FBI thwarted post-9/11 threats (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=2&cid=578&u=/nm/20020602/ts_nm/attacks_usa_dc_1)

A number of things, I suppose. One of the problems in the modern day is bad journalism, but I can't say whether or not that's new. The degree of bad journalism is new, but that shouldn't be surprising.

Nonetheless, it's worth chuckling when, Mueller did cite several planned attacks recently thwarted in Singapore, Paris and Spain that were previously disclosed, as well as one in which Richard Reid allegedly tried to light a bomb in his shoes on a flight between Paris and Miami that was diverted to Boston.

This is either bad journalism or bad presentation on the FBI's part. Richard Reid? I thought we were talking about the plots thwarted by the FBI, not foiled by ineptitude.

However, none of this is really after what is my particular point today. As with many wire articles, more than one story is included:In the latest development, Newsweek reported on Sunday that months before the attacks, the CIA knew two of the al Qaeda-connected hijackers were in the United States but did not notify the FBI.

Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican and member of the joint committee, blasted members of the U.S. intelligence community.

"They don't have any excuse because the information was in their lap and they didn't do anything to prevent it," Shelby told NBC's "Meet the Press."Nor is this anything I plan to harp on specifically, though it's worth wondering which interest of national security the CIA was protecting in its failure to inform the FBI that known terrorists were operating in the country.House Democratic Whip Nancy Pelosi of California, also a member of the committee, added: "People talk about connecting the dots. They didn't even see the dots."On the one hand, I am happy to see someone on the Hill saying this. To the other, though, it's how many months later that we hear this out of the Democratic Whip? Come on ... I know a lot of people who are saddened by 9/11, but were not surprised when it happened. In that sense, are we talking about connecting the dots in general? Or specifically? It is starting to seem a little like both.Mueller and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) announced expanded new powers last week for FBI agents to conduct surveillance at public gatherings, on religious and political groups and on the Internet, drawing concern from civil rights groups and a number of members of Congress.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he wanted to take a look at these powers. "I get very, very queasy when federal law enforcement is effectively ... going back to the bad ol' days when the FBI was spying on people like Martin Luther King," Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, told CNN.

"We want to make sure that the FBI, which hasn't had a good track record lately, doesn't go on the other side of the line," Sensenbrenner said.

Mueller and Ashcroft defended the expanded new powers, each declaring, "We are at war."

"We have very serious challenges to address and to leave us with agents who have their hands tied in the field so that they can't get the information that they need to get, I think, is foolhardy," Ashcroft told "Fox News Sunday."And here we reach the issue which has my attention most. I'll see if I can dredge up DoJ's telling of it, so we can see a little more of what they're doing, but when a Republican, during "wartime" (as characterized by Mueller and Ashcroft), invokes the "bad ol' days" of law enforcement, believe me, my ears perk to the ceiling. However, it would be irresponsible of me to react at this point; Americans of late have had a tendency to make mountains out of molehills and vice-versa. I'll be looking around for what information I can, but the broad form has people on the Hill jumpy, so there's definitely something going on there. Whether it's actually sinister or merely malignant pandering to voters remains to be seen, but a Republican criticizing DoJ under a Republican president ... come on, it's worth some popcorn and a grin, at least, right?

But, then again:"I'm just getting started," said Mueller, who became FBI director a week before the attacks.What more can be said? ;)

thanx much,
Tiassa :cool:

Related articles

Aschroft defends Mueller, changes at FBI (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020601/pl_nm/attack_fbi_ashcroft_dc_2)
FBI's new authority draws criticism (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020531/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fbi_reorganizing_58)
FBI Quotes (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020531/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fbi_quotes_2)
FBI given new domestic spy powers (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020531/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fbi_reorganizing_55)

There is Good News and there is Bad News. I think they balance out over all. Here is why.

The Bad News:

House Democratic Whip Nancy Pelosi of California, also a member of the committee, added: "People talk about connecting the dots. They didn't even see the dots."

