuse to seek a search warrant for Zacarias Moussaoui's belongings? Another sad case of law enforcement shackled by old liberal due process rules and PR concerns. The moral: Slip the shackles! Let the FBI be the FBI! In truth (and Rowley says as much) the agency had ample cause for a warrant under existing standards, but no one in the bureaucratic daisy chain recognized the possible significance of the case or could be bothered to raise their heads to pursue it.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/sperry0613.html

To think these turds see themselves as "leaders of the free world" makes me retch.

[EVDebs]

22. Incompetence and ineffectiveness are part of Bush strategery !

It's all part of his inscrutable Art of War, Sun Tzu strategery taken to the infinite power(trip)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=50015&mesg_id=57722

[Octafish]

55. Nobody ever saved a village by destroying it.

Same goes for countries. It probably holds for souls.

January 10, 2003: Government Employees Responsible for 9/11 Failures Are Promoted

FBI Director Mueller personally awards Marion (Spike) Bowman with a presidential citation and cash bonus of approximately 25 percent of his salary. Bowman, head of the FBI's National Security Law Unit and the person who refused to seek a special warrant for a search of Zacarias Moussaoui's belongings before the 9/11 attacks, is among nine recipients of bureau awards for “exceptional performance.” The award comes shortly after a 9/11 Congressional Inquiry report saying Bowman's unit gave Minneapolis FBI agents “inexcusably confused and inaccurate information” that was “patently false.” Bowman's unit also blocked an urgent request by FBI agents to begin searching for Khalid Almihdhar after his name was put on a watch list. In early 2000, the FBI acknowledged serious blunders in surveillance Bowman's unit conducted during sensitive terrorism and espionage investigations, including agents who illegally videotaped suspects, intercepted e-mails without court permission, and recorded the wrong phone conversations. As Senator Charles Grassley (R) and others have pointed out, not only has no one in government been fired or punished for 9/11, but several others have been promoted:

Pasquale D'Amuro, the FBI's counterterrorism chief in New York City before 9/11, is promoted to the bureau's top counterterrorism post.

FBI Supervisory special agent Michael Maltbie, who removed information from the Minnesota FBI's application to get the search warrant for Moussaoui, is promoted to field supervisor. (Salon, 3/3/03 (B))

David Frasca, head of the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit, is “still at headquarters,” Grassley notes. Frasca received the Phoenix memo warning al-Qaeda terrorists could use flight schools inside the US, and then a few weeks later he received the request for Moussaoui's search warrant. “The Phoenix memo was buried; the Moussaoui warrant request was denied.” Even after 9/11, Frasca continued to “ up roadblocks” in the Moussaoui case.

President Bush later names Barbara Bodine the director of Central Iraq shortly after the US conquest of Iraq. Many in government are upset about the appointment because of her blocking of the USS Cole investigation, which some say could have uncovered the 9/11 plot. She failed to admit she was wrong or apologize. However, she is fired after about a month, apparently for doing a poor job.

An FBI official who tolerates penetration of the translation department by Turkish spies and encourages slow translations just after 9/11 is promoted (see March 22, 2002). The CIA has promoted two unnamed top leaders of its unit responsible for tracking al-Qaeda in 2000 even though the unit mistakenly failed to put the two suspected terrorists on the watch list (see August 23, 2001). “The leaders were promoted even though some people in the intelligence community and in Congress say the counterterrorism unit they ran bore some responsibility for waiting until August 2001 to put the suspect pair on the interagency watch list.” CIA Director Tenet has failed to fulfill a promise given to Congress in late 2002 that he would name the CIA officials responsible for 9/11 failures.

SOURCE and a wholelottalinks:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?id=1521846767-1476

Don't hold back, EVDebs! Thanks for giving a damn!

[The Witch]

26. What an awesome article.

Where's James Bond when we need him?

[Octafish]

56. Thank you, The Witch. Remember Marion 'Spike' Bowman?

Ian Fleming, in his writings, never imagined that any arch-villain could hijack the Government of the United States.

Yet, that's what the Bush Crime Family has done.

