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The corporate bond market is in a state of panic because there has been a massive liquidation. Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay have all warned the IMF that their economies are perilously close to a state of collapse. If that happens of course that will unleash onto the market billions in so-called US Treasury Brady Bonds that have been previously used by the US Govt to collateralize loans to these countries. The US Treasury also announced that the Bank of America would make an emergency $5 billion loan to the Govt of Uruguay guaranteed by the US Govt. This will be the first time that the U.S. Govt has put the arm on an American bank to lend that nation money directly, based on a US Treasury guarantee, instead of the normal procedure of having the IMF loan money or a having a direct loan by the US Treasury.
This is very sinister, since the Undersecretary of the Treasury said we don't have the money. The Treasury Undersecretary also stated that if the U.S. could not work with the bondholders in terms of letting these bonds come on the market gradually, the U.S., for the first time since 1793, might have to seek to borrow money from European banks.

The debacle of state issued bonds is also growing. These bonds keep falling day after day because people are so frightened about the multiple billions that state pension systems have lost in the marketplaces. The State of California declared a force majeure on paying state employees salaries. That hasn't happened since Ronald Reagan was governor and destroyed the state's economy the first time. The commentary from Carr & Co., commodity brokers in Chicago, said what I have been saying, that one of the problems is the enormous amount of money the nation's banks are going to have to write off due to these huge corporate failures and how much more of it is to come at a time the banks are writing off massive amounts of consumer debt. …

Halliburton to build new cells at Guantanamo base 7.26..02   Charles Aldinger Reuters Wash.D.C.   Halliburton Co. has been awarded a $9.7 million contract to build an additional 204-cell detention camp at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to hold additional suspected al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, the Pentagon said on Friday. The move will expand the high-security prison on the base, where hundreds of such "detainees" from Afghanistan are already being held in 612 small cells. The prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station has played a major part in the U.S. war on terrorism declared after September's attacks on America in which more than 3,000 people died. No prisoners have been charged, but some could eventually face military trials. Brown & Root Services, an engineering division of Halliburton, will build the additional 6-by-8-foot cells on the windward side of the remote U.S. base at the southeastern tip of Cuba, the Pentagon said. The work is expected to be completed by October. But the Pentagon suggested on Friday that the facility could grow even more and that the contract could eventually total as much as $300 million if additional options were exercised over the next 4 years. Vice President Dick Cheney is the former Halliburton CEO, whose main business is providing oilfield services. The co. has come under heavy pressure this year because of concerns about its liabilities and an SEC probe into its accounting for cost overruns on construction projects. Def.Sec Donald Rumsfeld earlier this month asked Congress to approve expanding the prison facility, which currently has 612 cells, by 204 cells. Army Lt. Col. Joe Hoey, a spokesman for the task force running the prisoner operation at the naval base in Cuba, said earlier that the U.S. was holding and interrogating 564 suspected Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners. The prisoners were captured in the U.S.-led war against the al Qaeda group blamed for the September attacks and against the Taliban govt that sheltered them in Afghanistan. The captives were moved in April to Camp Delta, a permanent facility built to replace Camp X-Ray, a series of makeshift chain-link cells hastily erected when the U.S. military first brought prisoners from Afghanistan to Guantanamo in January. The U.S. drew fire from human rights groups after photographs were distributed of the prisoners squatting in their cells in the blazing Cuban sun. Human rights activists have criticized that U.S. stance that the captives are not prisoners of war under the Geneva conventions. The fate of the prisoners being held at Guantanamo is still uncertain. U.S. govt has set guidelines to try some of them before military tribunals but has not said when that might happen. Camp Delta is made up of solid cells in rows that look like long mobile homes. Unlike Camp X-Ray, they have wash basins with running water and floor- style toilets that flush. Like X-Ray, Camp Delta is surrounded by fences topped with razor wire and ringed by wooden guard towers manned by sharpshooters. But the new camp is enclosed inside a green mesh curtain, which prevents visitors from seeing in and keeps the prisoners from seeing the tightly guarded shoreline a few hundred yards away. Security preservation mission rapidly abandoned since most net profit is extracted early & in advance, thus expediting market churn necessary to generate another economic cycle's profits One year on, and America has still not learnt the vital lessons to defend its shores   10.31.02   Richard Lambert Times They talk about when, not if, the next catastrophic terrorist attack will happen on American soil. They issue warnings that in all likelihood the next assault will result in even greater casualties and more widespread disruption than resulted 9.11.01. They make it clear that in many important respects, America is unprepared. After more than a year without a new attack, they say that there are signs that Americans are lapsing into complacency. They point to a big distraction ahead, in the shape of a war with Iraq, that could consume all the nation's attention and much of its resources. These dire warnings are not the opinions of wild-eyed extremists. They come from a bipartisan task force that includes 2 former Secretaries of State, 2 former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former Director of the CIA & FBI, and a brace of Nobel laureates. The group is led by former Sen. Gary Hart & Warren Rudman, who published early in 2001 a prescient & largely ignored warning about the threat of devastating terrorist attacks on American soil. Conclusions of their latest study, America Still Unprepared, America Still in Danger, are deeply troubling for the US & its allies. There are 2 main areas of weakness in the country's defences. The first is organisational, and arises in good part because of the complex relationships between federal & state authorities. One example: the task of catching terrorists is beyond the scope of the FBI, which has just 56 field offices around the U.S. Yet it cannot share the burden with the 650,000 local, county and state law enforcement officers, because State Dept terrorist watch lists are out of bounds for state & local police. The officer on the beat is operating in an intelligence vacuum. The second big weakness lies in the vulnerability of America's vital infrastructure. The task force cites a list of examples, of which the most alarming concerns the big seaports. More than two fifths of all the maritime containers sent to the U.S. come through 2 ports, Los Angeles & Long Beach. Cost of transporting a full container from Europe or Asia is modest, and there are no required security standards. Most are "sealed" with a 50¢ lead tag. If a bomb were loaded in a container and exploded in a port, it would not just have a local impact. Enormous concerns would be raised about the integrity of all the 21,000 containers that arrive in U.S. ports every day, and the thousands more that come across land borders. The task force says that if U.S. ports had to be closed for 3 or 4 weeks, the global container industry would be brought to its knees. Great ports like Rotterdam & Singapore would have to close their gates as they ran out of storage space, and "as this system becomes gridlocked, so would much of global commerce". The action taken so far? L.A. & Long Beach ports asked for $70 million to strengthen security after 9.11.01, and have been awarded $6 million. Cost of adequate security for America's seaports has been put at $2 billion: so far, just $92.3 million in federal grants has been approved. No one can be sure about the real scale of the threat. But only this month CIA dir. Geo.Tenet told a Senate committee: "You must make the assumption that al-Qaeda is in an execution phase and intends to strike us both here & overseas; that's unambiguous as far as I am concerned." National politicians understand all this, but they are not doing nearly enough. Pres.Bush is racing around the country drumming up votes & money for next week's elections: when he is in Washington, his main preoccupation is Iraq. Legislation to create the promised department of homeland security is held up in the Senate. This is the problem. Task force recommendations require enormous investment in time, energy and money. U.S. political leaders seem determined to make the war against terrorism a struggle in which ordinary citizens are not expected to make any sacrifices, beyond having to wait a little longer to check in at the airport. Americans are not being asked to change their style of living significantly. Although heavy spending will be required abroad & at home to make a real difference to the balance of terror, tax increases are not to be mentioned on either side of the House. The Hart-Rudman task force accepts that America cannot be made invulnerable to terrorist attacks. But this is not a reason for inaction. America's adversaries may be deterred from taking their battles to Main St if they see that the country has done everything it can to reduce the disruptive effects of terrorist attacks. The cost of failing to take these necessary steps may turn out to be heavy indeed.

War profiteering ¹ ª ² ª ³ £ ß Cashing in on the post-9/11 defense build-up 5.13.02   Julian E. Barnes, N.Neusner & M.Mazzetti U.S. News & World Report At 12:42pm on Pearl Harbor Day, Dec.7, John McCain strode to the Senate floor podium. In his hand was a list of 245 items that had been added into the 2002 defense appropriations bill. Among his colleagues, McCain had a reputation as an acerbic critic of wasteful Pentagon spending. The reputation was richly deserved. In the past year, McCain had delivered 18 speeches on the Senate floor decrying his colleagues' seemingly insatiable appetite for pork. Over the years, the former prisoner of war had made hundreds of such speeches, flaying senators for the pet projects his sharp-eyed staffers ferreted out of the massive defense-spending bills. Even to McCain's jaded eye, however, the spending bill before the Senate that day was especially disturbing. Many of the 245 items on his list, he believed, were egregious. But one in particular stood out. It was a $20 billion Air Force plan to lease 100 refueling tankers from the Boeing Aircraft Co. The planes would cost $150 million apiece. The lease would run for 10 years. Then the Air Force would pay $30 million to reconfigure each of the 767s for commercial use and give the planes back to Boeing. In his 15 years in the Senate, John McCain had never seen such audacity. "This is the wrong thing to do," he intoned, leaning into the podium. "We are going to spend $20 billion plus over a 10-year period and 10 years from now are going to have nothing to show for it." Some senators, however, knew they would have plenty to show. The Boeing planes would be built in Washington state, converted to tankers in Kansas, and, possibly, based in N. Dakota. In due course, just as day follows night, senators from those 3 states rose to endorse the tanker deal. Washington's Patty Murray spoke feelingly about the impact of all the new jobs the Boeing contract would bring to her state. Kansas's Pat Roberts reminded senators how important the new planes would be in the war in Afghanistan, never mind that not a single one would be ready to fly before the war on terror moved on to other venues. It fell to N.Dakota's Kent Conrad to take on McCain directly. The Arizona senator's math, Conrad said, was "sheer nonsense." Conrad didn't deign to say why McCain's numbers were wrong and his right. He knew where the votes were. Off the Senate floor, in the cloakroom where Robert Taft & Everett Dirksen long ago perfected the art of the deal, a hearty septuagenarian went quietly to work. Ted Stevens is senior senator from Alaska and ranking GOP on the Appropriations Committee. Slowly, he prowled the room. Rick Santorum, junior PA senator, turned to fellow Republican Stevens. Why couldn't the Air Force keep the 767s, he asked his older colleague, after the lease was up? Stevens, wearing his favorite Incredible Hulk tie, shook his head. "We can't do that," he said. "It will queer the deal." Santorum dropped the question. Stevens moved on. Later that day, appropriators slid 5 Santorum amendments into the appropriations bill. The amendments added $18 million in defense projects. All were earmarked for Pennsylvania. That wasn't the end of it. Stevens & his colleagues didn't finish adding amendments to the $318 billion appropriations bill until nearly midnight, after a mammoth round-the-clock session of horse-trading and arm- twisting. When the senators were finally through, they didn't even bother to call the roll. The measure passed on an unusual voice vote, meaning the names of the senators who supported it were not recorded. Less than 2 weeks later, the final version of the bill passed the House. The vote was 408-6. In the Senate, the tally was 94-2; McCain & Phil Gramm of Texas voted no. Dwight Eisenhower, in his valedictory address to the nation, warned famously of the perils of ignoring the influence of what he christened the military-industrial complex. Ike's words have been repeated endlessly, and there have been countless editorials decrying "beltway bandits" and their predilection for waste, fraud, and abuse. But there is no gainsaying the value of the billion- dollar corporations that have provided America with the most powerful military in the world. The weapons deployed in the war in Afghanistan, for example, are many times superior to the smart bombs & surveillance planes of the Persian Gulf War just a decade ago. There's another side of the coin, however. Before 9.11.01, govt contractors regularly paid bribes, cut corners, and delivered high-priced hardware that didn't work. Instead of being sanctioned or barred from competing for future govt contracts, many of these same companies, often the largest of them, returned to the bidding room and walked away with new contracts many times bigger & fatter. It's not just contractors who have managed to game the system, however. Members of Congress have long been eager enablers of govt spending, esp. when they can ensure that lots of that spending happens in home states & districts. Larding legislation is time-honored tradition. What dismays pork-watchers is how even after 9.11.01 lawmakers, lobbyists, and govt contractors continue to use the defense budget for all kinds of new spending schemes … McCain has demanded investigations of the Boeing deal. "This is clearly war profiteering," he says. "It is obscene." USAF Sec. James Roche says cost comparisons between lease & purchase agreement for the Boeing planes are premature & simplistic. A lease deal, Roche says, allows USAF to pay for the planes more slowly while acquiring them more quickly. The Air Force would reap billions of dollars in savings from retiring old tankers and avoiding big maintenance costs, Roche adds, by flying more-modern, fuel-efficient aircraft. "We want to be transparent as we can be," Roche said. "We are not blowing smoke up anyone's nose." USAF & Boeing declined to provide new cost estimates for a lease or a purchase. For Boeing, the deal is, if not a lifesaver, an awfully well-timed windfall. 9.11.01 resulted in huge drop-off in air travel, and airlines canceled millions of dollars in orders for new planes. On Sept. 18, Boeing announced that it would lay off up to 30,000 people. Soon after, Congress lined up behind a $15 billion bailout for the airlines. Boeing was already in the hunt for its own aid package. The aircraft maker has plenty of friends on Capitol Hill. Since 1997, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Boeing's executives & political action committees have given Democrats $1.9 million and Republicans $2.6 million. By late Sept., Rudy de Leon, Boeing's chief lobbyist and a former deputy secretary of defense, met with Stevens. An acknowledged master of the arcane appropriations process, Stevens quickly breathed new life into Boeing's proposal for USAF to acquire a new fleet of 767s. The senator called Air Force officers and told them he wanted the service to explore "creative funding" to acquire new Boeing planes to replace the aging KC-135 tanker refueling fleet, according to a congressional defense aide. Stevens told Air Force officials what he had in mind was a lease. "It was my idea to start replacing the fleet," Stevens says. "And my idea to use the leasing." The lease deal, Stevens says, expands the amount of money available for new weapons systems by not dipping into the Pentagon's procurement budget and by tapping its operations & maintenance funds instead. But that budget is normally used to pay for training and to buy bullets, bombs, and spare parts. With the arsenal depleted from the Afghanistan war, some in the Pentagon say, now is not the time to raid the operations budget. Not to worry, proponents of the lease deal counter. Stevens says that the savings from retiring old planes that need constant maintenance will offset some of the costs. USAF asst sec. for acquisitions Marvin Sambur says the Pentagon can always move money from other parts of the budget. "It will not hurt readiness," Sambur says, "because, obviously, if the need be, we will have to put more money in the operations & maintenance budget.'' If the refueling tankers were as important as USAF says, the service certainly hadn't made much of a fuss about them before Congress got into the act. It wasn't until Oct. 9 that Roche wrote Rep. Norm Dicks WA-D to ask for the tankers.

The Air Force hadn't mentioned them in the Quadrennial Defense Review, key budget document published a few weeks before Roche's letter to Dicks. They also weren't mentioned in the Pentagon's classified Future Years Defense Plan. Even after Roche's Oct. 9 letter, the tankers weren't added to the Air Force's list of 60 unfunded priorities submitted to Congress, on Oct. 22.

Just because the Air Force didn't ask for the tankers, however, doesn't mean it didn't need them. As far back as 1996, GAO study criticized growing repair costs for aging KC-135 tankers. Average age of the KC-135 fleet is 41 years. Sambur says the extensive use of the tankers in the Afghan war really revealed the stresses on them. "The only time when you really think of tankers," he says, "is when you are in a war-type environment."
Pentagon & congressional aides say the tankers never made the Air Force wish lists because the brass worried that adding them would mean cutting F-22 fighters & C-17 cargo planes. Critics say the C-17 is too expensive and believe the F-22 is designed to meet a threat that no longer exists. The Air Force wants both badly. "If they highlighted that the tankers were a problem," a Pentagon analyst says, "Congress might have jumped on it and taken money from the C-17 & F-22."

