Grassley to Holder: Prove claim about Bush-era gun probe

The Washington Times ^ | 14 June, 2012 | Jerry Seper

[marktwain]

The ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee challenged Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Thursday to “produce any evidence” proving his claim that a prior attorney general knew about a gunrunning investigation during the Bush administration or apologize “if no such evidence is available.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa issued the challenge in response to Mr. Holder’s Senate appearance this week during a hearing on the Fast and Furious gunrunning investigation when he testified that Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey was aware of and remained silent about a similar operation known as Wide Receiver, during which he said 300 weapons were “walked” into Mexico.

“I was extremely disappointed to hear Attorney General Holder try to deflect criticism of himself and his department by pointing the finger at his predecessor,” Mr. Grassley said. “If any such evidence exists to back Holder’s claim, it has yet to come to light after months of scrutiny, and the charge should not stand without any evidence to back it up.”

On Tuesday, in response to questions by Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mr. Holder said, “An attorney general who I suppose you would hold in higher regard was briefed on these kinds of tactics in an operation called Wide Receiver and did nothing to stop them - nothing. Three hundred guns, at least, walked in that instance.”

Mr. Holder was referring to Mr. Mukasey, who served as the nation’s top prosecutor in the Bush administration from November 2007 to January 2009.

“That’s a serious charge,” Mr. Grassley said. “The problem is we have absolutely zero evidence that it’s true. Nothing in the documents produced by the Justice Department and no information provided by any whistleblowers that I know of suggests that Attorney General Mukasey was ever briefed

[txrangerette]

Agreed...I’ve read some of Mukasey’s op-eds in the WSJ.

He will keep it to the issues and won’t personalize it by filing a slander suit, which was the question.

[muawiyah]

The Washington Post had already completed its interviews about the Mexican gun running situation BEFORE ATF started it.

[MestaMachine]

[sam_paine]

Most of the firearms were equipped with GPS tracking.

I've yet to see anything that indicates that there were any such battery-powered GPS RECEIVERS ever concealed on individual weapons, nor have I seen anything about how exactly these units supposedly communicated their position with some kind of transmitter to? cell network? satellites?

Nor how these devices either received position information from GPS or transmitted it to someone inside metal trunks or truck trailers.

All I have seen is reckless disregard for intermingling terms related to "tracking serial numbers found at scenes" (yes, that they did) with some fanciful Hollywood inspired notions of tracking blips on a big-glass screen in real time in Washington (no. they didn't.)

[Erik Latranyi]

I've yet to see anything that indicates that there were any such battery-powered GPS RECEIVERS ever concealed on individual weapons, nor have I seen anything about how exactly these units supposedly communicated their position with some kind of transmitter to? cell network? satellites?

Sam - you didn't comprehend properly.

The GPS devices were used under Wide Receiver (a Bush program) and not by Fast & Furious.

In fact, under Fast & Furious, it was the dealers who asked ATF if they wanted to put GPS devices in specific firearms. The ATF said it was not necessary.

[IMR 4350]

The fact they started F&F with “Blame Bush” in mind if they got caught, is the main reason I do not believe this has anything to do with gun control.

I still believe they were arming somebody up and they intend for those weapons to be used here in the states.

The left will not give up power without a fight.

[RummyChick]

A plane that flew to Guantanamo Bay more than once, and identified in a report to the European Parliament as being used in CIA rendition flights - ended up in the hands of the Sinaloas. Had to be crashed when someone in Mexico wouldn’t let it land (that guy ended up dead)

Crashed with 4 tons of cocaine on it. The transfer of ownership of the plane involved a known CIA/FBI/DEA asset.

Sinaloas are the group who were being armed by Fast and Furious.

Yep, a Drug Cartel was being intentionally armed and it had nothing to do with gun control.

[GOPJ]

You can bet if the Bush admin was walking guns to Mexico and depositing them in the hands of cartels, the Obama administration would have ‘leaked’ that evidence long ago.

Ding, ding, ding - we have a thread winnah!

AND the MSM would have splashed it on the front page of every newspaper in the country... Creepy biased jerks at the New York Times wouldn't recognize a big story if it bit them on the ass...

[sam_paine]

I'm afraid you didn't comprehend properly.

I'm not concerned with project names or people.

I'm concerned with your assertions about the technology itself.