Marion ("Spike") Bowman actively participated in the following events:

January 10, 2003: Government Employees Responsible for 9/11 Failures Are Promoted

FBI Director Mueller personally awards Marion (Spike) Bowman with a presidential citation and cash bonus of approximately 25 percent of his salary. Bowman, head of the FBI's National Security Law Unit and the person who refused to seek a special warrant for a search of Zacarias Moussaoui's belongings before the 9/11 attacks, is among nine recipients of bureau awards for “exceptional performance.” The award comes shortly after a 9/11 Congressional Inquiry report saying Bowman's unit gave Minneapolis FBI agents “inexcusably confused and inaccurate information” that was “patently false.” Bowman's unit also blocked an urgent request by FBI agents to begin searching for Khalid Almihdhar after his name was put on a watch list. In early 2000, the FBI acknowledged serious blunders in surveillance Bowman's unit conducted during sensitive terrorism and espionage investigations, including agents who illegally videotaped suspects, intercepted e-mails without court permission, and recorded the wrong phone conversations. As Senator Charles Grassley (R) and others have pointed out, not only has no one in government been fired or punished for 9/11, but several others have been promoted:

* Pasquale D'Amuro, the FBI's counterterrorism chief in New York City before 9/11, is promoted to the bureau's top counterterrorism post.

* FBI Supervisory special agent Michael Maltbie, who removed information from the Minnesota FBI's application to get the search warrant for Moussaoui, is promoted to field supervisor.

* David Frasca, head of the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit, is “still at headquarters,” Grassley notes. Frasca received the Phoenix memo warning al-Qaeda terrorists could use flight schools inside the US, and then a few weeks later he received the request for Moussaoui's search warrant. “The Phoenix memo was buried; the Moussaoui warrant request was denied.” Even after 9/11, Frasca continued to “ up roadblocks” in the Moussaoui case.

* President Bush later names Barbara Bodine the director of Central Iraq shortly after the US conquest of Iraq. Many in government are upset about the appointment because of her blocking of the USS Cole investigation, which some say could have uncovered the 9/11 plot. She failed to admit she was wrong or apologize. However, she is fired after about a month, apparently for doing a poor job.

* An FBI official who tolerates penetration of the translation department by Turkish spies and encourages slow translations just after 9/11 is promoted (see March 22, 2002). The CIA has promoted two unnamed top leaders of its unit responsible for tracking al-Qaeda in 2000 even though the unit mistakenly failed to put the two suspected terrorists on the watch list (see August 23, 2001). “The leaders were promoted even though some people in the intelligence community and in Congress say the counterterrorism unit they ran bore some responsibility for waiting until August 2001 to put the suspect pair on the interagency watch list.” CIA Director Tenet has failed to fulfill a promise given to Congress in late 2002 that he would name the CIA officials responsible for 9/11 failures.

CONTINUED with a whole lotta linkssa:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?id=1521846767-1126

The cats above are the real James Bonds.



May there be a SPECTRE of defeat around these mass-murdering, warmongering traitors.

[UpInArms]

27. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/fisa/

Electronic Surveillance at an All-Time High in 2004. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Annual Report (pdf) reveals that there were 1758 applications for secret surveillance in 2004, an all-time high. None of the applications for secret suveillance warrants were denied. In 2004, as in 2003, more secret surveillance warrants were granted than federal wiretap warrants, which have more stringent standards. A report on federal wiretapm warrants in 2004 reveals that state and federal courts authorized 1,710 interceptions in 2004, an increase of 19 percent over 2003 and more than in any previous year. Federal officials made an all-time high 730 intercept applications in 2004, a 26 percent increase over 2003. For more information, see EPIC's Wiretap and EPIC's FISA statistics pages. (Apr. 29, 2005)


2003 Surveillance Report: Secret Warrants Surpass Standard Warrants. The 2003 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Annual Report (pdf) reveals that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granted 1724 applications for secret surveillance last year, more than in any previous year. The report shows that 2003 was the first year ever that more secret surveillance warrants were granted than federal wiretap warrants, which are issued only under a more stringent legal standard. The PATRIOT Act significantly expanded the government's authority to make use of secret surveillance, including in circumstances where part of the investigation is unrelated to an intelligence investigation. The report also reveals that a small number of applications for secret surveillance were denied in 2003 for the first time ever. For more information, see EPIC's FISA statistics page. (May 6, 2004)


FISA Wiretaps At All-Time High. According to the 2002 FISA Annual Report from the Attorney General, "All 1228 applications presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2002 were approved." In2001, 934 applications were approved. See EPIC's FISA statistics page. (May 1, 2003)


Surveillance Oversight Act Introduced. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have introduced the Domestic Security Oversight Act (pdf). The bill would increase the public reporting requirements of the Department of Justice on its implementation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The American Bar Association has also urged (pdf) better public reporting regarding the FISA. An interim report by the bill sponsors (pdf) on the FBI's use of the FISA details major problems with its implementation. (Feb. 25, 2003)

...more (with embedded links)...