Although the lease plan won admirers among top USAF officials, elsewhere in the Pentagon there were doubters. According to a Defense Dept cost assessment, the lease would cost an extra $11.8 billion. Pentagon acquisitions chief Pete Aldridge says leasing lowers initial costs, but he acknowledges the drawbacks. "Leasing will always exceed the price of purchasing," he says. Boeing, he believes, will eventually try to extend the lease, "which is a good deal for the company. It is not such a good deal from a total point of view for the military."
Because of that, some in the administration hate the deal. On Nov. 2, OMB dir. Mitchell Daniels wrote a 2 page letter to Senate Budget Committee chair Conrad. Past leases had led to cost overruns, the letter said. Because of those abuses, OMB required the Boeing deal to be accounted for like a normal purchase. "I believe it is more important than ever," Daniels wrote, "that we properly record the obligations & costs of the govt."

To get around Daniels's objections, appropriators decided in Nov. to change the deal. If USAF gave the planes back at the end of the lease, or had to pay a substantial residual payment to keep them, the deal could be considered an operating lease. That meant appropriators could spread the costs out over many years. The compromise met the letter of the budget rules, but it also made a bad deal worse, because after the 10-year lease ended, the Air Force would be left with no planes.

Most far-reaching gag order in 1st Amend. history? 4.1.02   Nat Hentoff commentary Editor&Publisher monthly AG Ashcroft's war on terrorism includes the most far-reaching gag order in First Amendment history, preventing the press from reporting on the FBI's seizure of the lists of books bought or borrowed in bookstores & libraries by noncitizens & citizens suspected of terrorist activities. Under the omnibus USA Patriot Act, the FBI has the authority to get an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret body composed of rotating federal judges, to seek "any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the American Library Association (ALA) have particularly alerted their members to part of the law that prevents booksellers & librarians, once FBI has come calling, to reveal that a search has been made. The law states: "No person shall disclose to any other person … that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained" these records. This means that the press and, therefore, the public cannot find out how often & where these searches have taken pace, and what books, as well as readers, are under suspicion. Customarily, when a court imposes a gag rule on pretrial or trial participants, including the press, it is fought in open court by the press and often overturned. Now, however, this chilling incursion on the First Amendment right to read remains as hidden as some of the security operations of the People's Republic of China. ABFFE & ALA have told their members they are entitled to lawyers once raids on their records have happened. But, when either of these organizations are contacted by their constituents, the caller must not reveal the visitation by the FBI. All a bookseller or librarian can say is: "We need to contact your legal counsel." I asked lawyers for both the ABFFE & ALA whether, once this law is challenged, the court proceedings also will be secret since it involves domestic & foreign intelligence. Already, Atty Gen. Ashcroft has closed many immigration hearings to the public & the press. I was told that it is likely that courts hearing these search cases under the USA Patriot Act also will be closed. My information is that there have been, as of this writing, at least 3 FBI searches of the reading preferences of people under suspicion. That is all the information I have, and I cannot reveal my sources lest they be subject to penalties for breaking the gag order. By what criteria will the FBI place certain readers under suspicion? Under the USA Patriot Act, one of the definitions of "domestic terrorism" covers "acts [that ] appear to be intended ... to influence the policy of a govt by intimidation or coercion" (emphases added). This broad & vague language sounds like a justification for imaginative fishing expeditions. As for books that might lead to the "intimidation" of the Bush-Ashcroft investigative forces, George Orwell's 1984 could be a possibility. But this pervasive silencing of librarians, booksellers, and the press as to what is actually going on, and why, has led Barbara Dimick, director of the Madison WI Public Library, to tell The Capital Times in that city, upon hearing about the further empowerment of the FBI: "We're real jittery. It puts us in a hard position. We want to tell people who use the library that records are confidential and they can use materials without fear of intimidation. That's being usurped now by federal agents." USA Patriot Act does contain one slippery clause for the atty general to use against First Amendment advocates who claim that the govt is overreaching: "An investigation under this section shall … not be conducted of a U. S. person solely upon the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the U.S." (emphasis added). Lawyers for booksellers & librarians say this newspeak (as Orwell called such language) means that if "a U.S. person" solely speaks on a street corner protesting Ashcroft's assaults on the Bill of Rights in the USA Patriot Act, or writes a column like this one, the First Amendment will still apply. But, if that "U.S. person" is suspected by the FBI of also somehow being involved in terrorist activities, the First Amendment no longer protects the privacy of that person's reading preferences in view of the possibility that ideas in books can have consequences. The challenge to the press is to use our legendary resourcefulness to break through the wall of silence to tell the country about this subversion of the First Amendment right to choose what we want to read without being intimidated by the govt. Said Thomas Jefferson: "Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? ... Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched?"

Saudis vent anger over U.S. policies Emotions high ahead of Abdullah's meeting with President Bush 4.24.02   Bob Arnot MSNBC "There is no fairness," Yusef said with a perfect American accent that clashed with his traditional white robes & "kafiyyeh" scarf. His grievances with U.S. Mideast policy and media coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are heard throughout Saudi Arabia, underscoring the delicate task facing the country's de facto leader, Crown Prince Abdullah, who has assumed a leading role in guiding the Arab response to the last 19 months of Mideast violence. Abdullah is to meet with President Bush at his Texas ranch Thursday for talks that are expected to focus on the Saudi prince's Mideast peace proposal, as well as Washington's complicated relations with his country, a key ally in the region. 9.11.01 involved 15 Saudi nationals, brought the glare of unfavorable publicity to the Islamic nation's educational system, which denounces Western civilization, and to international funding of madrassas, or religious schools. For their part, the Saudis have complained about U.S. support for Israel, which has fueled a rise in anti-American feeling in the Arab world. The rancor also threatens to upset Washington's stated ambition of removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power, a goal that would, at the very least, require some cooperation from Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. has its largest military presence in the Arab world. Yusef is a student in Jeddah and member of the Saudi Science club, which has visited NASA and aircraft manufacturing plants in the U.S. Like many of his classmates, he has spent several years in the U.S. But he is outspoken about how the Mideast conflict is viewed at home. "I mean both sides are killing, both sides are fighting, but they're saying only the Palestinians are killing. They're not looking at the other side, which is the Jewish people killing, killing children," he said. He is not alone. What you hear from people of all walks of life in Saudi Arabia is a belief that U.S. policy is unfair and unjust. Some Saudis also believe that Arab leadership hasn't been tough enough. "I guess we just don't have a good leader," said one student in the science club. An American woman, who converted to Islam and has lived in Saudi Arabia since 1990, echoed their sentiments, but went one step further. She described Saudi native and alleged terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden as "one of the three greatest figures of the 20th century" because he was able to strike against America. The woman, who goes by the name of Saba and lives in Jeddah, said the world was now "hearing about the injustices Islam has suffered." Since March 29, when Israel launched an offensive in the West Bank aimed at crushing Palestinian militant groups, emotions have been running high in Saudi Arabia. I asked another group of students, majoring in marketing at a Jeddah business school, how many would fight against the Israelis. Nearly every one raised a hand. Asked about 9.11.01, they said they were happy, not about the loss of life, but "because America got a wake-up call." Teachers appeared alarmed at the students' answers and immediately wanted to review MSNBC's videotape. At the Arab News newspaper in Jeddah, deputy editor Jamal Khashoggi said the argument, from the Saudis perspective, is rooted in the belief that Palestine is under occupation. "It all flows from there. It will allow you to understand the Saudi mindset," he said. "Americans see it as terrorism by the Palestinians. … We see it as occupation by the Israelis." The Arab News says it critiques American coverage of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, by the U.S. media. The newspaper also says it aims to offer balanced coverage. Last Sunday it published two accounts of the battle in Jenin, the scene of the fiercest clashes between Israeli and Palestinian forces, one by a Palestinian and the other by an Israeli army sergeant. Palestinians have accused the Israelis of a massacre, a claim rejected by Israel, which says it attempted to avoid killing civilians. With all the frustration and anger that many Saudis feel about what they perceive as unfair coverage in the American press and a one-sided pro-Israeli policy in Washington, they are finding few ways to vent their anger. A govt-backed telethon on April 12 tapped into that frustration and raised $85 million for the Palestinians. This provoked questions in the U.S., where it was viewed by some as rewarding the families of suicide bombers. The controversy hasn't faded. On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell quizzed Secretary of State Colin Powell about the telethon during a Senate hearing. Powell said he would discuss the telethon during talks with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal in Texas on Thursday. The Arab News' Khashoggi explained Saudis' sympathies. "These families of suicide bombers have lost everything," he said. "They have lost a child. Their homes have been destroyed by the Israelis, why should we not help them too?" The Science Club members were equally straightforward. "Do you think it would be better if [the Palestinians] had weapons and we were shooting kids?" Yusef said, arguing the Palestinians had no choice. "They don't have weapons. What are they going to do? They're going to take action. What have they got?"

Saudi Arabia's illusory press freedom 4.24.02   Bob Arnot MSNBC During an MSNBC visit to Saudi Arabia, students were surprisingly open in their comments about 9.11.01, the U. S. and the Mideast conflict. "Film anything you want. We are a free & open society," said an information ministry official in Jeddah. The ministry, along with the Arab News newspaper, helped set up interviews. Too good to be true?

You bet. I left Jeddah on a Saudi Arabian Airways flight headed for the city of Riyadh and then on to Dubai. During a stopover in Riyadh, a Saudi official asked me to step off the airplane to talk with security. He told me I would be arrested if I did not comply. At the end of the gangway, nearly 40 men met me. Most wore traditional Saudi dress. The others were dressed in police uniforms. They identified themselves as "security" and asked for my videotapes. I told them I could not give them up. That began a 5 hour standoff.

I told them I would not give them my videotapes, or assist them in finding the tapes. A Ministry of Information official said that if he could look at the one tape in my camera, I would be free to leave. He looked through the footage on my digital video camera and spied pictures I had filmed of a vehement anti-Arab e-mail received by the Arab News newspaper. One contained an animated cartoon of a man relieving himself on the Saudi flag. "This is a very serious offense," said the official, a "capital offense." The official then ordered everyone on the flight off the airplane. Some passengers were in tears, others were angry. They sat for more than 5 hours as officials bargained with me for my freedom. Each promise they made, they broke.

I called the Information Ministry and asked what the problem was. The response: "This is being handled at a much higher level than mine." One official said the govt wanted to avoid adverse publicity during Crown Prince Abdullah's visit with President Bush in Texas this week. Since I was apparently the only American TV journalist in Saudi Arabia at the time, taking my tapes apparently was the best solution. After several promises to allow me to leave, the officials said they wanted to examine my luggage, and I was taken to customs, where my checked luggage had been brought. A dozen men went through it, piece by piece, taking every videotape they could find. Several men shoved me around roughly. They had my bags scattered throughout the hall, so it was difficult to see what they had taken. "Big problem," one official said.

Again they broke their promise. Now they wanted to look at my laptop. They opened every file, ever single program on it, all my notes, pictures of my children and my recently deceased father. At the end, another official made me repeat the process. Finally, they said I could leave. But as I returned to the airplane, there was one more demand: They wanted my laptop. They took my $5,000 Apple G-4, on which I do my video editing and store all my scripts. As I boarded the plane, I was given a long handwritten note and asked to sign it. It was written in Arabic script. I wrote at the bottom, "Cannot read … under duress." With that, I was finally free.
The Saudis on the flight, usually distant, were almost effusive. They offered warm greetings and urged me to sit back and relax. I did. 4 days later there, I haven't seen any sign of my tapes or my laptop. The Saudi Embassy, which had been very helpful in helping me obtain a visa, appeared dumbfounded. Officials asked what had happened in a thoughtful and concerned way and promised to report back. "This has never happened before," I was told. I have yet to see my laptop or tapes.

Officials question plan to split up CIA
8.23.04   M.J. Sniffen & K.Pfleger Shrader AP

Intelligence officials, speaking anonymously because of the political sensitivity, called the plan a step back from greater interagency cooperation. One said that rather than eliminating barriers between agencies, "it smashes them apart." Roberts offered the most sweeping reorganization proposal by anyone since the commission that investigated 9.11.01 attacks called for major changes. He acknowledged that details had yet to be shared with the White House or Senate Democrats.
"We didn't pay attention to turf or agencies or boxes" but rather to "what are the national security threats that face this country today," Roberts said of the proposals supported by 8 GOP on the intelligence committee. "I'm trying to build a consensus around something that's very different and very bold."

But Roberts immediately ran into resistance from a committee Democrat Sen. Carl Levin M, interviewed with him. "It's a mistake to begin with a partisan bill no matter what is in it," Levin said. The Sept. 11 commission called for a new national intelligence director with power to force the nation's many agencies to cooperate. So far, the debate has focused on how much power to give that official, rather than on retooling existing agencies.
Most Democrats support the commission's view that the new director should have authority over hiring & spending by the intelligence agencies. Bush has endorsed creating the position but has not said what powers it should have. Roberts would put the CIA's 3 main directorates, Operations, which runs intelligence collection and covert actions; Intelligence, which analyzes intelligence reports; and Science & Technology, into 3 new, separate & renamed agencies, each reporting to a separate assistant national intelligence director. It also would remove 3 of the largest intelligence agencies from the Pentagon.

Although the measure would essentially dismantle the CIA, Roberts said in a paper he released: "We are not abolishing the CIA. We are reordering & renaming its 3 major elements." "No one agency, no matter how distinguished its history, is more important than U.S. national security," the paper said.
Last week, acting CIA Director John McLaughlin, a career agency employee, urged Congress to move carefully and argued there had been dramatic improvement since 9.11.01 in the sharing of information by intelligence agencies. A congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there would be no CIA director in the new structure. Equally drastic changes were proposed for the Pentagon.

Nation's largest spy agency, National Security Agency, which intercepts electronic communications around the world, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ¹, which analyzes satellite pictures, would be removed from the Pentagon and put under direct control of an assistant national intelligence director for collection.
Defense Intelligence Agency's human intelligence collection activity and CIA's former directorate of operations would become 2 separate independent agencies reporting to the same asst national dir. for collection. This asst director also would have direct line control over FBI counterintelligence & counterterrorism units, although they would continue within the FBI administratively and would still be subject to attorney general guidelines.

