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From the team that brought you Blackwater and the pre-9/11 counterterrorism program Able Danger comes “Jellyfish Intelligence.” That’s the name a group of former US intelligence officials and executives from the controversial security firm have chosen for a new private outfit that offers “predictive intelligence” for Fortune 500 corporations and senior-level executives and that aims to “protect human lives and their business interests throughout the world. The company blends traditional models of a strategic consulting firm with what it claims is an extensive network of human sources—people who, in an official context, would be called spies. Jellyfish employs a network...

This is the FAA accident report for the mid-air collision in Florida one year prior to the 9/11/01 attacks on the WTC and Pentagon (and PA). I brought this up in the week of 9/11/01, but this story was apparently "lost" in the news at the time. There were subsequent articles on this topic, and where FReepers can still find them, they should be appended onto posts on this thread. Some important points to consider: the Saudi national who piloted his aircraft into the Piper Aztec commercial flight had received his pilot's license from the Phillipines Early blogs at the...

9/11: Why would the Pentagon buy and destroy copies of a book by a former Army intelligence officer? Could it be perhaps because it contained information on how the 9/11 attacks might have been prevented? The impulse to dismiss this as just another conspiracy theory is overwhelming. Yet the fact is that the Pentagon bought and destroyed 10,000 copies of a book, "Operation Dark Heart," written by Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient and career Army intelligence officer, that contained a chapter on a pre-9/11 intelligence operation, Able Danger. In a statement, the Pentagon said it "decided to...

A document obtained and witnesses interviewed by Fox News raise new questions over whether there was an effort by the Defense Department to cover up a pre-9/11 military intelligence program known as "Able Danger." At least five witnesses questioned by the Defense Department's Inspector General told Fox News that their statements were distorted by investigators in the final IG's report -- or it left out key information, backing up assertions that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta was identified a year before 9/11.

A document obtained and witnesses interviewed by Fox News raise new questions over whether there was an effort by the Defense Department to cover up a pre-9/11 military intelligence program known as "Able Danger." At least five witnesses questioned by the Defense Department's Inspector General told Fox News that their statements were distorted by investigators in the final IG's report -- or it left out key information, backing up assertions that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta was identified a year before 9/11.

Caption on YouTube: Book Burning is no longer the sole shame of Nazi Germany. On September 25, 2010, the Obama administration (through the Pentagon) burned all 9,500 first run copies of Anthony Shaffer's memoir "Operation Dark Heart". Based on his experience as a Lt. Col. in the US Armed Forces, Operation Dark Heart was deemed a threat to national security after it had already passed an Army review and had already been published. Burning books that have already been published seems like an obvious affront to free speech and seem particularly dangerous coming from the Obama administration, which has sought...

The Pentagon has purchased and arranged for the destruction of 9,500 copies of a book so it can protect classified information it contains. Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer's memoir "Operation Dark Heart" had become a headache for the Defense Department which determined after it had gone to print that it contained classified information. The book recounts the Army Reserve officer's experiences in Afghanistan in 2003 while working for the Defense Intelligence Agency. An option being explored with the book's publisher was for the Pentagon to purchase the 9,500 copies of the book's first run so they could be destroyed. Pentagon spokeswoman...

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency, headquarters for the government’s eavesdroppers and code breakers, has been located at Fort Meade, Md., for half a century. Its nickname, the Fort, has been familiar for decades to neighbors and government workers alike. Yet that nickname is one of hundreds of supposed secrets Pentagon reviewers blacked out in the new, censored edition of an intelligence officer’s Afghan war memoir. The Defense Department is buying and destroying the entire uncensored first printing of “Operation Dark Heart,� by Anthony Shaffer, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, in the...

Washington (CNN) -- The Department of Defense recently purchased and destroyed thousands of copies of an Army Reserve officer's memoir in an effort to safeguard state secrets, a spokeswoman said Saturday. "DoD decided to purchase copies of the first printing because they contained information which could cause damage to national security," Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. April Cunningham said. In a statement to CNN, Cunningham said defense officials observed the September 20 destruction of about 9,500 copies of Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer's new memoir "Operation Dark Heart." Shaffer says he was notified Friday about the Pentagon's purchase. "The whole...

Has everyone seen this? It seems that the US government has successfully put into action a plan to purchase, and burn, 10,000 books by a US Army reserve Colonel, called "Operation Dark Heart" about his experiences as an undercover agent in Afghanistan. Since when did the United States government get into the book burning business? Has this ever happened before? These guys truly are the gang that couldn't shoot straight -- remember the book Spycatcher? The United Kingdom government tried to ban it and block it, but it was published in Australia instead and sold an incredible number of copies,...