Why DID they deny the application on Moussaoui? hmmmmm..... :eyes:

[Octafish]

57. FISA is why Bush won’t connect the dots.

The flight instructors where Moussaoui learned to turn a 747 called the FAA and said their student might be a hijacker in training. The FAA said to call the FBI.

The Minneapolis FBI said they were aware of the situation. The flight instructors said a jumbo jet loaded with fuel made one big ass bomb. They begged the FBI to investigate, to no avail according to the flight instructors.

So, the flight instructors called their Congressman, John Oberstar. Oberstar then called the FBI in Washington who finally ordered the arrest of Moussaoui.

Then Ashcan's FBI kept the Minneapolis office from getting a FISA warrant to check out Moussaoui's laptop -- the one containing stolen materials needed to navigate a 747. Who knows what else was on that laptop.

Well, the BFEE's spooks will have that info on the computer. We? We won't even get to download what's on Moussaoui's mind. He's up for the death penalty, IIRC.


BTW: A historical oddity: one of the Minneapolis flight instructors who spotted Moussaoui, and from whom Moussaoui pirated a CD-ROM of a 747 flight controls, died as the co-pilot of Paul Wellstone's plane.

The facts are there for all to see. These BFEE are mass-murdering traitors.

The Truth will out.






The late, great DUer TruthIsAll researched and shared some of his findings on FISA:

Denial of Moussaoui FISA Warrant: The Smoking Gun?

From The Wilderness Publications...

EXCERPT...

According to The Wall Street Journal, the FBI did not tell the White House about Moussaoui until after Sept. 11.
But it is a safe bet that the CIA's Tenet did. Even before learning about Moussaoui, Tenet's President's Daily Brief of Aug. 6 bore the title 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.' When analysts working in Tenet's Counterterrorist Center were warned about Moussaoui a few weeks before Sept. 11, it is inconceivable that they would not have told Tenet. He is, by law, 'the principal advisor to the president for intelligence matters related to national security,' and is entitled to 'all intelligence related to the national security, which is collected by any department, agency or other entity of the United States.'

Tenet's people learned about Moussaoui in a back-door message from the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis enlisting the CIA's help in obtaining information on Moussaoui from French intelligence. The French promptly pointed out Moussaoui's affiliations with radical fundamentalist groups and Osama bin Laden. (The French service had been keeping close tabs on the likes of Moussaoui, having foiled a plan by Algerian terrorists to crash an airplane into the Eiffel Tower in 1994.)<29>

This was not news to anybody who had read the Rowley Memo, but it really was newsworthy, because it came from someone closely associated with the Agency. And McGovern has been generous with his political capital on more recent occasions; he spoke at the 9/11/03 second anniversary events in New York, and though he concentrated his fire on the Neocons' Iraq fiasco, the event at which he spoke (the panel, the agenda, the literature in the lobby, the subjects of the other talks, even the date of the event) was entirely focused on 9/11.<30> Even if Mr. McGovern had adjusted his tie and quietly recited the alphabet, there would still be heavy symbolism in the sight of an ex-CIA analyst seated on a dias with Mike Ruppert, John Judge, Kyle Hence, and Cynthia McKinney.<31>

The sight of McGovern on the stage was more significant than anything he was at liberty to say.

CONTINUED w LINKCITY on the subject ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1429777

[bobthedrummer]

33. Kick

[Octafish]

58. Thanks, bob! Do it again, harder. Harder.

Heh heh heh.

[robertpaulsen]

34. K, R & B! Octafish, sorry I missed your last post on my Breitweiser thread

But I think it belongs on this thread, so I'm going to reprint it:


Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Fri Dec-23-05 03:54 AM
Response to Reply #47
48. You're welcome, robertpaulsen. Hey, d'ya remember Oberstar's role?