Pentagon's huge National Reconnaissance Office, which operates spy satellites, would work under an assistant national intelligence director for Research, Development and Acquisition. That same assistant would also run the CIA's former directorate of science and technology as an independent agency.
Last week, DefSec Rumsfeld urged caution in restructuring intelligence. "We would not want to place new barriers or filters between military combatant commanders and those agencies when they perform as combat-support agencies," he said. Perhaps mindful of that warning, Roberts' plan would create a separate assistant national intelligence director for military support and a four-star director of military intelligence who would run Defense Dept tactical intelligence units and report directly to the defense secretary.

suspects new UK yule tradition Sandy Berger Makram Chams L.A. 8 lone wolves martial law Homeland Sec.Dir T.Ridge Accenture bracero round-up Wahhabi Megiddo FISA court USS Cole A.al-Zawahri Valdis Krebs' diagram Ali Mohamed top 20 Hijack 'suspects' alive & well 11.23.01   BBC Another of the men named by the FBI as a hijacker in the suicide attacks on Washington and New York has turned up alive & well. The identities of four of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in doubt. Saudi Arabian pilot Waleed Al Shehri was one of 5 men the FBI said deliberately crashed American Airlines Flt 11 into the World Trade Centre 9.11.01. His photograph was released, and has since appeared in newspapers & on television around the world. Now he is protesting his innocence from Casablanca, Morocco. He told journalists there that he had nothing to do with the attacks, and had been in Morocco when they happened. He has contacted both the Saudi and American authorities, according to Saudi press reports. He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Dayton Beach in the U.S., and is indeed the same Waleed Al Shehri to whom the FBI has been referring. But, he says, he left the U.S. in Sept. 2000, became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training course in Morocco. Abdulaziz Al Omari, another Flt 11 hijack suspect, has also been quoted in Arab news reports. He says he is an engineer with Saudi Telecoms, and that he lost his passport while studying in Denver. Another man with exactly the same name surfaced on the pages of the English-language Arab News. The second Abdulaziz Al Omari is a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines, the report says. Meanwhile, Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, London-based Arabic daily, says it has interviewed Saeed Alghamdi. He was listed by the FBI as a hijacker in the United flight that crashed in PA. And there are suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Al Midhar, may also be alive. FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged on Thursday that the identity of several of the suicide hijackers is in doubt. Bad example Military tribunals for Afghanistan prisoners turn the U.S. into judge, jailer, prosecutor 4.24.02   editorial Newsday U.S. military tribunals for prisoners captured in Afghanistan are in danger of becoming hollow exercises with the trappings of justice but none of the substance. Officials haven't said who, if anyone, will face trial by military tribunal. The Pentagon has not spelled out all the rules for conducting the trials. Based on what the Bush administration has decided and some of the ideas being floated, the deck appears stacked to favor sure convictions over principle. The latest idea to surface is to let prisoners be put on trial even if there is not enough evidence to charge them with committing a specific war crime. Senior al-Qaida members or officers would be charged if people in units they were ever associated with committed war crimes. That's guilt by association, easily abused. Adding to the appearance of a stacked deck, most tribunal judges will be members of the U.S. military. They might find it tough to be objective when judging enemy fighters. If convicted, prisoners could appeal only to a panel chosen by the secretary of defense and, ultimately, to Pres. GWBush, whose view would be colored by political concerns. Last month, officials said that defendants who are acquitted may not be freed. International conventions allow holding prisoners of war until the end of hostilities, but Bush has refused to give the detainees POW status. He doesn't want to give those who may be members of al-Qaida the standing of soldiers. Combatants whose allegiance is to a terrorist organization rather than a nation were not envisioned in 1949, when the Geneva Convention laid out the rules for handling prisoners of war. The convention should be updated to establish internationally accepted rules for handling terrorists who are not traditional soldiers, civilians or criminals. [ Precisely the error that makes the entire Op. Enduring Freedom & Homeland Defense directorate flagrant lies start to finish. Terrorists ARE criminals who rationally should be pursued & prosecuted by law enforcement per all precedent. They are not combatants; deeming them so partially or entirely then legitimizes their crimes. ] Lacking that, Bush has set his administration up as cop, jailer, prosecutor, judge and appeals court for people who could be kept behind bars even if acquitted. That's not the example U.S. should set for the world as it grapples with unprecedented challenge of stateless, international terrorism. Head of 9.11.01 probe panel quits ¹ 4.30.02   Carl Cameron Fox News Wash.DC   Retired CIA inspector general who quit as the director of a congressional probe into intelligence failures to prevent 9.11.01 attacks was asked to resign because he hired a staffer who had been investigated for "security issues," congressional sources said Tuesday. L. Britt Snider was asked to step down last week by Senate Intelligence Committee chair Bob Graham D-FL after Graham learned that Snider had hired a staffer for the committee investigation who had been investigated at another job for mishandling intelligence information. The name of the staffer is not known. Sources said Snider was aware that the staffer that he hired had "security issues" and had been investigated, but that Snider did not tell anyone else on the committee. It is unclear how Snider's departure will affect the investigation into the intelligence community's structure, funding, and response to the attack, and whether it left U.S. vulnerable to future terror attacks. The joint panel was expected to conduct hearings as early as next month. Snider had been on the job for little more than 2 months. He was hired in Feb. with great fanfare, and was praised by committee leaders for his objectivity. Some critics, however, suggested Snider's long working relationship with CIA dir. Geo.J. Tenet meant the investigation would amount to a whitewash. Sources said ranking member Sen. Richard Shelby R-AL was told about the controversy and accepted the decision to ask Snider to resign. The decision was also made with the consideration of the House Intelligence Committee chair Porter Goss R-FL & ranking minority Nancy Pelosi, D-CA. Pelosi said Tue. that Snider had done a great deal to establish the joint inquiry. "He will be missed, but he laid a strong foundation for the inquiry by assembling a first-rate staff," she said in a statement. "I am confident they will be able to meet the difficult challenges head." Snider, Vietnam veteran & a Democrat, was unavailable for comment. His chief deputy, Rick Cinquegrana, who worked for Snider at CIA, has been named acting director. The investigating commission has about 30 staff members, 4 of whom are working full-time at the CIA gathering information about 9.11.01, officials close to the investigation said. Govt in action Nov. 2002   News of the Weird Oct. 2002 U.S. State Dept awarded $15K "outstanding performance" bonus to the head of the office that permitted 13 of the 19 9.11.01 hijackers to enter the country via expedited U.S. visas. Mary Ryan, who retired in Sept after 36 year tenure (reportedly eased out after she defended her "visa express" pgm even after 9.11.01) received the award specifically for the 12 month period beginning April 2001. The express pgm, which was spearheaded by the U.S. Consul General in Riyadh, Thomas Furey (who also got a bonus) allowed Saudi nationals to apply over the Internet without ever being seen by a U.S. official. Rumsfeld among officials who took 9/11 debris 3.16.04   AP Wash.D.C.   Removal of souvenir debris from the scenes of 9.11 attacks reached the highest levels of govt, including DefSec Rumsfeld, Justice Dept investigation has found. It also included FBI dir. Robert Mueller's chief of anti-terrorism. The practice was so widespread inside the FBI that it even forced prosecutors in Minnesota to drop plans to lay charges against a co. that had taken a fire truck door from the World Trade Center, according to a still-confidential report. The report said Justice Dept inspector general confirmed Rumsfeld 'has a piece of the airplane that flew into the Pentagon' inside his Defence Dept office. Chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said on Friday that Rumsfeld has a shard of metal from the jetliner that struck the Pentagon on a table in his office and shows it to people as a reminder of the tragedy that Pentagon workers shared 9.11.01. 'He doesn't consider it his own,' Di Rita said. 'We are mindful of the fact that if somebody has an evidentiary requirement to have this shard of metal, we will provide it to them.' Justice Dept investigation also collected testimony that Pasquale D'Amuro, Mueller's exec. asst dir. for terrorism until last summer, asked a supervisory agent to 'obtain a half dozen items from the WTC debris'. D'Amuro told investigators that he had asked for pieces of the building for himself and possibly others who worked the investigation 'as a memento'. Marine took files as part of spy ring 10.6.07   Rick Rogers SD UT Marine Gunnery Sgt. Gary Maziarz said patriotism motivated him to join a spy ring, smuggle secret files from Camp Pendleton and give them to law enforcement officers for anti-terrorism work in Southern California. He knew his group was violating national security laws. But he said bureaucratic walls erected by the military and civilian agencies were hampering intelligence sharing and coordination, making the nation more vulnerable to terrorists. Maziarz, a member of the Marine Forces Reserve, had helped search for survivors in New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “I decided to make a difference and act,” Maziarz testified during his court-martial in July at Camp Pendleton. Now Maziarz and his alleged conspirators are being investigated by the FBI, National Security Agency and Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Details of Maziarz's case emerged after he pleaded guilty to mishandling more than 100 classified documents from 2004 to last year. The overall breach could be far larger: Investigators believe that as far back as the early 1990s, the intelligence-filching ring began taking hundreds of secret files from Camp Pendleton and the U.S. Northern Command, which tracks terrorist activity in the United States. The San Diego Union-Tribune pieced together the story by reviewing material from Maziarz's court proceedings and interviewing people familiar with the case. Those sources asked not to be named because they're banned from revealing contents of an ongoing investigation. During his trial, Maziarz said he passed the classified files to at least four men. These alleged accomplices were military reserve officers, and two of them also worked with anti-terrorism units for police and sheriff's departments in Los Angeles County. Maziarz said he took the documents while serving as an intelligence analyst for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton. In a plea agreement, he received a 26-month jail sentence in exchange for detailing the spy ring. He also agreed to testify against his alleged accomplices if they are charged. The plea deal bars Maziarz, 37, from talking with the media. His purported conspirators could not be reached for comment, and investigators refused to discuss any developments. The case is an intelligence nightmare, said defense analysts briefed on it. They also said it unmasks the military's growing role in post-Sept. 11 domestic security and confirms that U.S. officials believe al-Qaeda is active in the United States. “It gives operational security people brain cooties to think about an incident like this,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank that focuses on emerging security concerns. “It's the apparent extent of this intelligence hemorrhage and the fact that they caught someone and prosecuted him that make this case stand out,” he added. Steven Aftergood, a research analyst for the nonprofit Federation of American Scientists, couldn't remember another instance of people being driven by patriotic frustration to break the law. “It's incredible. We had better understand their motivations or else this is going to keep happening,” said Aftergood, whose organization works to reduce government secrecy while improving security practices. “The failure of agencies to share information is a real one and has been raised over and over again without a satisfactory resolution.” The people whom Maziarz described as his accomplices include:   Larry Richards, a Marine reserve colonel and detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He co-founded the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group in 1996. On the military side, he has received a Bronze Star for developing psychological-warfare strategies during the Iraq war.   David Litaker, an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department and, until recently, a Marine reserve colonel.   Mark Lowe, another Marine reserve officer and a pilot for Delta Air Lines.   Lauren Martin, a Navy reservist who worked as a civilian intelligence analyst at U.S. Northern Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. Richards, Litaker, Lowe and Maziarz came to know one another through their military ties. Maziarz testified that Richards recruited him in 2004 as his successor for taking classified documents from Camp Pendleton. Maziarz said he routinely passed such information to Richards, plus to and from Martin. “Almost weekly, Commander Martin would e-mail me information to tell Colonel Richards, or Colonel Richards would ask me to pass information to Commander Martin,” Maziarz said during his court-martial. Sometimes, Maziarz said, he gave the material to law enforcement officers whom Richards had sent to Camp Pendleton. Other times, he handed off files during lunch with Litaker and Richards at a club on the base, Maziarz testified. “Colonel Litaker knew that I was downloading information and, you know, packing it up for Colonel Richards, … (who) would leave with the package,” Maziarz testified. The files, some classified as “Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information”, included details about terrorists or suspected terrorists in Southern California. The operation started unraveling about a year ago when Camp Pendleton officials began searching for missing war trophies brought back from Iraq. An internal investigation eventually focused on Maziarz, who had done intelligence work in Iraq. Investigators tracked the missing goods to his apartment in Carlsbad and to storage units he rented in Carlsbad and Manassas, Va. They recovered items such as Iraqi swords, several types of assault weapons and digital cameras. Along with the war booty, the investigators found surveillance data on suspected terrorists, two locked briefcases, a govt record book, govt maps, ammunition and body armor. Based on such evidence, their case broadened to include accusations of spying. Maziarz isn't alone in asserting that terrorists are operating in the United States. Those who share his perspective include John Miller, former head of the Los Angeles Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau. In 2003, Miller told The New York Times that his office had identified 605 terrorism targets scattered across Los Angeles County. He said al-Qaeda operatives were working in the region to raise money, identify targets and secure weapons. He also said the bureau had arrested 74 suspected terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001. Three months ago, Gen. Victor “Gene” Renuart Jr. expressed concern about domestic terrorism. “The terrorist threat to the United States is real. I believe there are cells (here),” Renuart, commander of the U.S. Northern Command, told The Associated Press. “Am I concerned that this will happen this summer? I have to be concerned that it could happen any day.” In the big picture, defense experts said, the Maziarz case isn't just about patriotism. They worry that foreign agents might find it easier to steal secret documents from law enforcement groups, which generally have fewer measures for protecting classified information than federal intelligence agencies. “I would hope this would be a wake-up call for people in intelligence,” said James Carafano, an intelligence analyst for the Heritage Foundation and a former Army officer. “Take counterintelligence seriously.” Incompetence, bad luck &/or obstruction of justice Ctr for Cooperative Research … 1987-1989:   Michael Springman, head U.S. consular official in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, later claims that he is "repeatedly told to issue visas to unqualified applicants." He turns them down, but is repeatedly overruled by superiors. He claims the visas were issued for recruits fighting for bin Laden against Russia in Afghanistan. Springman loudly complains about the practice to numerous govt offices but no action is taken. He eventually is fired and the files he has kept on these applicants are destroyed. Springman speculates the issuing of visas to radical Islamic fighters continued until 9/11. [BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Co.]   He cites the highly visible Sheikh Abdul Rahman getting a visa to the U.S. in 1990 despite his name being on a watch list prior to his role in the WTC bombing in 1993 [Atlantic Monthly, Newsday ], and 15 of 19 9.11.01hijackers getting their visas through Jeddah … State Dept Consular Affairs head retires 7.11.02   Teri Schultz Fox News Wash.D.C.   The State Dept's longest-serving diplomat will resign her post as head of the consular affairs office after revelations that at least 71 visas ended up in the hands of individuals who paid as much as $10,000 for their papers. Sec.State Colin Powell said Thursday his request that the head of consular services retire was unrelated to revelations that at least 71 fraudulent visas were issued in the U.S. embassy in Qatar. "There was a time to make a change and it was done without any acrimony whatsoever," Powell said at a news conference, disputing public reports he had forced out Mary Ryan over the visas. "It had nothing to do with any of the present circumstances as suggested in the newspapers," Powell said. State Department officials said that "career ambassador" Mary Ryan was asked to rotate out of position as part of a normal changeover in authority. "Amb. Mary Ryan, announced her retirement early this fall after 36 years of truly extraordinary & distinguished service, incl over 9 years as asst secretary for consular affairs," said State Dept spokesman Phil Reeker. "Widely respected and admired throughout the govt for her professionalism, her personal integrity and devotion to duty, Amb. Ryan has served her country with great distinction. She will certainly be missed." Those close to the decision said Powell asked Ryan to step down after Ryan received criticism from Congress that she is out of step with security changes needed in wake of 9.11.01. State Dept is fighting to keep the visa-issuing service from being moved to the new Dept of Homeland Security being formed. The timing of Ryan's departure links closely to the announcement that "Operation Eagle Strike", an investigation led by Diplomatic Security, uncovered that at least 71 people illegally issued visas from the U.S. embassy in Qatar. DS, together with the FBI and Immigration & Naturalization Service, has been investigating the visa fraud charges since Nov. 2001 after it learned that 38 Jordanians, 28 Pakistanis, three Bangladeshis, and one Syrian had all bought visas and were also linked to the terrorists responsible for 9.11.01. One of the men with an illegal visa, Ramsi Al-Shannaq, roomed with 2 9.11.01 hijackers. Shannaq, who showed up in court Wednesday for overstaying his visa, denied the charge that he paid $10,000 for the papers. His lawyer said that the fact that he roomed with 2 of the hijackers does not implicate him in any way. "There is no evidence he has any connections to terrorists," said atty Jim Wyda. Justice Dept has 2 other alleged visa buyers in custody who are also suspected of ties to 9.11.01 terrorists. As many as 8 others are red-flagged in the FBI database for other reasons. While 31 of the 71 have been caught, and others have left the country, 29 are still at large and believed to be in the U.S. Their names are all known due to the computer records in the U.S. Embassy in Doha where they received their visas. But that is pretty much the end of the paper trail since no receipts of payment or applications exist. State Dept officials say that they do not want to speculate that U.S. embassy staff participated in the visa scam, arguing that a computer may have been hacked, money may have been offered for a visa that would have been issued anyway, or possibly a foreign employee at the embassy was involved. None of the 3 U.S. consular officers working in Doha at the time have been conclusively linked to the crime, nor have they been cleared, but they are still working for the State Dept. The timing of Ryan's retirement to the Eagle Strike's announcement has some foreign service officers complaining that Ryan is being made a scapegoat for this and for a "visa express" program under fire. Visa express allows travel agents to apply on behalf of foreign nationals to obtain visas without their being interviewed by embassy officials. This has been in wide practice in Saudi Arabia, and 3 of the hijackers used the method for obtaining a visa. U.S. investigators find phony identities work 9.9.03   Donna Smith Reuters Wash.DC   2 years after 9.11.01 heightened U.S. security concerns, congressional investigators said Tue. they were able to use phony identities to obtain valid driver's licenses in several states. GAO undercover investigators were 100% successful at obtaining the licenses in 8 states using alias identities, according to report by the congressional watchdog agency released 9.8.03 by Senate Finance Committee. In a few cases where state dept of motor vehicles employees noticed that documents were counterfeit, they failed to notify security agents. In some instances, employees gave advice on what paperwork was needed to obtain the license, GAO office of special investigations dir. Robert Cramer said in testimony to the committee. "Weaknesses we found during these investigations clearly show border inspectors, motor vehicle depts and firearms dealers need to have the means to verify identity and to determine whether out-of-state driver's licenses presented to them are authentic," Cramer told the committee. In earlier GAO investigations undercover investigators were able to use phony driver's licenses to buy firearms and use false law enforcement documents to gain entry to a federal building with firearms. The investigation was conducted at request of Senate Finance committee chair Chas. Grassley R-IA, and Sen. Max Baucus of D-MT, top panel minority member. "We have to face the fact that driver's licenses and the Social Security number have become the de facto national identifiers," Grassley said as he opened a committee hearing on the GAO's findings. "Without these, you can't really function in our society. With them, you can open a bank account, buy a gun, get a credit card, take flight lessons or board an airplane." The committee heard from Moroccan Youseff Hmimssa who pleaded guilty to fraud charges and testified in a case against 4 Detroit men charged with being part of a "sleeper cell" of terrorists. 3 were convicted and a fourth was acquitted. Hmimssa, his face blocked from public view, described how he got phony identity papers to enter U.S. and how he made false documents for the Detroit group, incl passports & visas that would allow a person to obtain a social security number and apply for a driver's license. He told the committee it was easy to obtain false identity documents "all over the world." Detroit lead prosecutor Asst U.S. atty Richard Convertino said Hmimssa was able to use simple equipt purchased at local stores to make "very accurate & very good false documentation." Homeland Security Under Secretary Asa Hutchinson told the committee that law enforcement agents were working with the American Assn of Motor Vehicle Administrators to develop minimum uniform standards for U.S. driver's licenses. Hutchinson said that 4 states still do not require a photograph for their licenses.

Terror suspect's trial could be a disaster 4.24.02 Jonathan Turley prof. constitutional law Geo.Washington Univ. LA Times When Zacarias Moussaoui ¢ was transferred to Virginia for trial as the so-called 20th hijacker, Atty Gen. Ashcroft could reasonably assume that "rocket docket" would make quick work of the accused terrorist. The problem is Moussaoui is not cooperating; in a bizarre hearing Monday, he threw his trial into disarray. Ironically, for the first time, the court, the prosecutors & the defense attorneys appear to be in agreement: They are looking at a disaster in the making. Turmoil began when Moussaoui appeared with counsel and raised his hand. When Judge Leonie Brinkema acknowledged him, Moussaoui let loose with a tirade against the U.S., Israel, the court, the prosecution and, most important, his own attorneys. Moussaoui accused his attorneys of pursuing "greed, fame and vanity" in the case. He insisted that they were actively assisting the govt in his execution. Moussaoui then lashed at the judge as "a field general" leading what he described as a "sophisticated version of the kiss of death." So as to guarantee not to leave any potential juror free of attack, Moussaoui announced that he was a "slave of Allah" who prayed continually for "the destruction of the U.S. of America" and "for the destruction of the Jewish people & state." He then asked for either appointment of a Muslim lawyer or right to represent himself. Moussaoui noted that he has $30K to pay for a Muslim atty. As a threshold matter, Moussaoui does not have $30K. The govt has custody of that money and insists it was subsidy from al-Qaida organization to participate in 9.11.01. Moreover, even if he could get the govt to release the money, $30,000 would not last beyond pretrial motions. For Moussaoui to secure a court-funded Muslim lawyer, the judge would have to accommodate his discriminatory tastes for counsel. But there is no reason why the court should yield to such a demand any more than it would tolerate a white supremacist's demand for a white lawyer. That leaves self-representation. Of course, after his inaugural performance in the hearing, no one wants Moussaoui to turn the proceedings into the circus of the unhinged. But, to deny his request for self-representation, the court would have to find Moussaoui unfit to represent himself. Such a finding could jeopardize the outcome of the case for the govt. If Moussaoui is unfit to represent himself, it would raise questions of whether he is legally competent to stand trial or to receive the death penalty. If Moussaoui is found to have "knowingly & intelligently" waived his right to counsel, the Supreme Court has held that he must be given the opportunity to represent himself. This would mean that he would have the opportunity to make opening arguments, to examine & cross-examine witnesses and to make objections. Since he would be held to the usual rules of evidence, it is unlikely that he would succeed in the most minimum efforts of self-representation. But a self-represented defendant cannot later claim "ineffective counsel," and he could be executed without putting on any real defense. The court will likely retain Moussaoui's current defense counsel as "friends of the court" to sit next to him throughout the trial in case he changes his mind. Things are then likely to go from bad to worse. Although a defendant can be excluded from the courtroom if he refuses to comply with the court's orders, it is more dicey when the defendant is also the defense lawyer. Moussaoui may inevitably be forced to watch portions of the trial by remote television. He could then be sentenced to die on the basis of a trial almost entirely composed of govt witnesses & argument. This worst-case scenario is not just possible but likely. What is disturbing is that there appears to be considerable room to challenge the charges against Moussaoui. The evidence introduced against him is highly circumstantial and some of the legal charges are questionable. These defenses will likely be lost in the ravings of a zealot. That will serve neither the ends of justice nor Moussaoui. The Constitution does not protect a defendant from self-inflicted wounds. If the govt is correct about his alleged training as a suicide bomber, Moussaoui may have finally found an avenue for his unique self-destructive form of expression. Moussaoui jury can't have dictionary 2.26.06   Matthew Barakat AP Alexandria VA   Jurors in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui asked for but were denied a dictionary Tuesday for use during their deliberations on whether the Sept. 11 conspirator should receive a death sentence or life in prison. Before their lunch break, the jurors and Moussaoui filed into the courtroom to hear the response of Judge Leonie Brinkema to the request to have a dictionary in the jury room. Brinkema told them that sending a dictionary in would be like adding additional evidence in the case, but she invited them to come back if they had questions about specific definitions. And she warned them against doing their own research, including looking up definitions. After she and the jury left, Moussaoui said, "747 fly to London", an apparent reference to his dream that President Bush will release him and he will fly to London. The jury deliberated for 3 hours Monday after hearing closing arguments in the 6 week trial. Prosecutors told jurors that the decision to sentence Moussaoui to death ought to be relatively easy given the horror inflicted on 9/11 and Moussaoui's glee, evident throughout the trial, at the destruction he helped wreak. Nearly 3,000 people died in 9.11.01 attacks. "If not this case, then when is a death sentence appropriate?" prosecutor David Novak said. "How many people have to die?" Moussaoui's court-appointed defense lawyers, who have been at odds with their client for years, said a death sentence would be giving Moussaoui exactly what he wants, an execution at the hands of his enemies and martyrdom. Moussaoui has said at various times that he believes being executed by the Americans may grant him a path to paradise in the afterlife. Defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin said Moussaoui has twice testified in his own defense and obviously done harm to his own case, first by claiming a direct role in 9.11.01 after years of denials and then by mocking the testimony of 9.11.01 victims and their families who tearfully told of their suffering. Moussaoui's transparent contempt for his victims "is proof that he wants you to sentence him to death," Zerkin told the jury. "He is baiting you into it. He came to America to die in jihad and you are his last chance." The jury has only two choices: death or life in prison. Brinkema instructed jurors to balance all the factors that argue for death or life in making their decision. If the jury cannot reach a unanimous decision, Brinkema will automatically sentence him to life. Before boarding a flight from Paris to the Washington area Tuesday to be with her son, Moussaoui's mother, Aicha El Wafi, told AP Television News, "My life is hell." "This has been going on for 4 years, but now my life is hell. It's hell and that's all," she said. "I feel too much pain to speak." She has complained that her son was being made a scapegoat for 9.11.01. Moussaoui is the only person in this country charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The jury earlier found him eligible for execution by determining that his actions caused at least one death that day. Although Moussaoui was in jail on 9.11.01, the jury ruled that lies he told federal agents when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations allowed the plot to go forward. U.S. defies judge Moussaoui case jeopardized 7.14.03   Guy Taylor Wash.Times Govt yesterday refused to produce a top al Qaeda member to be interviewed by Zacarias Moussaoui via satellite teleconference, a move that could force the dismissal of charges against the Moroccan native accused in 9.11.01. In a motion filed in U.S. Dist. Court for Eastern Dist. of VA, federal prosecutors said the teleconference between Moussaoui and detained terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh "would necessarily result in the unauthorized disclosure of classified information." "Such a scenario is unacceptable to the govt, which not only carries the responsibility of prosecuting the defendant, but also of protecting this nation's security at a time of war with an enemy who has already murdered thousands of our citizens," the motion said. Eastern Dist. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema ordered in January that Moussaoui, in his in attempts to prove his innocence on charges he conspired with al Qaeda in 9.11.01, had a right to interview Binalshibh, who was taken into U.S. custody in Pakistan last year as an enemy combatant. Prosecutors, determined to have Judge Brinkema's order overthrown, attempted to appeal it this spring in the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. But the appeals court balked, with a 3 judge panel ruling 6.30.03 that it was premature to intervene in the Moussaoui case. As a result, Judge Brinkema ordered the govt to announce yesterday whether it would comply with the ruling to allow Moussaoui access to Binalshibh. In their motion, filed to just after 6pm last night, prosecutors attached a classified affidavit written by Atty Gen Ashcroft objecting to the judge's January ruling. The motion acknowledged that refusing to produce Binalshibh "obligates the court" to dismiss the charges against Moussaoui and potentially take further disciplinary action against U.S. Atty Paul J. McNulty and his team of federal prosecutors. Catholic Univ. Columbus School of Law dean Douglas W. Kmiec, close observer of the Moussaoui case, said Judge Brinkema "could conceivably hold the Justice Dept lawyers in contempt" of court for their failure to comply with her order to produce Binalshibh. "I think what is more likely is that she will contemplate some form of reduction in charge, indicating that the govt's case either cannot go forward entirely or in part by virtue of its stated unwillingness to produce a witness," Kmiec said. He added, however, that once Judge Brinkema announced her punishment, prosecutors can be expected to bring the case back to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which "at that point will be able to assert jurisdiction." Reached by phone last night, federal public defender Frank W. Dunham Jr. appointed to assist Moussaoui, acting as his own attorney, said he was still studying yesterday's developments and was "not yet in a position to comment." Moussaoui, arrested shortly before 9.11.01, has been accused of being the "20th hijacker," who was to join the 19 others who crashed jetliners into NYC twin World Trade Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing 3,000. 4 of 6 felony charges faced by Moroccan-born French citizen Moussaoui carry the death penalty. The issue of whether Moussaoui should be allowed access to terrorist suspects in custody has caused some to ask why President Bush doesn't intervene and change Moussaoui's status to enemy combatant, rather than continue trying to prosecute him as a criminal in civilian courts. Disruptive Moussaoui barred from court 2.14.06   Michael J. Sniffen, Matthew Barakat AP Confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui again disrupted his sentencing trial with insults and epithets Tuesday and was barred from the courtroom while a jury is selected to decide whether he is put to death or imprisoned for life. After verbally sparring with Moussaoui for about 15 minutes, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered that he must watch the remainder of jury selection on closed-circuit television from his courthouse cell. That could take until 3.6.06, when opening statements are scheduled. Brinkema said her main purpose in Tuesday's hearing was to determine "how Mr. Moussaoui plans to behave: ... whether you plan to remain quiet ... or whether you plan to make speeches." Moussaoui was ejected 4 times 2.6.06 when he denounced his court-appointed lawyers in front of 4 separate groups of prospective jurors. Some 500 northern Virginia residents filled out questionnaires that day about their attitudes toward the case, the death penalty, Muslims and the FBI. The 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent pleaded guilty last April to conspiring with al-Qaida to fly aircraft into U.S. buildings but has denied any role in 9.11.01 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Moussaoui claims to have been training to fly a 747 jetliner into the White House as part of a subsequent plot. When Brinkema asked how he would behave, Moussaoui walked to the lectern and pulled out what appeared to be a handwritten speech. "You have been trying to organize my death for four years," Moussaoui told her. Clad in a white knit cap and green prison jump suit with "prisoner" in white block letters on the back, Moussaoui launched into another attack on his lawyers and in the process offered diatribes against President Bush and the French people. At various points, he called Bush "a crusader" who was "launching a new campaign of revenge against terrorists." Despite his French citizenship, he said in French-accented English: "I'm not French. ... I stand here as a Muslim only. I do not stand here with a nation of homosexual crusaders." Brinkema repeatedly tried to quiet him. But Moussaoui complained that for 4 years she had denied him a chance to explain his objections to the lawyers. "Today is my day," he plunged on. "If I can't make sure that those people are not going to represent me, I know that I am dead." He referred to his 3 attorneys as a "federal lawyer," a "KKK" (Ku Klux Klan) and a "geisha." Brinkema sternly broke in: "I'm not going to permit you to use a federal courtroom to malign your lawyers." Without raising his voice, Moussaoui responded, "You own everything, the defense, the judge, the attack (prosecutors). I am al-Qaida. I am your sworn enemy." Brinkema: "Mr. Moussaoui, you are the biggest enemy of yourself." Again she asked if he would remain quiet or leave. Moussaoui: "I'm going to leave." "God curse you and America," Moussaoui said as marshals accompanied him out. Brinkema ruled Moussaoui had forfeited his right to be present for jury selection but said she might reconsider if he later agreed to behave. Despite requests from news media, Brinkema ruled that no copies of exhibits admitted into evidence, including videotaped depositions from some witnesses and summaries of interrogations of captured al-Qaida leaders, will be made public during the trial. She said jurors might be contaminated by uncontrolled exposure to the material. "Moreover, some exhibits may be declassified only for the limited purpose of being discussed in court and shown to the jury without unrestricted public access," she added. She said she would decide after trial which exhibits to release. Brinkema also said Moussaoui's mother, expected to visit from France, could watch on television in an overflow room where her translator would not disrupt proceedings. Lawyers begin questioning individual jurors Wednesday. On Capitol Hill, Rep. Curt Weldon R-PA said he would fight a defense subpoena to testify on what he's learned about a military intelligence operation named Able Danger that he says identified some 9.11.01 hijackers well before the attacks. "I think Moussaoui is a thug. I think he deserves to be given the harshest punishment," Weldon said. "If they were going to use me, I don't want to be used." Defense attorneys did not immediately respond to calls asking whether they would still try to enforce the subpoena. 2nd suspect in al-Qaeda trainee case pleads guilty 3.25.03   Carolyn Thompson AP Buffalo, NY   A second of 6 Yemeni-American men accused of training at an al-Qaeda camp months before 9.11.01 pleaded guilty yesterday to supporting a foreign terrorist organization. In a plea deal with the govt, Shafal Mosed admitted attending the camp in Afghanistan from April to June 2001, where he received weapons & tactical training, performed guard duty and heard Osama bin Laden speak about "50 men who were on a suicide mission." Mosed, 24, also agreed to cooperate with investigators. In exchange, prosecutors dropped one charge and said they'd seek a lighter sentence of 8 years. He could have faced 15 years. In January, co-defendant Faysal Galab reached a deal with the govt in which he agreed to testify against the other 5 men accused of being part of an al- Qaeda terrorist cell in the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna. The 6 men, American citizens of Yemeni descent, were arrested Sept. 2002 and charged with violating a 1996 law that prohibits giving money, weapons or other support to foreign terrorist organizations. Mosed was ordered held until sentencing, scheduled 7.16.03. "He's an American. He's a Buffalo Bills fan. He's native-born," said Mosed's atty Patrick Brown. "He realizes it was a stupid thing to have done and he shouldn't have done it." AttyGen Ashcroft said the plea "sends a strong message that those who provide their money or services to support America's enemies, even if they are American citizens themselves, will face the full force of America's justice." Mosed, a married father who worked as a telemarketer, admitted he knew before going to Afghanistan that bin Laden was associated with the al-Farooq camp. Brown said his client had no prior knowledge of 9.11.01 attacks. According to the lawyer, bin Laden wasn't specific when he spoke at the camp about a suicide mission. "He didn't say they were sending them to America. It wasn't 'I've got 50 people going to America,' " Brown said. "The significance of it really didn't hit (Mosed) because, how much of it is rhetoric, how much is a statement of fact? He had no way of knowing at the time." Mosed, the lawyer said, accepted the plea offer in part out of concern prosecutors would charge him with treason, which carries a possible death sentence, or deem him an "enemy combatant," a status which could have left him open to transfer to the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Prosecutors have said the 6 men were awaiting orders from bin Laden's group to carry out an attack in U.S. but have acknowledged there was no evidence they posed an imminent threat. The alleged leader of the group, Kamal Derwish, was believed killed in a CIA air strike Nov. 3 in Yemen, U.S. officials have said. Report: U.K. spies had come across 2 bombers Al-Qaida involvement in 7.7.05 London bombings unclear, committee says   5.11.06   MSNBC London   British security services had come across 2 men who went on to carry out last year’s July 7 bomb attacks on London but did not believe them to be urgent threats, a parliamentary committee reported on Thursday. Mohammad Siddique Khan and Shazad Tanweer were among 4 British Islamist militants who set off rucksack bombs on 3 underground trains and a double-decker bus, killing 52 people and wounding more than 700. Later Thursday, British Home Secretary John Reid told the House of Commons that British police and intelligence officers have prevented 3 terrorist attacks in Britain since the bombings. Reid did not indicate whether he counted 7.21.05 failedd bombing attempts among the 3. 4 suspected would-be bombers and a number of other people were arrested after bombs failed to explode at 3 Underground stations and aboard a bus. 7.7.05 attacks took place as PM Blair hosted a gathering of Group of Eight world leaders in Scotland. Security officials had lowered the general threat level to the country 2 months before the attack. The British parliament’s intelligence and security committee said the Security Service, commonly known as MI5, had come across Khan and Tanweer “on the peripheries of other surveillance and investigative operations.” The committee said it was understandable that intelligence officials had not pursued the 2 men, given their limited resources and other urgent priorities “At that time, their identities were unknown to the Security Service and there was no appreciation of their subsequent significance,” the committee’s report into the attacks said. “As there were more pressing priorities at the time, including the need to disrupt known plans to attack the UK, it was decided not to investigate them further or seek to identify them,” the report said. “In light of the other priority investigations being conducted and the limitations on Security Service resources, the decisions not to give greater investigative priority to these 2 individuals were understandable,” the report concluded. In a video statement released after his death, Khan hailed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden as a hero and said attacks would go on as long as “atrocities” were committed against Muslims. The committee noted both Khan and Tanweer had spent time in Pakistan and it was likely they had come into contact with al-Qaida figures. But it said the extent of any external control over the attacks was unclear. The committee said the attacks had shown it was important for police and intelligence agencies to work together to tackle the threat posed by the “radicalization of British citizens.” “We welcome steps that are now being taken to achieve this although, given that the ‘home-grown’ threat had clearly been recognized, we are concerned that more was not done sooner,” the report said. Some analysts have said Blair’s decision to back the U.S.-led war in Iraq has helped radicalize some British Muslims. The govt has said extremists have distorted and the aims of the war and there can be no excuse for the July 7 attacks. The committee also said it was “not unreasonable” for security officials to have lowered the threat level in May 2005. “The reduction is unlikely to have altered the alertness of responders (including the emergency services) or to have affected the chance of preventing the 7 July attacks,” it said. [ The conflicting priorities are not cited here; what is their relative strength if identified but unfiltered feyadeen were successful despite THX1138 classification ? The logical deduction by opposing tacticians is that enough simultaneous attacks ensure some triumph against preventative counterintelligence when it practices triage. ] Anti-terror squads arrest 14 across the UK 12.2.03   Mark Huband FT London   14 people were in custody on Tuesday night, after anti-terrorist police swooped on suspects in London, Cambridge and the West Midlands in the most extensive wave of terrorism-related arrests for almost a year. In pre-dawn raids, police in south-west London sealed off 6 houses and 3 businesses and arrested 4 men now held under the Terrorism Act. Police also raided 2 houses in Cambridge, arresting 4 men & 2 women, while officers in the West Midlands arrested 4 men in Walsall & Dudley. Suspicions about the 14 people arrested on Tuesday contributed to the decision taken 2 weeks ago to raise the terrorist-threat level in the UK to its highest ever, a security official said. The arrests follow a series of anti-terrorist operations last week in Birmingham, Manchester and Blackburn. Security officials said those arrested on Tuesday were suspected of being involved in fundraising for possible terrorist activity rather than planning attacks in Britain. None of the arrested are known to have links to the al-Qaeda network. Police have sealed off all the buildings that were raided on Tuesday, and forensics experts are examining them for fingerprints. No explosives or other material that might be used for attacks have been found. The raids have been the most extensive since police in London and other cities raided numerous addresses in January this year after the discovery of facilities to make ricin poison in a flat in north London. Then, 30 people were arrested. EU body: U.S. must follow law 4.25.02   Constant Brand AP Brussels, Belgium   European Union Parliament urged U.S. 4.25.02 to adhere to intl law in treatment of Taliban & al-Qaida suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba. EU Parliament voted 439 to 10 with 59 abstentions to pass its annual world human rights report highlighting threats to individual rights in war against terrorism. While condemning all forms of terrorism, EU assembly said in a statement "terrorism must not in itself lead to breaches of human rights. The fight against terrorism can in turn lead to human rights violations, be used as a pretext for govts to violate human rights, silence critics or eliminate opposition," the parliament said.

It criticized Pres.GWBush decision to set up military-run courts behind closed doors to try the 300 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The legislature said such a move was "in contravention of provisions for a fair trial as guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the U.S. is a party". The parliament also demanded U.S. officials seek to give the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay prisoner-of-war status, and provide international reassurances that those charged will be given a fair trial.
The EU report said "waving the anti-terrorism banner" was being used to justify repression in the ongoing conflict between Israelis & Palestinians, and also cited Russia's ongoing military campaign in Chechnya, China's actions against Xinjiang Muslim separatists and media repression in Zimbabwe.

"In the name of a military victory, Western countries tend to abandon their values by turning a blind eye to human rights abuses perpetrated by some of their new allies in the fight against terrorism," the report said.
The assembly also called on EU govts to put human rights considerations into all their relations with other countries. It specifically called for the EU to draft a list of countries that violate international child labor laws and called on them to introduce a joint position on fighting child prostitution.

White House to cooperate with Congress in threat probes     5.16.02   Reuters ¹ Wash.DC   The White House said Thursday it will cooperate with congressional investigations into the warnings of attacks on U.S., incl hijackings, it received last year before 9.1101. "Yes, the White House will," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters when asked if it would cooperate. "The White House is working with the congressional committees that are investigating this matter. We will continue to do so." Fleischer said White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice would brief reporters Thu. on warnings it received before 9.11.01, incl providing a "clearer timeline" of what threats President Bush knew about and how the govt responded. Members of Congress demanded answers on Thursday on whether the govt had enough information to head off 9.11.01 as White House went into damage control over the disclosure that Bush received a warning in August of possible plot to hijack U.S. planes. Fleischer stressed that Bush, who received this warning in the first week of August, did not receive information about the use airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. 9.11.01 probe frustrates lawmakers With hearings set to begin, key senators favor an independent investigation into the intelligence agencies' failure to foil attacks 9.18.02   Greg Miller L.A.Times Wash.DC   As long-delayed hearings on intelligence failures surrounding 9.11.01 finally get underway on Capitol Hill today, key lawmakers are voicing frustration with the failings of the investigation itself. Several members of the Senate Intelligence Committee say they now favor creating an independent commission to do a more thorough examination of the govt's failure to prevent the attacks, a proposal vehemently opposed by the White House but increasingly likely to clear the Senate, perhaps as early as this week. The congressional probe has been sidetracked by staff changes as well as an ongoing FBI investigation into whether lawmakers leaked classified material to the media. Members continue to accuse the White House and intelligence agencies of dragging their heels in turning over information, declassifying material and making witnesses available. With a relatively small team of investigators facing a February deadline for a final report, several key senators said Tuesday that they are simply running out of time. "I thought we might be in position to do a searching, definitive job," said Sen. Richard C. Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "I do not feel that way anymore." Senate Intelligence Committee chair Sen. Bob Graham D-FL defended the investigation, saying he is confident it will produce a comprehensive report that will spell out reforms needed to prevent future intelligence breakdowns. But even Graham acknowledged Tuesday that his committee can't answer all the lingering questions from 9.11.01. He said that if there is a vote this week on creating an independent commission, he is "leaning" toward voting yes. The fact that there is new momentum for an independent commission underscores the extent to which the investigation is still stumbling 7 months after its inception. Today's hearing is designed to provide the public with its first glimpse of investigators' progress. Much of the session will be devoted to an overview of the investigation by Eleanor Hill, a former federal prosecutor & Defense Dept inspector general hired in June to direct the probe. The committee is also expected to release a 30- pg report of preliminary findings. A congressional source familiar with the probe said the report will include newly declassified intelligence materials showing that U.S. spy agencies had more warning than they have previously acknowledged that terrorists might attack U.S. soil and use aircraft as weapons. The source said investigators have not found evidence that any govt agency had information specific enough to detect and disrupt the 9.11.01 plot. But the source indicated that the report contains information that could undercut claims by CIA dir. George J. Tenet and others that the intelligence community was fully mobilized against Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden long before the 9.11.01 attacks. The report, which also includes previously reported disclosures of intelligence breakdowns, is based on investigators' reviews of more than 400,000 documents and interviews with about 500 people, the source said. But even as some close to the panel sought to tout the report, others dismissed it as little more than a terrorism timeline pieced together largely by the CIA. One congressional aide familiar with the investigation said that only 2 investigators have been assigned to the CIA, and that they have been outnumbered & outmaneuvered by agency officials. The information in the report, the aide said, was "spoon-fed" to investigators by CIA officials. Even the decision to hold public hearings has been a source of friction within the committee. Some argued that staging such sessions is sapping committee resources that would be better spent pursuing new leads. Today's session is to open with testimony from relatives of victims of the 9.11.01 attacks. Sen. Jon Kyl R-AZ said he believes it is important for members of Congress to meet with victims' families, but he questioned how it would advance the investigation. "Why does the intelligence committee have to have a public hearing to have these people tell their story?" Kyl asked. "We don't dispense benefits to survivors." Asked whether the committee can still produce a meaningful report, Kyl said, "Hope springs eternal," but he suggested that he expects a more disappointing product. One of his main concerns, he said, is that the panel has spent too much energy producing a 9.11.01 chronology, and not enough probing more complicated matters, incl breakdowns in how intelligence agencies set priorities &and allocated resources before the attacks. The final report "will be very interesting reading and an important historical document," Kyl said. "But I'm not sure what [it will accomplish] beyond that." Others voiced similar concerns. "I'm hoping we can begin to discuss some of the macro issues," including whether the intelligence community should be reorganized, said Sen. Mike DeWine R-OH. But with Congress set to recess in less than a month, and the report due shortly after members return at the beginning of next year, DeWine said, "I don't think there's going to be enough time." House & Senate Intelligence panels have been under pressure to finish their work by February, because that is when many members incl ranking members in each chamber are scheduled to rotate out of their Intelligence assignments. The investigation was also sidetracked last spring when its first staff director, L. Britt Snider, was forced out after hiring an employee who had failed a CIA polygraph test. Hill took over in June. The FBI recently launched an investigation into whether members of the joint committee leaked classified information to the media. As part of that unusual probe, lawmakers responsible for examining the FBI's role in 9.11.01 have been asked by agents whether they would be willing to submit to polygraph tests and provide telephone records and other documents. The investigations' struggles have buoyed prospects for a bill sponsored by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman D-CT and John McCain R-AZ that would create an independent commission to examine various govt agencies' performance leading up to 9.11.01. The bill calls for the creation of a 10-member panel that would include intelligence experts, but exclude elected officials. For much of the year, the bill appeared to be doomed by fierce opposition from the White House and the reluctance of influential lawmakers, including Shelby, to approve a separate investigation while Congress was pursuing its own. But with Shelby and others now on board, Lieberman & McCain have been looking for an opportunity to attach their bill as an amendment to homeland security legislation being considered by the Senate this week. Asked whether there are now enough votes for a commission, McCain said Tuesday, "We'll win." 9.11.01 commission complains of "intimidation" & stonewalling   7.18.03   Patrick Martin WSWS ¹ Federal commission investigating 9.11.01 charged 7.8.03 its work was hampered by federal agencies reluctance to hand over documents or provide witnesses for unimpeded interview by commission staff. A statement issued by commission GOP chair former NJ gov. Thomas Kean & Democratic vice chair former Cong. Lee Hamilton singled out the Pentagon for criticism for withholding information relating to NORAD, joint US- Canadian air defense command, which failed to mobilize jet fighters in time to intercept any of the 4 airliners hijacked. The commission sought millions of documents from 16 federal agencies, but the vast majority of the documents have not yet been produced, though the commission has used nearly half the time allotted by Congress for conducting the probe; due to present its report 5.27.04. The statement issued by the commission warned "problems that have arisen so far with the Defense Dept are becoming particularly serious." It appealed for fuller cooperation by Bush admin in inquiry's remaining months. At news conference accompanying statement release, Kean & Hamilton called attention to the administration's insistence that all govt witnesses be accompanied by officials representing their agencies when interviewed by commission staff. Media observers have compared this to the Iraqi govt use of official "minders" to sit in on interviews by UN weapons inspectors. At the time, the Bush administration declared that such tactics proved Saddam Hussein had something to hide. Kean told the press conference, "I think the commission feels unanimously that it's some intimidation to have somebody sitting behind you all the time who you either work for or works for your agency. You might get less testimony than you would. We would rather interview these people without minders or without agency people there." National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon U.S. was established last fall, more than a year after 9.11.01 after opposition by Bush admin. The White House backed down only in the face of protests by 9.11.01 victims' families which threatened to embarrass the admin weeks before Nov. 2002 congressional elections. Bush initially appointed former Sec. of State Kissinger as commission's chair … Kissinger stepped down within 2 weeks, refusing to make public his MidEast business connections & activities. Kean, NJ governor 1983-91, is considered a GOP moderate. Other GOP members incl former Navy sec. John Lehman, former Sen. Slade Gorton WA, former IL gov. Jim Thompson and Washington atty Fred Fielding, Nixon White House deputy counsel. Democrats include Hamilton, 1980s & early 1990s House Foreign Affairs Committee chair, now Wash.DC foreign policy think tank head; former Sen. Max Cleland GA; former Cong. Timothy Roemer IN; Washington atty & former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste, and Fed. National Mortgage Assn vice chair Jamie Gorelick, Clinton deputy atty general. Commission's exec. dir. is Univ. of VA historian Philip Zelikow who recently edited White House tapes of Kennedy admin discussions during 1962 Cuban missile crisis. … Several commission members have raised sensitive questions about the role of the White House and the national security apparatus before & during 9.11.01. In April & May, the commission came into conflict with CIA-run declassification committee refusal to provide documents relating to Saudi Arabian role in the terrorist attacks. … Extensive information on this subject was compiled in the 900 pg report drafted by a joint House- Senate intelligence committee that conducted a limited 9.11.01 investigation last year. … The House-Senate report is scheduled to be made public July 24, in a heavily censored version, but the 9.11.01 commission has been seeking access to the full text. The CIA has identified more than 60 pages worth of deletions, including all references to role of foreign govts, whether relating to their warnings of terrorist attacks or their possible complicity in Al Qaeda operations. Roemer, who participated in the House-Senate investigation and retired from Congress after Nov. 2002 elections, was denied access to transcripts of hearings at which he was present last year as a member of the House Intelligence Committee. The commission has also sought minutes of the National Security Council from the spring & summer of 2001 that refer to warnings by the CIA & other intelligence agencies of imminent attacks by Al Qaeda. It also wants to interview National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, on what they knew and what they told the president about these warnings. At a 5.23.03 hearing, commission members questioned aviation experts and FAA officials on whether the FAA promptly notified NORAD of the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77, which was not intercepted before it hit the Pentagon more than an hour after the first jetliner hit the World Trade Center. Diametrically opposed responses were given to some questions. Former Transportation Dept inspector general Mary Schiavo criticized FAA & airline security procedures, saying, "The notion that these hijackings & terrorism were unforeseen & unforeseeable risk is an airline & FAA public-relations management myth." Transportation Sec Mineta claimed govt was caught entirely unawares. "I don't think we ever thought of an aircraft being used as a missile." According LA Times account, "some commission members argued there were plenty of indications that terrorists were planning a major attack against this country in months before 9.11.01. These members said they were stunned by Mineta's comments and by how they conflicted with other testimony." GOP commission member former Navy sec. Lehman, told Time magazine last month the commission would ask both GWBush & Bill Clinton to appear to discuss what their administrations knew about Al Qaeda before 9.11.01. "I don't think any commission should ever formally call a president to testify," he told the magazine, "but I think it is very much in the country's interest, and in both president's interest, to meet directly with the commissioners." … a 7.10.03 Wall St Journal editorial titled, "9/11 Mischief, a commission turns into an exercise in partisan score-settling." Without citing any evidence other than the commission's demand for faster production of documents, the Journal denounced the panel as incorrigibly partisan, (despite) 5 GOP & 5 Democrats, all GOP appointed by White House & GOP congressional leaders. After suggesting Bush admin refuse to cooperate with the commission, the Journal said the commission would be better employed if it investigated the Clinton administration's alleged dismantling of US defenses in the 1990s, rather than actual circumstances surrounding 9.11.01. Failing that, the commission should delay its report until after the 2004 election, the Journal advised. … Kerry adviser leaves the race over missing documents   7.20.04   Eric Lichtblau NY Times Wash.D.C.   Samuel R. Berger, former national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, resigned abruptly Tuesday as a sr adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign after the disclosure that he had improperly removed classified material on terrorism from a secure govt reading room last year. The decision came after Mr. Berger endured a day of furious criticism from GOP leaders, who accused him of breaching national security and possibly passing classified material to Mr. Kerry's campaign. Democrats, in turn, accused the Bush administration of leaking word of an F.B.I. investigation of Berger as a way of diverting attention from the release of 9.11.01 commission's final report Thursday. Berger told reporters Tuesday evening outside his Washington office: "Last year, when I was in the archives reviewing documents, I made an honest mistake. It's one that I deeply regret." Associates of Berger said that although his mishandling of the classified material was inadvertent, he had decided late in the day to step down at least temporarily from the campaign because he did not want to detract from the Kerry effort. "With that in mind, he has decided to step aside as an informal adviser to the Kerry campaign until this matter is resolved," said Lanny A. Breuer, lawyer representing Berger in the investigation. Berger's aides acknowledged that when he was preparing last year for testimony before 9.11.01 commission, he removed from a secure reading room copies of a handful of classified documents related to a failed 1999 terrorist plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport. GOPs accused him on Tuesday of stashing the material in his clothing, but Breuer called that accusation "ridiculous" and politically inspired. He said the documents' removal was accidental. The departure of Berger was at least a distraction for the Kerry campaign, which had hoped to gain political advantage from 9.11.01 commission's anticipated criticisms of the Bush administration's handling of terrorism intelligence. For months, Berger has consulted regularly with Kerry on the Iraq war, MidEast relations, terrorism and other foreign policy matters, helping to formulate speeches, prepare op-ed articles and brief reporters on the candidate's positions, campaign officials said. "Sandy Berger is my friend, and he has tirelessly served this nation with honor and distinction," Kerry said Tuesday in a statement. "I respect his decision to step aside as an adviser to the campaign until this matter is resolved objectively and fairly." Associates said he would probably try to rejoin the campaign after FBI concluded an investigation that began in earnest in January after the National Archives discovered that classified material Berger had reviewed was missing. But for Berger the damage may be difficult to overcome. Some Democrats suggested on Tuesday that the episode could severely hurt his chances of becoming secretary of state or taking another cabinet position in a Kerry administration, jobs his name has been linked to. Law enforcement officials said that the F.B.I. was continuing to investigate Berger's handling of the classified material and that the Justice Dept had made no decisions about whether to seek criminal charges. One crucial legal issue will be whether the evidence indicates that Berger's removal of the classified documents was inadvertent, as he and his lawyer assert. "That's clearly a question at the center of all this," said a law enforcement official who spoke about the investigation on condition of anonymity. Though prosecutions for the mishandling of classified information are relatively rare, sr officials have become embroiled in such cases. In 2001, Clinton pardoned John M. Deutch, former director of central intelligence, as he was negotiating a plea agreement with prosecutors over accusations that he had downloaded classified intelligence onto his unsecured computer. Berger spent about 30 hours over three days in the summer and fall of 2003 reviewing classified material in a secure govt reading room, his associates said. Among those documents, officials said, were lengthy classified versions of an "after-action" report on the so-called millennium plots, which included a failed Qaeda effort to bomb Los Angeles Intl Airport in December 1999. The report on the plot, according to a final version that was summarized in a staff report from 9.11.01 commission earlier this year, concluded that American-led counterterrorism efforts "had not put too much of a dent" in Osama bin Laden's overseas network and that "sleeper cells" might have taken root in U.S. Breuer, the lawyer, said Berger inadvertently put three or four versions of the report on the plots in a leather portfolio he had with him. "He had lots of papers, and the memos got caught up in the portfolio," he said. "It was an accident." Berger also put in his jacket and pants pockets handwritten notes that he had made during his review of the documents, Breuer said. Officials at the National Archives realized late last year that several documents were missing and turned the matter over to the F.B.I., which later searched Berger's home & office, officials said. Breuer said that Berger had returned 2 of the documents, but that he had apparently discarded several others inadvertently. Breuer said the removal of even Berger's notes was a "technical violation," but he denied GOPs' assertions that Berger had removed the material intentionally to hide information that could be damaging. House speaker J. Dennis Hastert asked, "What information could be so embarrassing that a man with decades of experience in handling classified documents would risk being caught pilfering our nation's most sensitive secrets?" House majority leader Tom DeLay, said: "That is not sloppy. I think it is gravely, gravely serious what he did, if he did it, and it could be a national security crisis." Breuer responded, "If there's a suggestion that he's shoving things down his pants, that is categorically false and ridiculous." Democrats spent much of the day defending Berger as a man of integrity and asserting he had no reason to steal material already widely available to 9.11.01 commission. But late in the afternoon, Kerry's campaign announced that Berger was stepping down.