Anthony Shaffer, the author of a new Afghanistan war memoir, figures on selling 10,000 copies of his book before it has even been released. The buyer would be the Pentagon, which objects to some of the material in the book and has offered to buy the entire first print run to keep it out of circulation.

Nine years after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government still hasn’t combed through its own files on al Qaeda’s rise. The must-read piece on terrorism this week comes from Philip Shenon, writing at The Daily Beast. Shenon writes about a cache of intelligence documents stored at the National Security Agency (NSA) that received a cursory review by the 9/11 Commission because they were only discovered shortly before the Commission’s final report went to the presses. It is a story that Shenon tells in his 2008 book, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation. It is a story...

On the eve of Sept. 11, Fox News has learned the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has attempted to block a book about the tipping point in Afghanistan and a controversial pre-9/11 data mining project called "Able Danger." In a letter obtained by Fox News, the DIA says national security could be breached if "Operation Dark Heart" is published in its current form. The agency also attempted to block key portions of the book that claim "Able Danger" successfully identified hijacker Mohammed Atta as a threat to the United States before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks........ Click here to read...

The Defense Department is attempting to buy the entire first printing - 10,000 copies - of a memoir by a controversial former Defense Intelligence Agency officer so that the book can be destroyed, according to military and other sources. "Operation Dark Heart," which was scheduled to be published this month by St. Martin's Press, recounts the adventures and frustrations of an Army reservist, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who served in Afghanistan in 2003, a moment when the attention of Washington and the military had shifted to Iraq.

Yesterday Newsweek revealed that on December 22nd, three days before the attempted underwear bombing, the President was warned that an attack might be imminent. In a background briefing for reporters on December 29, also attributed in an official White House transcript to a "senior administration official", that official asserted that in the wake of the attempted underpants attack, it had become clear to the President and top advisers that before Christmas, the US government was in possession of "bits and pieces" of information, which, if they had been properly knitted together, "could have...allowed us to disrupt the attack or certainly...

What was the 9-11 Commission for anyway? Recommendations put forth just “shelved.” Red flags ignored: Father warned that son had become radical; information given to U.S. Consulate in Nigeria. Undies bomber bought ticket with cash. Undies bomber had NO LUGGAGE. Undies bomber had no passport. BUT had US VISA. HOW did he get a VISA without a passsport? Has anyone even looked into the “well dressed man” that accompanied the undies bomber and assisted him getting on the plane in Amsterdam? ================= Now the White House is in FULL damage control mode trying to cover up their political incompetence on...

The National Security Agency four months ago intercepted conversations among leaders of Al Qaeda in Yemen discussing a plot to use a Nigerian man for a coming terrorist attack, but American spy agencies later failed to combine the intercepts with other information that might have disrupted last week’s attempted airline bombing. The electronic intercepts were translated and disseminated across classified computer networks, government officials said on Wednesday, but analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington did not synthesize the eavesdropping intelligence with information gathered in November when the father of the would-be bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, visited the United...

"I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq — that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11." So spoke Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) on “Fox Sunday” on November 14, 2005, who at the time of his trip was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and is now its vice chairman. Please read the first paragraph...

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is joining Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., in publicly declaring that the attack on Fort Hood is likely an act of Islamist terrorism. Cornyn wrote a letter to President Barack Obama today urging the White House not to let "political correctness" get in the way of investigating the Nov. 5 massacre that left 13 people dead and more than 30 wounded.

Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) issued the following statement regarding the postponement of a full Committee briefing on information related to the Fort Hood shooting: Here's the full text: "Due to the high visibility of the issues surrounding the tragic event at Fort Hood, the President has instructed the National Security Council to assume control of all informational briefings.

The Senate Armed Services Committee postponed its Monday briefing on the deadly Fort Hood massacre at the request of the White House -- despite calls from some lawmakers to press forward with a congressional investigation into the shooting rampage that killed 13 and wounded 29. The Senate Armed Services Committee postponed its Monday briefing on the deadly Fort Hood massacre at the behest of the White House, despite calls from some lawmakers to press forward with a congressional investigation into the shooting rampage that killed 13 and wounded 29. An aide to committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told Fox...