Why Bushler didn't connect the dots:

The flight instructors where Moussaoui learned to turn a 747 called the FAA and said their student might be a hijacker in training. The FAA said to call the FBI.

The Minneapolis FBI said they were aware of the situation. The flight instructors said a jumbo jet loaded with fuel made one big ass bomb. They begged the FBI to investigate, to no avail according to the flight instructors.

So, the flight instructors called their Congressman, John Oberstar. Oberstar then called the FBI in Washington who finally ordered the arrest of Moussaoui.

Then Ashcan's FBI kept the Minneapolis office from getting a FISA warrant to check out Moussaoui's laptop -- the one containing stolen materials needed to navigate a 747. Who knows what else was on that laptop.

BTW: A historical oddity: one of the Minneapolis flight instructors who spotted Moussaoui, and from whom Moussaoui pirated a CD-ROM of a 747 flight controls, died as the co-pilot of Paul Wellstone's plane.

The facts are there for all to see. These BFEE are mass-murdering traitors.

The Truth will out.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5661200#5673267


I totally forgot about Oberstar. Then again, so did the Kean Commission. You'd think they never interviewed Colleen Rowley. Or Sibel Edmonds, for that matter.

[Octafish]

59. Fuhgeddabouddid.

Seriously. Thanks for posting my post. I just posted it myself somewhere above. LOL.

Speaking of major league assholes...

Wellstone and 911: The Uncanny Connections

By Christopher Bollyn - The American Free Press

THE DEATH OF A SENATOR

The untimely death of Minnesota’s populist senator in a suspicious plane crash 11 days before Election Day reveals several bizarre and uncanny connections to 9/11.

The mysterious plane crash that took the life of U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, the populist Democrat from Minnesota known for his opposition to waging war in Iraq, immediately raised suspicions of foul play in the North Star state. A poster hanging in Minneapolis asked: “Who killed Paul Wellstone?” Since the crash, uncanny links have surfaced connecting the World Trade Center attack, the co-pilot of Wellstone’s plane, and the “elite” FBI Evidence Response Team that investigated the wreck.

On Friday, October 25, the plane carrying the incumbent Sen. Wellstone, his wife, daughter, and three campaign workers, crashed into the woods after veering 2 miles off course on its approach to the Eveleth-Virginia municipal airport in the remoteness of the Iron Range north of Duluth, Minnesota. Eleven days before the election Wellstone was reported to be leading 47-41 in the polls and gaining over his Republican challenger, Norm Coleman.

There has been no explanation given for why the chartered twin engine Beech King Air A100 with a pilot and a co-pilot, veered sharply to the south as it approached the runway from the east. Although the plane was carrying a U.S. senator, it had neither a cockpit voice nor a flight data recorder.

At 10:22 in the morning, as the King Air A100 approached Eveleth airport, visibility was between 3 and 4.5 miles with overcast cloud ceiling at 700 feet. Winds were calm and the temperature was 1-2 degrees C. There was light snow falling but flying conditions were generally good, according to local pilots.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=271

Hey, Brother Robert! Thanks for giving a damn! Family never has to say "Sorry." Besides, even if we weren't related, you're good people.

[Swamp Rat]

39. kick and recommended

[Octafish]

60. Thanks, Ratty One!

Here's the thing, FISA or no FISA. Moussaoui or no Moussaoui:

BUSH KNEW

Nixon was a Crook. Bush is a TRAITOR.

In honor of the upcoming G-8 summit, a little history lesson from the 2001 shows what

What makes them different, and what

to protect the American people.

but the guy at least would tell

In honor of the upcoming G-8 summit, a little history lesson from the 2001 shows what many on DU know: Bush is a TRAITOR.

Months before 9-11, Bush attended his first G-8 summit in Genoa. There he learned firsthand about what a threat bin Laden was from the air. Bush was so scared of falling airplanes, he slept offshore aboard a U.S. warship.

Plot to assassinate Bush - reports

Bin Laden: Believed to have a network of guerrillas

July 9, 2001 Posted: 9:23 AM EDT (1323 GMT)

MOSCOW, Russia -- Osama bin Laden has threatened to assassinate U.S. President George W. Bush at a G8 meeting in Italy, the head of Russia's Federal Bodyguard Service has said, according to reports.