Senator: Hearings to 'get to the bottom' of lapses 6.4.02   David Ensor CNN Wash.DC   Amid damaging disclosures involving both the FBI & CIA, lawmakers prepared to open hearings Tuesday into apparent intelligence lapses that emerged since 9.11.01. "What we've got to do, I believe, is get to the bottom of the successes and failures because we owe that to the American people," said Sen. Richard Shelby R-AL, top GOP on Senate Intelligence Committee. Shelby made his comments after intelligence officials told CNN the CIA warned the FBI Jan. 2000 that one of 9.11.01 hijackers participated in an al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia and merited closer attention. Not until Aug. 2001, 3 weeks before the terror attacks, that CIA put that man, Khalid Almihdhar, & Nawaf Alhazmi, another man at the Malaysia meeting, on watch list that could have prevented them from entering U.S.. Alhazmi was also 9.11.01 hijacker. "I can tell you I believe again this points toward more failures at the CIA, at the FBI and all over the intelligence agencies," Shelby said. Earlier, he told ABC that CIA Dir. Geo. Tenet was in "denial" and that "facts will be brought out to prove that." Another Intelligence Committee member, Dianne Feinstein D-CA, said Sunday "some hard questions have to be answered." Latest revelations come on the heels of harsh criticism of FBI for what some lawmakers say was a series of overlooked clues & leads that preceded 9.11.01. For example, an FBI agent in Phoenix, AZ wrote July 2001 memo urging broad review of Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons in U.S. and raising prospect Osama bin Laden was involved. Also last summer, FBI Minneapolis field office pursued an investigation of a terrorism suspect but could not get approval from Wash.D.C. FBI HQ to seek search warrant for the man's computer. That suspect, Zacarias Moussaoui, was later charged as a conspirator in the hijackings. House & Senate intelligence hearings begin Tuesday, but the initial sessions will be closed to the public. Thu. 6.6.02 Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to hear from FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley from Minneapolis who wrote critical letter about FBI HQ. In tacit acknowledgment of criticism of the nation's top law enforcement & intelligence agencies, Pres.GWBush said Monday the FBI is "doing a better job" and is sharing intelligence information with CIA, task many lawmakers say the agency failed to do in the months leading up 9.11.01. Speaking in Little Rock, Arkansas, Bush obliquely referenced news stories that have detailed the apparent intelligence failures. "When you read about the FBI, I want you to know that the FBI is changing its culture," Bush said. "The FBI prior to 9.11.01 was running down white-collar criminals and that's good, was worrying about spies and that's good. But now they've got a more important task, and that is to prevent further attack. And, so, the FBI is changing. And they're doing a better job of communicating with the CIA. They're now sharing intelligence." Administration officials maintain there was no single clue or memo that could have thwarted the attacks. But, in a break with earlier statements, FBI Dir. Robt Mueller last week said it was possible, though unlikely, the FBI could have gotten "lucky" and connected the dots to discover at least some of the hijackers before 9.11.01 Shelby said details about how the nation's top law enforcement & security agencies handled intelligence information on terrorism before 9.11.01 point to a problem of coordination and communication. "They have not followed up on leads that sat in their laps," he told ABC. Ridge gets into early fight on intelligence sharing 1.26.03   Lara Jakes Jordan AP   ¹ Wash.D.C.   In one of his first battles at the helm of the new Homeland Security Dept, Sec. Ridge will face off with old ally Sen. Arlen Specter R-PA who sees the power battle as necessary to help Ridge win possible Washington turf war. Even before Ridge was sworn into office Friday, Specter was planning to lob a fresh attack on the 170,000-person dept he thinks will be rendered ineffective if it cannot extract intelligence from agencies such as FBI & CIA. Ridge has said the new dept has all the authority it needs. "This is an area that's going to be a knockdown, drag-out fight among all the turf guys in Washington," Specter said in an interview. The dept, which went into official operation Friday, lacks the power to demand data from intelligence agencies, although they currently brief Ridge at least twice a day. If he requests specific information and is refused, Ridge must appeal to the White House to get it. The setup could create a time gap in identifying terrorists, as well as a turf war within the executive branch as agencies stake claims to sensitive information, Specter aides said. Both moderates, Specter & Ridge are personally friendly and politically allied on many issues. But the 4 term senator & the former PA governor have locked horns repeatedly on the best way to build the Homeland Security Dept. As early as this week, Specter will introduce a bill to give Homeland Security the authority to receive information instead of waiting for intelligence agencies to hand it over. The power struggle over security turf was the subject last week of an intense exchange between the 2 during Ridge's confirmation hearing before the Senate Govt Affairs Committee. "When push comes to shove, if you need it, why, institutionally, shouldn't the secretary have it?" Specter asked Ridge at the Senate hearing. Ridge responded: "I feel that the language in the statute … is so strong, and creates such an affirmative obligation on the part of the intelligence community, that we'll get all we need." Without that power the new dept risks letting terrorists slip through the cracks, said Homeland Security Alliance head Stephen Push, organization of families who lost relatives 9.11.01. For example, he said, the day before the attacks, the CIA had the names of 2 of the terrorists who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. "If the information doesn't get to end-users in time to be useful, what's the point of having intelligence in the first place?" said Push, whose wife, Lisa Raines, was aboard Flight 77. 500 conspiracy buffs meet to seek truth of 9/11 6.5.06   Alan Feuer NY Times Chicago   In the ballroom foyer of the Embassy Suites Hotel, the 2 day International Education and Strategy Conference for 9/11 Truth was off to a rollicking start. Whatever one thinks of the claim that the state would plan, then execute, a scheme to murder thousands of its own, there was something to the fact that more than 500 people from Italy to Northern California gathered for the weekend at a major chain hotel near the runways of O'Hare International. It was, in tone, half trade show, half political convention. There were talks on the Reichstag fire and the sinking of the Battleship Maine as precedents for 9/11. There were speeches by the lawyer for James Earl Ray, who claimed that a military conspiracy killed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, and by a former operative for the British secret service, MI5. "We feel at this point we've done a lot of solid research, but the American public still is not informed," said event sponsor 911Truth.org press dir. Michael Berger. "We had to come up with a disciplined approach to get it out." Berger, age 40, is typical of 9/11 Truthers, a group that, in its rank and file, includes professors, chain-saw operators, mothers, engineers, activists, used-book sellers, pizza deliverymen, college students, a former U.S. Senate fringe candidate and a long-haired fellow named hummux (pronounced who-mook) who, on and off, lived in a cave for 15 years. Former owner of a recycling plant outside St. Louis, Berger joined the movement when he grew skeptical of why the 9/11 Commission had failed, to his sense of sufficiency, to answer how the building at 7 World Trade Center collapsed like a ton of bricks. It was his "9/11 trigger," the incident that drew him in, he said. For others, it might be the fact that the air-defense network did not prevent the attacks that day, or the appearance of thousands of "puts", short-sell bids, on the nation's airline stocks. The 9/11 Commission found the sales innocuous. Such "red flags," as they are sometimes called, were emphasis of the keynote speech on Friday night by Alex Jones, the William Jennings Bryan of 9/11 Truth. Syndicated radio host Jones is known for his larynx-tearing screeds against corruption, fiery, almost preacherly, addresses in which he sweats, balls his fists and often swerves from quoting Roman history to using foul language in a single breath. At the lectern Friday night, beside a digital projection reading "History of Govt Sponsored Terrorism," Jones set forth the central tenets of 9/11 Truth: that the military command that monitors aircraft "stood down" on the day of the attacks; that President Bush addressed children in a Florida classroom instead of being whisked off to the White House; that the hijackers, despite what the authorities say, were trained at American military bases; and that the towers did not collapse because of burning fuel and weakened steel but because of a "controlled demolition" caused by pre-set bombs. According to the group's Web site, the motive for faking a terrorist attack was to allow the administration "to instantly implement policies its members have long supported, but which were otherwise infeasible." The controlled-demolition theory is the sine qua non of the 9/11 movement, its basic claim and, in some sense, the one upon which all others rest. It is, of course, directly contradicted by the 10,000-page investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which held that jet-fuel fires distressed the towers' structure, which eventually collapsed. The movement's answer to that report was written by Steven E. Jones, a professor of physics at Brigham Young University and the movement's expert in the matter of collapse. Dr. Jones, unlike Alex Jones, is a soft-spoken man who lets his writing do the talking. He composed an account of the destruction of the towers that holds that "pre-positioned cutter-charges" brought the buildings down. Like a prior generation of skeptics, those who doubted, say, the Warren Commission or the govt's account of the Gulf of Tonkin attack, 9/11 Truthers are dogged, at home and in the office, by friends and family who suspect that they may, in fact, be completely nuts. "Elvis & Area 51, we're sort of lumped together," said recent Austin TX college graduate Harlan Dietrich. "It's attack the messenger, not the message every time." To get the message out, the movement has gone beyond bumper stickers and "Kumbaya" into political action. There is a plan, Mr. Berger said, to create a fund to support candidates on a 9/11 platform. There is a plan to create a network of college campus groups. There is a plan by the British delegation (such as it is, so far) to get members of Parliament to watch "Loose Change," the seminal movement DVD. It would even seem the Truthers are not alone in believing the whole truth has not come out. A poll released last month by Zogby International found that 42 percent of all Americans believe the 9/11 Commission "concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence" in the attacks. This is in addition to the Zogby poll 2 years ago that found that 49 percent of New York City residents agreed with the idea that some leaders "knew in advance" that the attacks were planned and failed to act. Beneath the weekend's screenings and symposiums on geopolitics and mass-hypnotic trance lies a tradition of questioning concentrated power, both in public and in private hands, said Univ. of Florida law professor "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0816632421/*_blank" title= "3.99 'Conspiracy Theories: secrecy & power in American culture'">Mark Fenster, author of "Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy & Power in American Culture." As for the 9/11 Truthers, they were confident enough that their theories made sense that on Friday, as a kickoff to the conference, they met in Daley Plaza for a rally (though some called it Dealey Plaza). They marched up Kinzle Street to the local affiliate of NBC where, at the plate glass windows, they chanted, "Talking heads tell lies," as the news was being read. "I hope you don't end up dead somewhere," a companion said to a participant, hours earlier as he dropped him at the Loop. "Don't worry," the participant said. "There's too many of us for that." Sen. Graham seeks to declassify key 9/11 data 10.20.02   Reuters Wash.D.C.   U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee chair Bob Graham D-FL said Sunday he is seeking to declassify "the most important information" obtained in a congressional probe of 9.11.01. He described the material as a key toward better protecting the U.S. Graham's panel and the House Intelligence Committee have conducted a joint investigation of 9.11.01 attacks, holding a series of open and closed hearings.The committees are to issue a draft report by the end of this year, with a final report due in February. In the meantime, they are seeking to declassify much of what they learned. "Frankly, there is a piece of information which is still classified which I consider to be the most important information that's come to the attention of the joint committee," Graham said on CBS's "Face the Nation.""We hope that it will be declassified," Graham said. "I think it is an important part of our judgements as to where our greatest threats are and what steps we need to do to protect the American people here at home." Graham said, "There's been a pattern in which information is provided on a classified basis, and then what is declassified are those sections of the report that are most advantageous to the administration." New 9.11.01 commission chair had business ties with Osama's brother-in-law   12.27.02   CRG   ¹ Michel Chossudovsky, prof. economics, Univ.Ottawa Unknown to most, UNOCAL's partner in the Cent-Gas trans-Afghan pipeline consortium, the Saudi Company Delta Oil is owned by the bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi clans which allegedly have ties to bin Laden's Al Qaeda. According to 1998 Senate testimony of former CIA dir. James Woolsey, powerful financier Khalid bin Mahfouz' younger sister is married to Osama bin Laden,. (9.3.98 Senate Judiciary Committee, Federal News Service. cf. Wayne Madsen Bin Mahfouz is suspected to have funnelled millions of dollars to the Al Qaeda network Tom Flocco, Scoop.co.nz Former NJ gov. Thomas Kean, chosen by Pres.GWBush to lead the 9.11.01 commission also has business ties with bin Mahfouz & Al-Amoudi. Kean is a Amerada Hess Corp. dir. & shareholder, which is involved in the Hess-Delta joint venture with Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia (owned by the bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi clans). Thomas Kean also sits as co-chair of the Homeland Security Project (HSP) under the auspices of the Century Fdtn. In this capacity, Kean played key role in draft recommendations of Century Fdtn which laid groundwork of Office of Homeland Security legislation. Kean is also a Council on Foreign Relations member, together w/ prominent Amerada Hess bd member former Sec.Treasury Nicholas Brady. Delta-Hess "was established in 1998 for development & exploration of oil fields in the Caspian region...In Azerbaijan Delta Hess is involved in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli PSA (2.72%) & the Garabaghli-Kursangi PSA (20%). It is also an equity holder in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline": "An air of mystery hangs over Delta-Hess, which &133; is registered in the Cayman Islands. Hess is in no hurry to reveal the terms of the alliance, which it says are subject to confidentiality clauses. 'There's no reason why this should be public information,' a Hess spokesman says." (11.15.02   Energy Compass) Dr. Kissinger had a conflict of interest & resigned Commission vice chair former Sen. George Mitchell ME resigned for the same reason. (12.19.02 Xymphora) Delta Oil Ltd. of Saudi Arabia, partner in the Hess-Delta Alliance, is in part controlled by Khalid bin Mafhouz, Osama's brother in law. Kean not only sits co. board which has business dealings with Khalid bin Mahfouz, he also heads the 9.11.01 Commission, which has a mandate to investigate Khalid's brother in law, Osama bin Laden. Corporate media, without acknowledging his Saudi business connections, heralded Kean as "a man of extraordinary integrity, decency and intellect." In the words of the Baltimore Sun: "he lacks obvious conflicts of interest" (12.26.02). Saudi connectionBush family have had business dealings with the bin Laden family. cf. GWBush financial scams Delta officials involved in the UNOCAL trans-Afghan pipeline consortium played a key role in negotiations with the Taliban. Enron, whose former CEO Ken Lay had close connections to the Bush family, had been contracted in a relationship to undertake feasibility studies for the Unocal-Delta consortium. Enron Corp. had also been entrusted, in liaison with Delta, with pipeline negotiations with the Taliban govt. Documented by Wayne Madsen, GWBush also had dealings with Osama's brother in law Khalid bin Mafhouz when he was in the Texas oil business. Both GWBush & Khalid bin-Mahfouz were implicated in the Bank of Commerce Intl (BCCI) scandal: "Other links between Bush & Mahfouz can be found through investments in the Carlyle Group, American investment firm managed by a board on which Pres. Bush pere sat. GWBush personally held shares in one of the components of the Carlyle group, the Caterair company, between 1990-94. Carlyle today ranks as a leading contributor to Bush's electoral campaign. On Carlyle's advisory board is found the name of Sami Baarma, director of the Pakistani financial establishment Prime Commercial Bank based in Lahore and owned by Mahfouz. (12.11.01Maggie Mulvihill, Jonathan Wells & Jack Meyers: "Slick deals; the White House connection; Saudi 'agents' close Bush Friends" Boston Herald). In the wake of 9.11.01 In the wake of 9.11.01, Khalid bin Mahfouz (Osama's brother in law) was carefully exempted from the Treasury investigations which led to the freezing of the financial assets of some 150 Saudi businesses, charities and individuals: "The U.S. Treasury has frozen the assets of 150 Saudi individuals, companies and charities suspected of financing terrorism. It has named Blessed Relief, a Saudi "charity" as a front organisation providing funds to Osama bin Laden. "Saudi businessmen have been transferring millions of dollars to bin Laden through Blessed Relief," the agency said. One rich Saudi patriarch under suspicion is Khaled bin Mahfouz, owner of the National Commercial Bank, banker to the Saudi royal family, … U.S. & British authorities have also investigated Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi, another billionaire Saudi, for possible financial ties to Bin Laden. Al -Amoudi, who oversees a vast network of companies involved in construction, mining, banking and oil, has also denied any involvement with bin Laden. His Washington lawyers said he "was unalterably opposed to terrorism and had no knowledge of any money transfers by Saudi businesses to bin Laden. Both Al-Amoudi & bin Mahfouz have been left untouched by the US Treasury Dept. The case against them, let alone against the govt itself, is unproven. But post 9.11.01 spotlight on Saudi Arabia has brought into sharp focus the fundamental question facing the country's rulers." (8.11.02 Scotland) 9.11.01 victims families law suit According to one press report, Kean, in contrast to Dr. Henry Kissinger, was selected to head the 9.11.01 Commission because he was "close to the families of the 9.11.01 victims, an important credential to the White House, which was coming under increasing criticism from those families" (12.17.02 Scripps Howard News Service) Ironically, $1 trillion lawsuit filed Aug. 02 by victims' families incl Kean's business partners in the Hess-Delta joint-venture, bin Mahfouz (Osama's brother in law), & al Amoudi, both named in the lawsuit as alleged "financiers" of Al Qaeda. 1998 embassy bombings Former CIA dir. James Woolsey's testimony confirms that the Sudan pharmaceutical co. bombed in 1998 on orders of President Clinton was owned by Salah Idris, business associate & protegé of bin Mahfouz. The bombing was in retribution for the alleged al Qaeda African embassy bombings. The Mahfouz conglomerate, which owns the largest bank in Saudi Arabia, the National Commercial Bank, was preparing to pump money into the trans-Afghan pipeline deal. (cf. M.Chossudovsky 2002, chapt.VI). White House to let 9/11 panel review briefings 11.12.03   CNN Wash.D.C.   The independent commission investigating 9.11.01 terrorist attacks said Wednesday the White House would let it review classified daily presidential intelligence briefings. "We believe this agreement will prove satisfactory and enable us to get our job done," the commission said in a statement. But commission member Max Cleland, former Democratic senator, said he was "disgusted" by the deal. "The White House gets to cherry-pick how much access the nation's commission looking into 9/11 gets to crucial documents," he said. "I'm ready to vote for subpoenas right now." The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the U.S., created by Congress last year, has complained that the White House & federal agencies have been slow to turn over requested documents. Its report is due in May. President Bush maintained the documents were "very sensitive" and should not be released to the public. A White House official said the White House, at Bush's direction, has been "working closely with the commission to ensure they have the information they need to be successful. "We are pleased we were able to reach an agreement with the commission, and we look forward to their recommendations to make America safer," the official said. The commission said it wanted to review daily briefs from both the Clinton & Bush administrations, according to the statement. Led by GOP former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, the commission threatened to subpoena the White House if it did not did not allow access to the president's daily briefs & other sensitive intelligence documents in days & weeks before 9.11.01. Last month, Sen. Joseph Lieberman D-CT & Sen. Chuck Hagel R-NE called on the White House to release the documents. Lieberman, co-sponsor of the bill that created the commission November 2002, is a candidate for Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. Hagel is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The commission has 9 areas of inquiry, incl terrorist financing & aviation security. Bush and House & Senate leaders from both parties appointed the 10-person commission. Its mission is to review and evaluate lessons learned from terrorist attacks regarding the structure & procedures of federal, state and local govts. The commissioners are scheduled to meet every 10 days to 2 weeks, and a staff of 40 is being hired. In addition to Kean and Cleland, the commissioners are:   Richard Ben-Veniste, former Watergate prosecutor & Democratic counsel of the Senate Whitewater Committee   Fred Fielding, former counsel to presidents Ronald Reagan & GW Bush   Jamie Gorelick, Fannie Mae vice pres. and former deputy attorney general under Janet Reno   Slade Gorton, former U.S. senator R-WA   John Lehman, former U.S. Navy secretary under President Ronald Reagan.   Timothy Roemer, former congressman D-IN   James Thompson, former GOP Illinois governor   Lee Hamilton, former congressman D-IN Bush OKs shake-up of spy agencies 6.29.05   Katherine Shrader AP President Bush granted the new national intelligence chief expanded power over the FBI on Wednesday and ordered dozens of other spy agency changes as the White House heeded a presidential commission that condemned the intelligence community for failures in Iraq and elsewhere. But almost as soon as the details were unveiled, the White House was defending itself against suggestions that the moves were simply adding more bureaucracy without making changes that could have prevented misjudgments like those made on Iraq. "It's an unfair characterization to say it's simply a restructuring," said Bush's homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, who led the 90-day review of the recommendations from the president's commission on weapons of mass destruction. "It's a fundamental strengthening of our intelligence capabilities." The White House said it endorsed 70 of the 74 recommendations from the commission, which was led by Republican Judge Laurence Silberman and former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb and conducted a yearlong review of the 15 intelligence agencies. Bush formed the commission under pressure after the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq resigned and started a firestorm of controversy over the accuracy of the prewar Iraq intelligence. In its scathing 600-page report released in March, the commission called the spy community "dead wrong on almost all of its prewar judgments" about Iraq's weapons. Robb called the White House's broad acceptance of the commission's proposals "truly extraordinary." Among the most significant changes the White House offered Wednesday, the Justice Dept will be directed, with congressional approval, to consolidate its counterterrorism, espionage and intelligence units under one new asst attorney general for national security. The White House ordered the creation of a National Security Service inside the FBI. Bush sought to strengthen the hand of the new national intelligence director, giving him expanded budget & management powers over the FBI. In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union said the FBI's new security service would lead to an "erosion of constitutional protections against law enforcement actions." Atty General Alberto Gonzales said, "Every law enforcement official within the FBI is going to remain under the supervision of the FBI director and, ultimately, the attorney general." The White House will also have national intelligence director John Negroponte establish a National Counter-Proliferation Center   [ NatSec porkbarrel ]   that will coordinate the U.S. govt's collection and analysis of intelligence on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, a task now performed by many national security agencies. Negroponte's top deputy Gen. Michael Hayden said the center would only have 50 to 100 employees, thereby avoiding some insiders' worries of "brain drain" as new offices tap into existing ones.   [ Reinforcing outsiders' fear that the FBI now reports to the NSA puzzle palace, hence made exempt from public scrutiny by grounds of NatSec secrecy ] A number of Bush administration critics welcomed the reforms. President Clinton's national security adviser Sandy Berger called the changes to Negroponte's authority over the Justice Dept and the counterproliferation center "very positive." While the White House portrayed the changes as a near universal endorsement of the commission's recommendations, some suggestions were not completely followed. For instance, the commission said Negroponte should not be part of the president's morning intelligence briefing. But Hayden said he or Negroponte still attend the secretive daily sessions. In other moves, the White House also: • Issued an executive order allowing the freezing of any financial assets in U.S. of citizens, companies or organizations involved in the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The order designates 8 organizations in Iran, North Korea and Syria. • Created a new national coordinator for human intelligence, or classic spycraft, who would guide clandestine activities of the entire intelligence community. • Asked Congress to reform its oversight of the intelligence community, a controversial proposal that could provoke turf wars and other difficulties on Capitol Hill. Hayden acknowledged that some of the changes, such as those aimed at improving intelligence analysis, will take years to institute. However, he said others, including the human intelligence chief, could be implemented within 2 months. House Intelligence chair Pete Hoekstra R-MI, and the panel's top minority member Rep. Jane Harman D-CA, praised the White House's moves as steps that will help ensure policy-makers get "accurate, timely and actionable intelligence." Yet, in an interview, Harman said the issues still require "sustained attention" to ensure that Negroponte isn't "forever fending off turf attacks." The White House said 3 of the commission's recommendations require further study, including one that would have called for accountability reviews within 3 intelligence offices under fire for mistakes in the prewar Iraq intelligence. Hayden noted the recommendation focused on organizational accountability and said reviews were under way. Another recommendation, regarding the management of covert action, was rejected and remains classified. Following the advice of blue-ribbon panels, numerous changes have been made to the intelligence community since 9.11.01. Many were contained in a sweeping intelligence reform law passed by Congress December 2004. "I think we now know what the shape of the animal is going to be," Berger said, "and we have to make sure that the animal is ready to hunt."

Spy czar gains clout   Bush gives intelligence chief Negroponte more control over U.S. agents at home and abroad by adopting a panel's recommendations. 6.30.05   M.Mazzetti, R.B.Schmitt, W.Vieth L.A. Times Wash.D.C.   President Bush on Wednesday handed Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte broad authority over America's disparate and often-competing spy agencies, bringing U.S. domestic and foreign intelligence operations more closely under White House control. Bush ordered the changes 3 months after a presidential commission issued a withering indictment of the intelligence failures that preceded the Iraq war. The commission said that a poorly coordinated intelligence community in the U.S. was producing work that was becoming "increasingly irrelevant." The president adopted nearly all of the panel's 74 recommendations and took other steps toward completing the first overhaul of the U.S. intelligence apparatus since World War II. In one of the most significant moves, Bush ordered consolidation of the FBI's counterterrorism, intelligence and espionage operations into one National Security Service. The new office will be part of the FBI, but Negroponte will have authority over its budget & priorities, a move intended to reduce barriers between domestic & foreign intelligence-gathering. Wednesday's changes further defined the post of director of national intelligence. The job was the centerpiece of an intelligence bill adopted by Congress Dec. 2004, and Bush chose Negroponte for the post Feb. 2005. Serving as the president's principal intelligence advisor, Negroponte holds a new job that oversees all 15 intelligence agencies scattered throughout the govt, putting him in a position to quickly communicate White House wishes to a wide network of spies. "If there was any doubt about the DNI's authority, and whether the president was going to empower the DNI, that shouldn't remain today," said Frances Townsend, the White House domestic security advisor who was assigned by Bush to coordinate the administration's response to the commission recommendations. The president's action Wednesday represented "a fundamental strengthening of our intelligence capabilities," Townsend said. "It's not simply a moving of boxes. It's not simply a restructuring." Negroponte will be in charge of implementing the reorganization, which still could encounter opposition within agencies that long have been protective of their individual shares of the U.S. intelligence budget, estimated to be $40 billion a year. The presidential commission, headed by Laurence H. Silberman, a senior federal judge, and Charles S. Robb, former VA senator & governor, was created in 2004 to investigate the intelligence community's failure to accurately assess Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The commission issued its report in March; Bush's announcement Wednesday came at the end of a 90-day review period. Robb praised the White House's acceptance of his panel's recommendations, but said, "The implementation won't be easy." In addition to instituting changes suggested by the panel, Bush on 6.29.05 gave U.S. agencies the authority to freeze assets of companies & organizations suspected of aiding Iran, North Korea and Syria in their pursuit of unconventional weapons.   [ usurpation of judicial authority ] Among other commission recommendations, Bush announced the creation of a National Counter Proliferation Center that would report to Negroponte. With a staff of between 50 and 100 people, the center is to be the govt clearinghouse for tracking the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In a victory for the beleaguered CIA, Bush created a position within the agency that would coordinate all U.S. spying operations overseas that use human sources. The Pentagon is working to expand its human spying abilities, but officials said Wednesday that the Defense Dept would coordinate its clandestine missions with the CIA. Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, Negroponte's deputy, said that the new CIA position would set standards to validate information provided by foreign agents to avoid a repeat of the "Curveball" episode before the Iraq war. "Curveball" was the code name assigned to an Iraqi defector who was the chief U.S. source for information about Saddam Hussein's purported biological weapons laboratories. All of the information Curveball gave to U.S. and European intelligence operatives eventually was discredited. The White House did reject a recommendation by the panel that would have moved the planning of covert actions out of the CIA and into the National Counter Proliferation Center and the National Counter Terrorism Center, both of which are controlled by Negroponte. "There were persuasive and strong arguments made against doing that, and we believe the reorganization of the CIA … will meet the same objectives," Townsend said. Yet top officials agreed Wednesday that reforming a dysfunctional intelligence apparatus and improving the nation's ability to steal secrets and analyze millions of bits of information would require an overhaul of not only the bureaucracy, but also the culture within the intelligence community. "The quality of analysis is not something you fix by rewiring an [organization] chart," Hayden said. Some experts interpreted Bush's moves as a historic loss of autonomy for the FBI. Since 9.11.01, the bureau has tried to create a new security service on its own, hiring hundreds of analysts and redeploying agents from drug cases to terrorism. Its moves were endorsed last summer by the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission. But the shift from chasing bank robbers to sniffing out terrorist plots was complicated by a culture used to rewarding arrests and convictions, not appreciating the writing of abstract threat analyses. There were other problems, including a bungled $100-million upgrade of its creaky computer network.   [ Why FBI was made a province of NSA supernerds ] Bush said in his executive order that the bureau and the Justice Dept had made "substantial progress" but that "further prompt action is necessary to meet challenges to the security of U.S.." FBI officials previously had resisted the changes, saying they would create another layer of bureaucracy. But in a briefing for reporters Wednesday, FBI dir. Robert S. Mueller III said: "I don't see it as a loss of independence at all. We all have to work together. We cannot do it alone." Mueller said the bureau had made "tremendous strides" since 9.11.01, preparing hundreds of intelligence reports, placing analysts and intelligence groups in each of the bureau's 56 U.S. field offices, and more than doubling the number of agents assigned to counterterrorism. Hayden said that closer coordination between the director of national intelligence and the FBI was essential, and that it was also essential to break down artificial barriers between foreign and domestic intelligence-gathering. Terrorists plotting attacks against the U.S., he said, make no such distinctions. Hayden also said there were legitimate concerns that the changes and a new focus on domestic intelligence-gathering might lead to civil liberties abuses. But, he said, "I'm pretty confident we can do this, and do it in a way, by any reasonable judge, American liberties are well-preserved," he said.