The media has made little mention of the fact that Nidal Malik Hasan and his family belong to the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church Va.. Dar al-Hijrah is a turnstile for terrorists and terror. Remarkably, four of the 9/11 hijackers briefly lived in the town of Falls Church, Virginia, three blocks from the WAMY office headed by Abdullah bin Laden. All four attended the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church Va. Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center had members like: Osama Bin Laden's nephew Abdullah bin Laden. http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=abdullah_bin_laden Sheikh Mohammed al-Hanooti, who was named as a co-conspirator in the...

Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a "spiritual adviser" to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001. By Philip Sherwell and Alex Spillius Published: 8:17PM GMT 07 Nov 2009 Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas Photo: GETTY Imam Anwar al-Awlaki The radical Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, accused of supporting attacks on British troops Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers...

Fort Hood shootings: FBI given gunman's name six months ago The US Army major who killed 13 people in a shooting spree at America's biggest military base had come to the attention of the FBI six months earlier over possible links to extremist comments posted on the internet. By Gordon Rayner and Nick Allen in Fort Hood, Texas Published: 9:59PM GMT 06 Nov 2009 Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a devout Muslim who was trying to buy his way out of the Army, was suspected of being the author of postings which compared suicide bombers to heroic soldiers who throw themselves...

Recently declassified documents obtained by Wired magazine reveal a massive Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data mining operation. It already possesses over 1.5 billion records from government and private-sector sources. That figure is expected by the FBI to balloon to over 6 billion within a few years. And it is not just terrorists they are after.  According to the documents, the National Security Branch Analysis Center (NSAC) is being used to pursue multiple types of non-terrorism domestic investigations. It is also meant to be able to sort through the data — everything from health and travel records to credit card...

On the eve of the eight year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an FBI informant who infiltrated alleged terrorist cells in the U.S. tells ABC News the FBI missed a chance to stop the al Qaeda plot because they focused more on undercover stings than on the man who would later become known as 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta. Brian Ross reports on the undercover agent in al Qaeda. In an exclusive interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC World News with Charles Gibson and Nightline, former undercover operative Elie Assaad says he spotted and became suspicious of Atta in early...

Worldwide Caution July 29, 2009 The Department of State has issued this Worldwide Caution to update information on the continuing threat of terrorist actions and violence against American citizens and interests throughout the world. In some countries, the worldwide recession has contributed to political and economic instability and social unrest. American citizens are reminded to maintain a high level of vigilance and to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness. This replaces the Worldwide Caution dated February 2, 2009 to provide updated information on security threats and terrorist activities worldwide. The Department of State remains concerned about the continued...

The top federal prosecutor in Chicago is threatening to sue publisher HarperCollins, calling a book about the war on terrorism that focuses in part on cases he was involved in "a deliberate lie masquerading as the truth." If HarperCollins publishes the new edition of "Triple Cross" by Peter Lance this month "and it defames me or casts me in a false light, HarperCollins will be sued," Patrick Fitzgerald said in a letter to the New York-based company. The book focuses on, among other things, major terrorism cases that Fitzgerald prosecuted when he was an assistant U.S. attorney in New York...

In his book, Horse Soldiers, Stanton describes (pg 27) the thoughts of Major General Geoffrey Lambert, US Special Forces Command, Fort Bragg on the morning of September 11, 2001. "It had taken him about ten seconds to figure out who had masterminded the attacks, and who had carried them out. For the past several years, he had observed a top-secret intelligence program called data mining that had identified one man, an Egyptian by the name of Mohammed Atta, as a serious terrorist with links to a Saudi named bin Laden, who was a financier of terrorist training camps for men...

Federal investigators were running wiretaps for months at a time in 2006 on then-U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon's chief of staff and other members of his inner circle, the U.S. Justice Department has revealed. The wiretaps were disclosed in letters that the department recently sent to individuals - including this reporter, then employed at another newspaper - whose phone conversations with the targeted parties were intercepted. The notifications, required under federal law, often are sent toward the end of an investigation or when the disclosure would no longer affect an ongoing investigation.

One morning in February, more than 2,000 cops, fire marshals, and public health officials in the Dallas-Fort Worth area received a memo—stamped “For Official Use Only”—that contained shocking information: Middle Eastern terrorists and “their supporting organizations” had gained a stronghold in America. The memo warned: A number of organizations in the U.S. have been lobbying Islamic-based issues for many years. These lobbying efforts have turned public and political support towards radical goals such as Shariah law and support of terrorist military action against Western nations. ... [T]he threats to Texas are significant. Who were these Osama bin Lobbyists who had...

