Free Republic

One of the biggest names of the conference never even uttered a word. Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer is the military intelligence operative who recently went public with a controversial claim that a year before September 11, his top-secret task force "Able Danger" was able to identify the man who later turned out to be the lead hijacker as being connected to al Qaeda. Shaffer is a veteran of top-secret operations against terrorists, including some in Afghanistan, and several of his DIA colleagues have come out publicly to confirm that they remember Mohamed Atta being identified in 2000 as part of...

A report commissioned in mid-1999 by Rep. Curt Weldon (R) looks into possible Chinese front companies in the US seeking technology for the Chinese military. Dr. Eileen Preisser and Michael Maloof are commissioned to make the report. Dr. Preisser, who runs the Information Dominance Center at the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) and will later become closely tied to Able Danger, uses LIWA's data mining capabilities to search unclassified information. According to Maloof, their results show Chinese front companies in the US posing as US corporations that acquire technology from US defense contractors. When the study is completed...

President Bush last night called for the formation of an independent terrorist-threat integration center to enhance the ability of intelligence and law enforcement agencies and the private sector to share data and respond to the threat of imminent terrorist attacks. During his State of the Union speech, Bush said it’s imperative for the government to act quickly before future terrorist threats emerge. And while improvements in analysis and cooperation have taken place throughout the government since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush said, a centralized analysis center will ensure that the transformation is complete. “Tonight, I am instructing the...