That is true. It will remain true for the next 3 years (where they can see the dots!) at the emergency pace. If someone from the government would ask me how long it will take to put an infrastructure together and modernize the AI type intelligence system - I would say one year with full support from respective groups. That is in commercial/private world. But in government? Are you kidding? My design will take them 10 years.

The Good News:

In the meantime, everytime a terrorist operation is sucessful, it is because the mastermind makes sure it goes through and in the process loses his/her life. Assuming they are susceptible to the bell curve - for every major operation they will lose their sucess factors and be left with the ineptiture people. Now, our best brains will have no difficulty nabbing those like the shoe bomber. So, by the process of elimination, it will take a long time before the enemy grows and replaces the brains. Like the lull between WTC first attack and the last.

So, even if we do nothing, or go to red color, the chances of getting hit in a major way now is somewhat remote. And if one does occur, the damage will be minimal. While that is not acceptable, but there is nothing you or I could do - especially when we designed our preventive action as checking the wire in the bra of a blind, old lady coming from Denver to Houston. It is a feel good action we must do when we dont have a clue as to what to do.

Now, the people who know this will scare the public into spending a lot of money in visible activities that says "your tax dollars at work" - even if that includes prying into your personal affairs even though that may not produce the intended result.

There are two other activities the government will do that can produce some good results. They are:

1. Squeeze the rouge countries to crack down on militants.

2. Goto bed with the Mafia - saying it is bad for the business - to them too.

So, over all - not much will happen at FBI/CIA marriage for the next 5 years, but not much will happen from our enemies too. Now, beyond that 5 years....I would worry towards a nuclear threat to New York. If the marriage works - may be we can sleep easier.

Now calm down. The FBI is only going to spy on the evil and bad people in the US. Which means that all of the good, white, God-fearing Christians who don't watch that MTV filth and only do it under the covers with the lights off and all of the shades pulled down, have nothing to worry about.

Then there's the rest of us. :rolleyes:

Will granting the FBI expanded domestic surveillance increase domestic security? The problem prior to 9/11 was not with the FBI's (or the CIA's) intelligence-gathering apparatus. They had the information. The problem was that (at best) they failed to act upon it. They knew Zacarias Moussaoui had possible terrorist links through information obtained legally and constitutionally. The FBI bureaucracy, however, mishandled the investigation and did not obtain a warrant to proceed further and conceivably thwart the major terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.

Bush and Ashcroft continue to use the "terrorist" buzzword to wrest privacy, free speech, the right to peaceful assembly, and other fundamental rights from the American people. FBI agents will be attending political rallies? I wonder how many will be "keeping tabs" on the Republican Party's shady dealings with big business? Maybe they'll break into the Democratic national headquarters again. How many down-home Protestant churches will they be monitoring? You know, the kind that Tim McVeigh might attend...

Peace.

Yesterday, I heard that the FBI will be attending Churches and watching bulletin boards. Since they can not all day chat with people, I am sure they will use a word parser. When it hits the words FBI, Nuclear, CIA, Bush, Ashcroft, Allah, Infidel in the same page - it will alert the officer in charge. Oops...this topic is setting off alarm bells....

Seriously, they are dumb enough to do that - as if terrorists are going to talk openly....

Oops...this topic is setting off alarm bells....Indeed it is, KMGuru.

And you raise an interesting point.

If I stand on the street and claim that I am going to commit such and such an act, then yes, my words have created cause for suspicion. But to stand on a streetcorner and protest the war effort, advocate foreign policy changes, &c., is not proper cause for the law to begin observing and following me. It should be no different on a chat board or in a church.

That is, what takes place in here, at Sciforums, ought to be no different in a specific way than what takes place in life. Unless I am directly threatening, law enforcement is not (in theory) allowed to survey me as such. It sounds to me like that's what they're planning. Consider the CDA and its descendants. What took Congress forever to figure out is that the internet is speech, and the same rules apply. (It is other things, as well, but this is the relevant aspect.)