Indonesia shows Islam, modernity coexist: Clinton 17 Feb 2009 By Arshad Mohammed and Ed Davies JAKARTA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held up Indonesia on Wednesday as proof that modernity and Islam can coexist as she visited the country where U.S. President Barack Obama spent four years as a boy. Clinton's 24-hour stay in the world's most populous Muslim nation underlined Obama's desire to forge a better relationship with the Islamic world, where his predecessor George W. Bush's policies were deeply unpopular, notably the invasion of Iraq. Clinton, on her first trip as secretary of state, said...

In September of 2006, Kelly J. McCrum sold 1525 S Sangamon St. Unit 707, Chicago IL to a person named Osama Barakat. Kelly J. McCrum is the wife of Craig M. Robinson. Craig Robinson is Michelle Obama's brother. The part of the transaction that I found odd was the creditor. Burlew Plumbing & Heating of New Jersey issued credit for the transaction. Burlew also owns Magic Touch Construction Company Inc. This contractor does nonresidential construction, plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning. Knowing how New York and New Jersey share contracts for Port Authority work, I can't help but wonder if this is...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- President Barack Obama said in an interview with Al-Arabiya television news that the U.S. isn't an enemy of the Muslim world. Obama told the Dubai-based network that he had Muslim relatives and that he lived in the Muslim-majority nation of Indonesia for several years.

In Indonesia alone, 19 million Muslims support violent jihad but Barack Obama believes the problem is only with a few rogue Al-Qaeda terrorists.In a 2006 Pew international survey a majority of Muslims believe that Arabs are not behind the 9-11 and millions believe that violent attacks against civilians are acceptable. The Politico reported on Obama's interview with Al-Arabiya tonight.The post-partisan president once again bashes President Bush: The interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya Network was a dramatic piece of public diplomacy aimed at capitalizing on the new American president's international popularity, though it balanced America's traditional commitment to Israel, whose security...

CALLER: I was over at my in-laws' house last night watching the two-hour season seven of "24," and what a great show last night. I'm looking forward to it tonight also. And the one thing, Rush, I wanted to say was one of my favorite scenes was when Jack was sitting in the SUV with the young FBI agent -- and if Cookie could get the audio clip of this and play it, I tell you -- and the gentleman looks back, he goes, "Mr. Bauer," and Jack kind of looks at him, and, "You know, it's wrong what the...

The son of a 9/11 victim has sent a scathing letter to Bill Clinton, blasting the former president for failing to help him and other 9/11 kids get college aid from a charity that raised money in his name. "It's not about me, it's not about you, it's about the hundreds of kids who lost a Mom or Dad on 9/11 and giving them a chance," wrote Thomas Heidenberger, 21, in an angry letter shared with The Post. Heidenberger - who was 14 when his flight-attendant mother, Michele, died on the jet terrorists crashed into the Pentagon - blasted Clinton...

People manage to survive in Washington, DC while adding nothing to the commonweal, and sometimes doing substantial damage. They have the dirt on their rivals, they know who’s butt to kiss or they just have a canny instinct that enables them to artfully duck at the right moment. I’m not sure which describes Jamie Gorelick, but like Arnold Schwarzenegger at the end of a Terminator Movie, it seems you can predict that she’ll be back. This time, perhaps, as President Barack Obama’s new Attorney General. In revolutionary France, Minister Talleyrand had a similar career to Jamie Gorelick. He worked for...

In his interview with CBS News, Obama says: Logan: Because you do have a situation seven years on into this war where Osama bin Laden and all his lieutenants and all the leaders of the Taliban, they’re still there. And they’re inside Pakistan. Obama: Right. It’s a huge problem. And first of all, if we hadn’t taken our eye off the ball, we might have caught them before they got into Pakistan and were able to reconstitute themselves. Several times in recent interviews, Obama has referred to "taken our eye off the ball" in terms of the invasion of Iraq,...

Bookshelf: With access to routine data, the government could have identified and connected all 19 of the 9/11 terrorists. Law and the Long War By Benjamin Wittes (Penguin Press, 305 pages, $25.95) By granting the right of habeas corpus to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the Supreme Court recently knocked down the handiwork of both the executive branch and Congress. Meanwhile, the House passed a new surveillance bill last week, after years of bitter debate and temporary fixes. And yet who knows what the Supreme Court will say after the bill becomes law? Clearly we are still grappling with the basic...

Janet Reno's No. 2 possible AG for ObamaJamie Gorelick accused of treating terror suspects as mere criminals Posted: June 13, 2008 10:45 pm Eastern By Jerome R. Corsi © 2008 WorldNetDaily NEW YORK – A panel of Democratic Party legal heavyweights speculated Jamie Gorelick, former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, could be appointed attorney general if Barack Obama were elected president. In a panel chaired by Elena Kagan, dean and professor of law at Harvard Law School, Gorelick charged on the opening plenary panel of the American Constitution's Society two-day meeting in Washington that the Bush administration had...

U.S. officials are being advised in internal government documents to avoid referring publicly to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups as Islamic or Muslim, and not to use terms like jihad or mujahedeen, which "unintentionally legitimize" terrorism. "There' s a growing consensus [in the Bush administration] that we need to move away from that language," said a former senior administration official who was involved until recently in policy debates on the issue. Instead, in two documents circulated last month by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the multiagency center charged with strategic coordination of the U.S. war on terror, officials are...

U.S. Frustrated By Elusive Justice Served to USS Cole Plotters May 04, 2008 It's been called "the forgotten attack" but it's one of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history. Eight years after the USS Cole was attacked by a motorboat packed with explosives, all of the six men convicted of the strike have escaped from prison, or been freed by Yemeni officials. Seventeen sailors were killed and 40 more wounded in the strike, blamed on Usama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Jamal al-Badawi, who helped organize the Cole plot, has reportedly escaped from Yemeni prisons twice. He is supposedly...

WINSTON-SALEM -- U.S. District Court Judge James Beaty Jr. on Tuesday denied a motion for sanctions filed by Duke University and the City of Durham and ruled that the legal team for 38 members of the 2005-06 Duke lacrosse team had violated ethical rules by using a Web site, news conference and news release to publicize the filing of their case. The players have filed a civil rights lawsuit against Duke and the city, demanding reparations arising from the since dismissed Duke lacrosse sexual offense case. Beaty also ruled, however, that the content published on that Web site -- www.dukelawsuit.com...

Not What They Supposed The terror connection missed by the Clintonistas. by Stephen F. Hayes Four months after the start of the Iraq war, two former senior Clinton administration national security officials took to the pages of the New York Times to demand accountability for the Bush administration's claims about Iraq and terrorism. Or, as they put it in their opening sentence, "Iraq's supposed links to terrorists." Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon wrote that the Bush administration's assertions about Iraqi support for terrorism were "suspect" and demanded scrutiny. One sure way to know the truth about Iraq and terrorism, they...

A new study commissioned by the Pentagon has reviewed over 600,000 documents captured in the invasion of Iraq, and the analysis shows no evidence of operational ties between Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda. It did find operational ties and more between Saddam and other terrorist groups, however, which will likely be lost in an avalanche of I-told-you-sos: An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network.The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this...

Since murdering nearly 3,000 Americans on a single day six-and-a-half years ago, al-Qaeda has not ceased plotting new mass-murder attacks against the United States. The terror network’s rigorous training regimen puts a premium on schooling its operatives in counter-interrogation tactics. Defeating those tactics requires keeping jihadists in the dark about the treatment to which they may be subjected if captured. Al-Qaeda’s operational ignorance of our techniques makes our interrogations more effective, leading to intelligence that prevents new atrocities. These uncontroversial facts make it difficult to understand why congressional Democrats want to hand our enemies the playbook — literally, an actual...

After his release from 35 years in a Pakistani prison on espionage charges, Kashmir Singh stood at the Indian border and hugged the Pakistani Cabinet minister responsible for freeing him. The official thought he was embracing an Indian electronics salesman who entered Pakistan without a passport on a business trip and got swept up in the suspicions and enmity that have characterized the rivals' relations for 60 years. But three days after walking across the border to a hero's welcome, Singh told Indian reporters Friday: "I did the duty assigned to me as a spy ... I was a regular...

House Inaction Left America Open To Attack By SENATOR MITCH McCONNELL Posted Monday, February 25, 2008 4:30 PM PT In the wake of 9/11, Americans were stunned to learn that our own intelligence officials had information on some of the hijackers even before the attacks. Three years later, Congress created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to prevent similar gaps in intelligence gathering. Its nonpartisan director oversees 16 agencies and advises the president and Congress on how best to detect terrorist plots. But now, when it comes to intercepting the communications of terrorists overseas, the Democrats' leadership in...

In the wake of 9/11, Americans were stunned to learn that our own intelligence officials had information on some of the hijackers even before the attacks. Three years later, Congress created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to prevent similar gaps in intelligence gathering. Its nonpartisan director oversees 16 agencies and advises the president and Congress on how best to detect terrorist plots. But now, when it comes to intercepting the communications of terrorists overseas, the Democrats' leadership in the House of Representatives has decided that his advice is optional. The consequences of inaction are real: Last Saturday,...