The Associated Press said Yevgeny Murov was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying: "Bin Laden is threatening the American president, but we know what international terrorism is today and therefore all the bodyguard units concerned are preparing for this.

"We view the threats as totally serious, but hope that with joint efforts we can solve all the problems."

The Group of Eight summit is meeting between July 20-22 in Genoa, Italy. Leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States are expected to attend the summit.

Murov -- Russian President Vladimir Putin's chief bodyguard -- did not elaborate on the threats. He said agents from Russia's Federal Bodyguard Service have travelled to Genoa to coordinate with their counterparts from the other nations taking part in the summit to investigate the threats.

CONTINUED...

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/06/20/russia.binladen/

Gee.

Did you know he was warned about Osama bin Laden months before 9-11? Before the CIA briefed him at Crawford during his first month-long vacation in August 2001, he had been “forced” to sleep offshore during the G-8 summit in Genoa. The reason: bin Laden threatened to crash the party with a jet plane. This shows, at BEST, Bush's incompetence enabled 9-11. That makes him criminally derelict in his duty as commander-in-chief, an impeachable offense. What’s more likely, based on the results of his leadership in the three years since, Bush just decided to let 9-11 happen as a reason for building up the world’s first sole-superpower police state.

There is no doubt the former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and President Clinton personally warned the incoming administration of the dangers posed by bin Laden and Al Quaeda.

Later that summer, DCI George Tenet's hair was afire with all the warnings he was getting. How come he didn't get the info about the flight schools from CIA? Perhaps he'duh warned the airlines or even the flying public?

It's most LIKELY Bush's incompetence was the result of willfull ignorance. That requires no stretch of the imagination. Consider the following evidence, from JUNE-JULY 2001:

Plot to assassinate Bush - reports

Bin Laden: Believed to have a network of guerrillas

July 9, 2001 Posted: 9:23 AM EDT (1323 GMT)

MOSCOW, Russia -- Osama bin Laden has threatened to assassinate U.S. President George W. Bush at a G8 meeting in Italy, the head of Russia's Federal Bodyguard Service has said, according to reports.

The Associated Press said Yevgeny Murov was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying: "Bin Laden is threatening the American president, but we know what international terrorism is today and therefore all the bodyguard units concerned are preparing for this.

"We view the threats as totally serious, but hope that with joint efforts we can solve all the problems."

The Group of Eight summit is meeting between July 20-22 in Genoa, Italy. Leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States are expected to attend the summit.

Murov -- Russian President Vladimir Putin's chief bodyguard -- did not elaborate on the threats. He said agents from Russia's Federal Bodyguard Service have travelled to Genoa to coordinate with their counterparts from the other nations taking part in the summit to investigate the threats.

CONTINUED...

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/06/20/russia.binladen/

Hope he didn't get too scared, the little tyrant.

Missiles to protect summit leaders

Special report: globalisation

Rory Carroll in Rome
Wednesday July 11, 2001
The Guardian

Italy has installed a missile defence system at Genoa's airport to deter airborne attacks during next week's G8 summit, fuelling hysteria about looming violence.

A land-based battery of rockets with a range of nine miles and an altitude of 5,000 feet has been positioned in the latest security measure against perceived threats from terrorists and protesters.

Unidentified planes, helicopters and balloons risk being shot down should they drift too close to the heads of state from the group of seven leading industrialised nations and Russia.

Colonel Alberto Battaglini, of the ministry of defence, said the precaution was not exces sive. "The measure, which was planned by the previous government, may seem open to criticism, but in reality it is merely to act as a deterrent against any aerial incursion during the summit.

"They are little missiles ... which only have a deterrent function to discourage any aerial-led attack and they do not present any danger to the residents of the city," he said.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,7369,519925,00.html

A psychotic coward. Then another bedwetting bastard is AG John Ashcan, who stopped flying commercial in July 2001:

Ashcroft Flying High

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2001

CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports on Aschcroft's travel arrangements.

"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines." -- FBI spokesman

(CBS) Fishing rod in hand, Attorney General John Ashcroft left on a weekend trip to Missouri Thursday afternoon aboard a chartered government jet, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart.

In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.

"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it.

A senior official at the CIA said he was unaware of specific threats against any Cabinet member, and Ashcroft himself, in a speech in California, seemed unsure of the nature of the threat.