What it seems to me the fed wants is the power to investigate people for not being blindly on the bandwagon, and that's unacceptable.

Interstingly enough, I heard of a couple of First Amendment cases which I have been unable to follow up since. But it seems that in the early weeks of the mess, two men were charged for free speech. One, in praising Osama bin Laden, faces some charge of being an enemy or something, insofar as I read in the wire report; he apparently stood on a corner in New York on 9/11 or 9/12 praising God and hailing those who struck against the United States. This might be a fair wartime bust as far as I'm concerned, but as soon as he is determined to be without the means to be a terrorist, that's all there is. Prosecuting him is an interesting twist.

The other is more interesting. Insofar as I understand it, a fellow in New York, on or about 9/12, proclaimed to the public that this attack was inevitable, that Americans had been tempting the unreasonable elements of the world and those elements had lost their restraint. Apparently, people took unkindly to this, and threatened to beat him. Thus, he is being charged under the "Fire" exception to the First Amendment, or else under the "Clear and Present Danger" exception, apparently for upsetting people badly enough to want to do violence. In other words, because other people have no self restraint, dignity, or respect, we're prosecuting someone and reversing the standard of law in order to do it.

In light of such stories, and considering the Bush administration's POW/UC horsepucky, and considering the ongoing criminalization and demonization of dissenting speech; in light of the unilateral truncheon Bush insists on; in light of the fact that a Republican is invoking worst-case nightmares over these FBI investigative revisions; in light of the current lack of integrity among the fed; in light of the frothing, raving bloodlust of Americans "at war" ... I'm not inclined to trust or respect the new standards.

If the US government was going forward on a right and true path, such measures would be unnecessary. This is only an effort to justify impropriety by silencing those who point it out.

The land of the free and the home of the brave, where we survey you in your home, in your church, in your school, at your work, and when you're bopping your secretary at the Motel 6 by the airport.

I am astounded by the effort the Bush administration is making to hand this "war" to the terrorists. Were I the next president--and screw my concerns about whether to turn an American over to the ICC--the first thing I would do is arrest the whole of the Bush administration for treason; they are giving aid and comfort to the enemy during alleged wartime. Oh, that's right ... we aren't at war. That's why they had to invent a crime to charge John Walker Lindh with.

Here's one for them to survey: Fuck the Bush administration. I don't want this nation to complete its transition to Evil Empire.

It would be wise for the international community to start charging Bush with war crimes in mid-2003; he's already headed for re-election, so charging him with war crimes once the election's afoot would either cement his victory or bring his downfall. At least that way, there's a chance for the rest of the world.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

The land of the free and the home of the brave,

That was before 9/11

It will take some time to filter the effects of what is going on....

1. The Govt will not be charging anyone with saying bad things about Bush or criticizing the government policies. What will happen is that every citizen will have a dossier. It will be complete in 3 years. There are say 300 million people. It will take only 3 terrabytes of raw data to cover every man, woman and child in US. Just Sears has corporate data of 70 terrabytes.

Sooner or later before you get a job at govt or private sector, or ready to buy a house or moving into a neighborhood, your dosseir will be searched. Even if your dossier looks fine to you, they can deny your participation in the American dream.

Consider my situation. I am still trying to take off my renters name from my credit report as alias for the last 4 years. Even though I have impeccable credit rating, I was denied credit by Bank One two years ago (they dropped the card that I was not using!). Surprise....surprise...today they automatically renewed it without my asking. The point is, databases take on a lifeform of their own. Who will use it for what purpose - you may not know.

This will cause a division in society called elites who can afford lawyers to sue the database companies and the poor who put a firecracker in the neighbor's mailbox when he was a teenager.

This is how the decline of American society is going to unfold....and the terrorists will win....it is the old divide and conquer game....

Should I keep my mouth shut and blend in with the elitists....:confused: