Posted on 01/16/2006 8:27:31 PM PST by blogblogginaway
WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 - In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.
But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.
F.B.I. officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. The spy agency was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on some Americans' international communications and conducting computer searches of foreign-related phone and Internet traffic. Some F.B.I. officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
FBI whining they actually had to do a bit extra work?
> But virtually all of them, current and former
> officials say, led to dead ends ...
Virtually all is not all.
So some were productive leads.
How many?
And after 8 years of Clinton walls, we'd expect
NSA-CIA-FBI data flow to be immediately perfect
just why?
This looks like hand-waving to distract from Barrett.
It is rumored that NYT writers and editors were the Americans that were being called by Al Queda, they were inquiring to help plan attacks on the United States so they could be in position to report Bush's screwups and why he didn't catch the terrorists.
Since those stories didn't materialize they are now trying to report the other angle of the story, that he screwed up good stories for the newspaper of record by thwarting attacks.
I this the article all the hype was about?
Where's the beef?
Is this the big story Drudge was pushing an hour ago?
"FBI only wanted 'solid' leads?"
Just like the Glengarry leads in Glengarry Glen Ross. Hey FBI, coffee is for closers! No Eldorado, no steak knifes for you. Get to work!!! Mitch and Murray are waiting.
Oh good grief. This was Drudge's breathless red headline. Spare me.
"It is rumored that NYT writers and editors were the Americans that were being called by Al Queda,..."
This is actually true..according to un-named 'sources'..(wink)
"said the torrent of tips led them to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources and diverted agents from counterterrorism work they viewed as more productive."
==
IN other words they did find SOME terroristst that they couldn't have unmasked via other sources. How many are a "few", when it only took 4-5 to hijack an airplane and fly into the WTC, and 19 hijacked 4 planes and murdered 3000 innocent people?
19 people were terrorists on 9-11. 19. to have found those persons before 9-11, 1000s of leads and persons would have had to be pursued. what do the Clinton moles in the FBI think deconstructing intelligence is all about - a 75%+ accuracy ratio? its not like finding a killer after a homicide - where the logic of "its the husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend" analysis gets you 70% of the perps.
"Some of the officials said the eavesdropping program might have helped uncover people with ties to Al Qaeda in Albany; Portland, Ore.; and Minneapolis. Some of the activities involved recruitment, training or fund-raising. "
==
I guess that doesn't count, we should have waited until they launched an attack, that we would have been too late to stop. (/sarcasm)
"...led to dead ends or innocent Americans."
So how many of these innocent Americans were prosecuted, or even impacted in any way, by these pointless intrusions? If there were no terrorists trying to kill us, I may be more concerned. They did once...I pray that is the last.
And here I thought one of the liberals' most favorite phrases was, "If this saves just one life . . . "
Guess not.
"With the Liberals, it's damned if you do and damned if you don't. "
===
Exactly. Note this excerp, and that the liberals want to stop both the wiretap program and the interrogation of terrorists, in other words they don't want us to collect information, let the terrorists attack us, then they can point fingers that "it's all Bush' fault".
"But, along with several British counterterrorism officials, some of the officials questioned assertions by the Bush administration that the program was the key to uncovering a plot to detonate fertilizer bombs in London in 2004. The F.B.I. and other law enforcement officials also expressed doubts about the importance of the program's role in another case named by administration officials as a success in the fight against terrorism, an aborted scheme to topple the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow torch.
Some officials said that in both cases, they had already learned of the plans through prisoner interrogations or other means. "
again, the left's mythical "right to privacy" means that if your phone records show you called a particular set of numbers overseas - the FBI can't come and question you about it.
but if you made a certain pattern of political donations, its OK for the Clinton IRS to audit your taxes - that's not a violation of any "right to privacy".
Thats still the motto. Your just confused about which life they want to save, ours or the terrorists.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.