CONTINUED...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml

A fine official upholding the law. He followed orders and didn't warn anybody else.

Then there’s the guy who wrote the unofficial biography of Smirko McCokespoon, Jim Hatfield. He thought there shouldn’t be a brouhaha at the G-8 summit. He thought Smriko was just being his usual cowardly ass self.

Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill Dubya, his former business partner?

By James Hatfield
 

Editor's note: In light of last week's horrific events and the Bush administration's reaction to them, we are reprising the following from the last column Jim Hatfield wrote for Online Journal prior to his tragic death on July 18:

July 3, 2001—There may be fireworks in Genoa, Italy, this month, too.

A plot by Saudi master terrorist, Osama bin Laden, to assassinate Dubya during the July 20 economic summit of world leaders, was uncovered after dozens of suspected Islamic militants linked to bin Laden's international terror network were arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, and Milan, Italy, in April.

German intelligence services have stated that bin Laden is covertly financing neo-Nazi skinhead groups throughout Europe to launch another terrorist attack at a high-profile American target—his first since the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last October.

According to counter-terrorism experts quoted in Germany's largest newspaper, the attack on Dubya might be a James Bond-like aerial strike in the form of remote-controlled airplanes packed with plastic explosives.

CONTINUED...

http://www.onlinejournal.org/Special_Reports/Hatfield-R-091901/hatfield-r-091901.html

And then what did BUSH DO POST-9-11?

HE BROKE INTERNATIONAL LAW TO INVADE A NATION WITH WHICH WE WERE AT PEACE TO STEAL THE OIL. IT ISN'T THE FBI. OR THE CIA. OR THE NSA. PLACE THE BLAME WHERE IT BELONGS -- THE CRIMINAL CABAL RUNNING AND RUINING THE COUNTRY AND PLANET! THE BFFUCKINGEE!

Sorry for yelling.




Most BTW: Sorry about Haslett getting the ziggy. Who knows? He'll probably end up in Motown, saving Millen's sorry hide.

[Swamp Rat]

61. It's a shame about Jim Hasslett.

I'd rather see Tom Benson go away.

Vegetable rights and peace!


:D

[H2O Man]

40. In his famous dissent in "Olmstead"

Justice Brandis noted that Government is in the role of teacher for the citizens, and when it breaks the law, it sets an example that can only lead to imitation and anarchy.

[mod mom]

43. AZ SOS calls Transparent Elections Advocates "Anarchists", so their

example must be working:

AZ Sec. of State Calls Transparent Election Advocates 'Anarchists', 'Conspiracy Theory'!

Republican Jan Brewer's Re-Election Announcement Interrupted by Demonstrators
Activists Object to Her Recent Decision to Allow Unsecure, Hackable Diebold Voting Machines for use in Virtually Every Arizona Precinct!

Perhaps it's a step up from "dissidents", but election transparency advocates who showed up today at a Arizona's Sec. of State Jan Brewer's speech to announce her re-election bid were labeled "anarchists" and "conspiracy theorists" by the woman who just approved Diebold's flawed AccuVote touch-screen voting machine for use in virtually every precinct in the state.

During her speech today, according to the Arizona Star, "which boasted of the state getting rid of the last punch card ballots as part of her accomplishments since being elected in 2002 but one that never mentioned the Diebold contract" the Republican official in charge of ensuring free, fair and accurate elections in the state was repeatedly interrupted by advocates for transparent elections who objected to the use of Diebold's failed machinery in the state...

FULL STORY, BREWER CONTACT INFO:
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002240.htm

[Octafish]

64. Equal justice for all.

That's another reason I'm a Democrat. As such, I believe all people are created equal and should each enjoy the same protections of the law.

Unfortunately, some people think they're better than others. And the law doesn't apply to them.

The Moussaoui Myth

Think Progress

One of the big arguments advanced by the right is that Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program could have prevented 9/11. The Washington Post gave Bill Kristol and Gary Schmitt space to make this argument on December 20:

Consider the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the French Moroccan who came to the FBI’s attention before Sept. 11 because he had asked a Minnesota flight school for lessons on how to steer an airliner, but not on how to take off or land. Even with this report, and with information from French intelligence that Moussaoui had been associating with Chechen rebels, the Justice Department decided there was not sufficient evidence to get a FISA warrant to allow the inspection of his computer files. Had they opened his laptop, investigators might have begun to unwrap the Sept. 11 plot. But strange behavior and merely associating with dubious characters don’t rise to the level of probable cause under FISA.