You've fallen into a trap of fast-and-loose media along with the fast-and-furious investigation. To the FBI, the term "tracking weapons" included merely matching up serial numbers of know sold guns to serial numbers found at crime scenes. Brian Terry's case is an example. They say they "tracked" the weapon back to F&F. Indeed it was from there, but they didn't have a blinking red dot on a google map showing where the transponder said it was next to his body.

Show me some data and descriptions of these "GPS tracking devices" which were embedded in individual firearms.

These "GPS receivers" as you call them would necessarily have to be (1) self-powered {for how long?} and (2) if they indeed had GPS receivers to calculate their position, then they'd have to at some point TRANSMIT that position to someone somewhere (more power).

In reality, none of that ever happened under any administration. Certainly nothing of the sort happened that was in a metal trunk or a truck.

Perhaps they instrumented such a larger setup on a getaway car or in the carrying crate. That's possible.

But they did NOT individually put power sources, antennas and receiver/transmitters in the stocks of individual weapons like below to track them like you think of when you think about a hollywood action movie or Star Trek. Physics has limits.

[capt B]

How about PERJURY

[zeugma]

Perhaps they instrumented such a larger setup on a getaway car or in the carrying crate. That's possible.

I thought I'd read that it was in the box, but that might have just been my brain mapping the possible to the stupidity of reporter's claims.

Show me some data and descriptions of these "GPS tracking devices" which were embedded in individual firearms.

I'd be interested in seeing how that worked too. You could build it into the stock, unless it was a collapsible one. However, that would mean that each of these specific guns would have been provided by the government with the mods already in place. I've not seen mention of that, so I'd discount the idea, because something would have been made of it.

You pose a good question with this.

However, there is still a large difference between the two programs, in that one was initiated with the knowledge and cooperation of the mexican kleptocracy government, and one was not. Given the difficulties that mexico is currently having with the drug cartels, I'd say F&F was in all practicality a warlike act of belligerence.

[Erik Latranyi]

I'm concerned with your assertions about the technology itself.

In Katie Pavlich's book, Fast and Furious, one agent built his own GPS device with parts from Radio Shack. The battery lasted 40 hours.

The technology is there, but, as you said, a bit limited.

The idea (under Bush) was to always intercept the straw buyer at some point as they were also under surveillance.

Fast and Furious did not allow surveillance, wire tapping, or SMS intercepts (the preferred communications of straw buyers).

So, it is YOU who needs to get some facts stratight.

[sam_paine]

However, there is still a large difference between the two programs,

Indeed there was. It is absolutely clear (to me) that the ultimate intent of F&F was to provide a hysterical background for the gun grabber agenda.

It's less clear to me that Wide Receiver was fully well intentioned either.

In fact, from my perspective, they're both indicative of an overzealous ATF organization looking for any opportunity in any administration to expand their funding and power at the expense of freedom and liberty. Period.

Whether they were tempered somewhat during the Bush administration is irrelevant in my perspective.

Any lower level organization which has the capability to execute F&F at all must be disbanded. Period.

Frankly, every minute focusing on the mob boss misses all the mob violence going on in his organization which will just continue under the next Don.

[sam_paine]

In Katie Pavlich's book, Fast and Furious, one agent built his own GPS device with parts from Radio Shack. The battery lasted 40 hours.

Horscrap. You've stated that the individual firearms were tracked remotely by the program.

You've cited no evidence for such a thing. You're talking about putting a retreivable receive only recording device to give information on where a crate had been once it was recovered.

Not your fault that you can't prove your assertion, really, since it's just not true. You can only be faulted for an inability to avoid mixing fiction with basic reality.

This is the danger of all these CSI/JamesBond shows training you to ignore basic technical reality.

[TigersEye]

The Department of Justice ’ s Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents

(above) Four ATF field agents testify under oath that they "never even heard of intentionally letting guns "walk" before F&F."

‘Wide Receiver’ CI: ‘It had nothing to do with Bush or even DOJ’

New Documents Highlight Differences in Bush-Era, Obama-Era Gunrunner Investigations

Operation Wide Receiver vs. Operation Fast and Furious

Mexico's Gun Supply and the 90 Percent Myth

[TigersEye]

Operation Wide Receiver vs. Operation Fast and Furious

In 2006-2007 the ATF devised Operation Wide Receiver while Bush was in office. The purpose was to track illegal weapons into Mexico and into the hands of the drug cartels. However, the guns all were fitted with transmitters for tracking. The amount of guns allowed to “walk” into Mexico were a quarter of the size of OFF. Only 450 were utilized and it was managed out of the Tucson office. However, like OFF, it was a failure also. The cartels figured out how to fool the trackers and sometimes when the trackers were placed in the guns they were damaged. This was a very bad idea and it certainly didn’t achieve the results they were anticipating.