One problem: Kristol and Schmitt are completely wrong. Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2002, wrote into the Washington Post to correct them:

(N)o evidence of Moussaoui’s suspicious flight training and ties with terrorism was presented to the Justice Department. The department was never contacted and so did not decide anything; therefore, no decision was ever made regarding the given evidence and its subsequent application to FISA standards.

That means the FISA procedures were not the reason the FBI failed to inspect Moussaoui’s computer files. Rather, the FBI’s failure to share and analyze intelligence sufficiently is what enabled Moussaoui to escape further investigation.

CONTINUED...

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/29/moussaoui-myth

Ten-gallon hat on a five-gallon head.

[leveymg]

46. It's because the CIA REFUSED to turn over the UBL unit files that

the FBI's National Security Office in NY had been demanding since June. Colleen Rawley at the FBI's Milwawkee field office, which requested the same files in order to obtain a FISA warrant in the Moussaoui investigation, was lower in the pecking order. See, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00257.htm

That's why the Wingnuts aren't crowing.

[leveymg]

50. Correction: Minneapolis field office

[Octafish]

65. Odd thing, that lack of interest.

Everybody and their sister at FBI, CIA, INS, DIA etc were reporting suspicious stuff that got ignored.

From before "Bush Knew" headlines, this Patrick Martin was on to them...

Was the US government alerted to September 11 attack?

Part 1: Warnings in advance

By Patrick Martin
16 January 2002

See Part 2: Watching the hijackers, Part 3: The United States and Mideast terrorism, and Part 4: The refusal to investigate]

It is not necessary to postulate an all-embracing conspiracy, extending from the White House to the airline security personnel who let the armed hijackers board the planes, to believe that there is much more to the story of the September 11 attacks than the American public has been told so far. Certainly the least likely and least credible explanation of that day’s events is that the vast US national security apparatus was entirely unaware of the activities of the hijackers until the airliners slammed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

According to this official version, voiced most crudely by FBI Director Robert Mueller immediately after the event, no one in the US government had the slightest idea of the identities of the September 11 hijackers, the methods they would employ, or the targets they would choose. A careful review of the information that has come to light, in bits and pieces, since September 11, demonstrates that these claims are not merely tenuous, but clearly, obviously and knowingly false.

The case of Zacarias Moussaoui <“The strange case of Zacarias Moussaoui: FBI refused to investigate man charged in September 11 attacks”> is only the most glaring evidence that the September 11 terrorist attacks represent, not merely a colossal failure on the part of the FBI and CIA, but a refusal to act that has no legitimate explanation. Not only were there general warnings of the likelihood of suicide hijackings, but several of the hijackers, including the man alleged to be the principal organizer, Mohammed Atta, were under active surveillance by US agents. It is not too much to say that the terrorists were only able to accomplish their murderous and destructive mission because US intelligence agencies ignored repeated warnings, refused to carry out elementary defensive actions and manifested a seeming indifference to the prospect of a major terrorist attack on American soil.

Added to that is the refusal of any branch of the US government to conduct any probe into the circumstances of an attack which killed more American civilians on a single day than any other act of violence in US history. There has been no serious effort in the four months since September 11 to investigate, learn lessons and assign responsibility. This by itself is a demonstration that there are highly placed people in Washington with a great deal to hide.


Warnings from foreign governments

The governments of at least four countries—Germany, Egypt, Russia and Israel—gave specific warnings to the US of an impending terrorist attack in the months preceding September 11. These alerts, while fragmentary, not only combined to foretell the scale of the attack and its main target, but indicated that hijacked commercial aircraft would be the weapon of choice.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jan2002/sept-j16.shtml

[bobthedrummer]

66. Another odd thing was the last minute cancellation of the appearance

before the 9/11 Commission of the German prosecutor who headed the investigation of the Hamburg al Qaeda cell.

[obxhead]

62. Thanks Octafish....

That made for a good read with some interesting research points to connect for personal fun.

Now I'll put on my tinfoil hat (proudly) and dive in...

:tinfoilhat:

[oasis]

63. kick

[earth mom]

67. This is a MUST READ thread-Thanks Octafish! eom