[sam_paine]

However, the guns all were fitted with transmitters for tracking. ...However, like OFF, it was a failure also. The cartels figured out how to fool the trackers and sometimes when the trackers were placed in the guns they were damaged.

Finally. We're getting somewhere.

Those were RFID tags. NOT GEE PEE ESS.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Fast and loose about facts is what criminals like Holder count on to keep us confounded.

RFID is also referred to as NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATION. It comes in passive forms, and powered forms. You know the passive tags used in department stores. And yes. NEAR FIELD because they don't do anything until you pass within a few feet of the "interrogator" transmitters at the door (those metal detector looking things at checkout). Some are as simple as a frequency doubler circuit which takes the interrogator signal and reflects it at twice the frequency and much lower power. Some have micropower non-volatile memory and can reflect a unique ID. Hence RF ID.

Ok, not G P S. Nothing to do with, G P S.

Now if you followed the guns with RFID tags with a near field antenna, then you could indeed "follow" it....if you stayed line-of-sight with it within a few feet. Maybe 20-30 feet with a narrow beam antenna. But if you put it in the trunk, it disappears.

So again, we're back to fast and loose usage of the term "tracking."

Tracking can mean following deer blood spots on a hunt. Not GPS.

Tracking can mean Jim Rockford following the black cadillac in his copper Firebird. Not GPS.

Tracking can mean following some guy at the mall in front of you with an RFID tag on a stolen shirt. Not GPS.

Tracking to Brian Terry means they checked on a list of F&F serial numbers and the murder weapon "tracked" one of the numbers on the clipboard. Not GPS.

So at any rate, your article completely validates my argument. THE PROGRAM FAILED MISERABLY. The article says quite clearly, however they did it, that the most heavily funded LEO agencies in the world could not track the position of individual guns with GPS.

Where that came from, I don't know. Did they send it to spread fear among gun owners that they HAVE that capability perhaps? I don't know./i

[TigersEye]

I think Erik's point was that tracking devices were used in Wide Receiver and were not used in F&F. I don't know what you mean by "RFID tags." The article called them "transmitters."

[sam_paine]

used in Wide Receiver and were not used in F&F

We all understand that and agree.

I don't know what you mean by "RFID tags." The article called them "transmitters."

And indeed, that's what bothers me about this.

We all know that at times, obnoxious Freepers jump up on their know-it-all hobby horse, and I don't want to be that guy.... too much....lol.

But I've worked with "Near Field" communication systems for several years as well as other mobile and fixed RF comm systems.

They are often called "Tags" because the entire circuit is often embedded in a visible tag, like a barcode or product label. You've seen them. Also in those little squares that when you peel them off show a weird foil pattern underneath the adhesive? That's the antenna(s).

So RFID can come in many packages and can be integrated into pretty much anything. But the fact that the article calls them "transmitters" underscores the inaccurate understanding of exactly what we (may) be talking about.

RFID works with a challenge/response mode. The devices sit around and do nothing until they're addressed by a master, at which time they respond. In which case you suddenly realize that if the things are actually "transmitters" and not "transceivers" then they're not worth much of anything, and they'd have to transmit periodically whether anyone was listening or not and destroy any local battery.

So it's a bunch of glossing and loose language that quickly gets warped into some kind of assumption about remote GPS based waypoint tracking. And it's nothing of the sort.

So the point is that if any LEO claims they made a good faith effort to "track" these things with RFID, it's nonsense. Whether it was WR or F&F.

RFID is used for seeing if merchandise is leaving the store. It cannot tell you the address of where the thief took it!

[marktwain]

Here is the best that I can find on the transmitters used in Wide Receiver. They apparently had a very limited range, but were trackable by aircraft.

“Devoted students of the Operation Fast and Furious scandal will recall that its predecessor, Operation Wide Receiver, actually did try to monitor the weapons at all times, through an ill-fated attempt to wire them with radio transmitters. The cartels swiftly figured out how to defeat the radio tracking system, largely through the simple expedient of driving around in circles until the ATF’s monitoring aircraft went bingo fuel and had to return home.”

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/02/16/fast-and-furious-obamas-2013-budget-removes-ban-on-gunwalking/