Behind the USA Patriot Act 11.5.01   Ann Harrison AlterNet Since launching no-holds-barred 9.11.01 investigation, the FBI has released an astonishing amount of information about the men who they have identified as the hijackers. There are photographs of them passing through airport security and peering into ATM machines. The FBI has records of their cell phone calls, their cash transfers, air travel, credit card purchases, car rentals, email messages and hotel bills. Now that the hunt is on for accomplices who could be planning more attacks, law enforcement officials have sought the legal authority to collect even more information about the minutiae of daily life. The new anti-terrorism law signed into law 10.26.01 grants law enforcement authorities sweeping new surveillance powers that are not limited to terrorism investigations but also apply to criminal and intelligence investigations. The new law, known as the USA Patriot Act, reaches into every space that Americans once imagined was private. For instance, police can now obtain court orders to conduct so called "sneak and peak" searches of homes and offices. This allows them to break in, examine and remove or alter items without immediately, if ever, presenting owners with a warrant detailing what they were entitled to do and where. This seismic shift in the govt's power of search & seizure also extends to the examination of records. Authorities can browse medical, financial, educational or even library records without showing evidence of a crime. The law overrides existing state & federal privacy laws if the FBI claims that the information is connected to an intelligence investigation. In addition, credit reporting firms like Equifax must disclose to the FBI any information that agents request in connection with a terrorist investigation, without the need for a court order. In the past, this was only permitted in espionage cases. Biometric technology, such as fingerprint readers or iris scanners, will become part of an "integrated entry and exit data system" to identify visa holders entering the U.S.. Face recognition technology is now being installed in several U.S. airports. The legislators who rushed these provisions through the House and Senate say that law enforcement authorities need this data to help track down terrorists and prevent future attacks. "We were able to find what I think is the appropriate balance between protecting civil liberties, privacy and ensuring that law enforcement has the tools to do what it must," said Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.) in a statement following the passage off the bill. But civil liberty groups have been alarmed by this legislation since it started whisking its way through Congress. Jim Dempsey, deputy director of the Washington D.C.-based Ctr for Democracy & Technology (CDT), says he is particularly concerned about the provision in the law that allows the FBI to share with the CIA information collected in grand jury investigations. The 1947 National Security Act states that the CIA should have no domestic police or subpoena powers. But Dempsey says CIA agents could now use their close relationship with the FBI to essentially fill in subpoenas provided by prosecutors. "To do this with no prior judicial approval is a fundamental change in the way we have set up our police agencies and set them apart from our foreign intelligence agencies," said Dempsey. "And it was done with very little debate." Legislators who voted for the USA Patriot Act pointed out that the most controversial surveillance sections will would expire in 2005. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) announced that a four-year expiration date "will be crucial in making sure that these new law enforcement powers are not abused." Dempsey says the CDT is hoping there will be a Congressional review prior to any extension of the provisions. But he, and many others, have pointed out that these so-called "sunset provisions" do not apply to the sharing of grand jury information, giving the CIA the permanent benefits of grand jury powers. The so-called "sneak and peak searches" are permanent as well. And further, the sunset provisions do not apply to ongoing cases. This means that intelligence investigations, which often run for years, would continue to operate under the law even if provisions are not extended past 2005. Also exempted are any future investigations of crimes that took place before this date. Internet surveillance via "pen register" devices, which capture phone numbers dialed on outgoing telephone calls, and "trap and trace" devices, which capture the numbers of incoming calls, are also exempt from the sunset provisions. These orders were originally used to provide investigators with telephone numbers dialed by suspects. They can now be used to monitor email addressing information and Web pages visited, in some circumstances without judicial oversight. Investigations approved by the secretive FISA intelligence court would also not require notification. Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that this type of surveillance requires mere certification with no evidence that the person being monitored is involved in criminal conduct or is a suspected member of a terrorist organization. While this online surveillance requires a judge's approval, the law mandates that the judge must approve every request and is not required to evaluate how the order was carried out. Tien said he will be working with other online civil liberties groups to get the govt to notify targets of pen/trap surveillances and increase judicial oversight. "The potential for pen/trap surveillance on the Internet is enormous," says Tien. The new law also permits any U.S. attorney or state attorney general to order the installation of the FBI's Carnivore Internet surveillance system, which also has the capacity to capture the contents of email messages. The agency says the public must trust that investigators will not review this information. Unlike trap and trace orders, Carnivore requires that investigators set up an audit trail which includes what information was gathered, by whom and when. But Tien notes the court is not required to review the information and make sure that it complies with the terms of the certification. "No one has that oversight role," says Tien. While the govt has the power to snoop, citizens who engage in similar activities now fall under the govt's new definition of terrorists. The current definition of terrorism has been expanded to include hacking into a U.S. govt computer system or breaking into and damaging any Internet-connected computer. Prison terms of between five to 20 years can now be used to prosecute the new crime of "cyberterrorism," which covers hacking attempts causing $5,000 in aggregate value in one year, damage to medical equipment or injury to any person. Even ISPs, universities and network administrators are authorized under the new law to conduct surveillance of "computer trespassers" without a court order. The new law compels any Internet provider or telephone company to turn over customer information, including phone numbers called, without a court order, if the FBI claims that the records are relevant to a terrorism investigation. The company is forbidden to disclose that the FBI is conducting an investigation, has immunity to provide any sensitive data and is not bound by statutory rights to suppress the information. "There is no incentive for anyone to know about it, or challenge it or rein it in," says Dempsey. Prior to the passage of the USA Patriot Act, Laura Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington National Office, wrote letters to the House and Senate warning that the bill would give enormous power to the executive branch unchecked by meaningful judicial review. "Included in the bill are provisions that would allow for the mistreatment of immigrants, the suppression of dissent and the investigation and surveillance of wholly innocent Americans," said Murphy. Civil liberties groups point out that the govt has a history of launching investigations against political dissidents. These include the FBI investigations of Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders in the 1960s, illegal spying on anti-war protesters in the 1960s and 1970s and surveillance on the sanctuary movement that provided asylum for those fleeing Central American death squads during the 1980s. Atty Gen Ashcroft has brushed off these concerns and issued a directive to law enforcement investigators, urging them to aggressively use the new powers, which he says will be used to launch a "law enforcement campaign." Steve Shapiro, national legal director for the ACLU, says Congress should use its unique subpeona power to get information about investigations and exercise its oversight authority on investigators. "Congress has given them these powers," said Shapiro. "And it has a big responsibility to make sure these powers are not abused." Tien said the EFF would also be actively opposing calls for national ID cards, for biometric systems and for mandatory record keeping by ISPs, which has already been discussed seriously in Europe. Dempsey says the CDT is concerned about the possibility that because the FBI has not been able to get to the core of the suspected terrorist cells, they will cast an even wider net. Cut loose from past standards and judicial controls, investigators, he fears, will collect more information on innocent people and be distracted from the task of actually identifying those who may be planning future attacks. "That is where the law allows them to take it," says Dempsey. "And that is bad for civil liberties and bad for anti-terrorism investigations."

Detained for terror 11.7.01   By Ann Harrison, AlterNet When Muhammad Rafiq Butt died in the New Jersey's Hudson County jail on Oct. 23 after a month of detention, no one knew he was there. The 55-year-old Pakistani restaurant worker was one of the 1,147 people detained for questioning in the investigation of the 9.11.01 attacks. Until county officials announced that Butt had been found dead in his jail cell, neither the Pakistani consulate, Butt's family, nor members of the local Pakistani community knew of his incarceration. The Justice Dept has since confirmed that they have no evidence linking Butt to the hijackers. Butt, instead, was being held by the Immigration and Naturalization Service for overstaying his visitor's visa and lacking proper travel documents. Yet his detention was cloaked in secrecy. Butt's name was expunged from immigration charging documents. The INS has sealed the records of his bond hearing. Pakistani consulate officials were never notified of his detention. According to the Regional Medical Examiner's office in Newark, New Jersey, a preliminary autopsy determined that Butt died of heart problems and that there was no evidence of trauma or foul play. A Hudson County spokesman said Butt had complained of pain in his gums and had been brought to a dentist, who gave him the antibiotic tetracycline. When Butt was found dead by prison guards, the spokesman said a Hazmat unit was called in as a precautionary measure because officials said he was detained days after the attacks and he was of Middle Eastern descent. Butt's cell mate and a handful of guards received nasal swab tests for anthrax which proved negative. But no one bothered to contact the Pakistani consulate to report his death. Human rights attorneys say many immigrants like Butt, who speak little English, often do not understand that they have the right to make phone calls to lawyers and loved ones. And some, such as political dissidents, have good reasons for not contacting their consulates. But civil liberties groups say Butt's virtual disappearance into detention on Sept. 19 is just one of many cases where the govt has withheld public information about detainees. Non-citizens held on immigration charges are most vulnerable because they have no right to an attorney while in custody. Butt appeared at his hearing with a translator, but without legal counsel. Dr. Mansoor Khan, a Pakistani physician who publishes the Pakistan Voice, a newspaper for the New York area Pakistani community, says the lack of information about Butt's detainment has prompted his family back in Pakistan to imagine the worst. "They are saying that something went wrong with him in interrogation," said Khan. "No information is there. They do not think that he died of natural causes." To date, little is known about the identities and detention conditions of others held on immigration charges related to the 9.11.01 investigation. The govt has released only a trickle of information about those detained as material witnesses and those arrested on unrelated criminal charges. According to civil liberties organizations, the absence of those basic facts, coupled with the lack of debate and rushed passage of anti-terrorism legislation, has cast the govt's actions in an unprecedented veil of secrecy. "I think it is alarming to have people picked up by the hundreds and held on secret charges," says Kate Martin, director of the Ctr for National Security Studies in Wash.D.C. "It raises serious questions about mass secret detentions and we have never had those in this country." Who are the detainees? According to Justice Dept spokesperson Dan Nelson, the 1,147 people detained in the anti-terrorism investigation fall into 3 categories: approximately 185 people are being held on immigration law violations; a small, but undisclosed number are being held as material witnesses; and a large group is detained under federal, state or local criminal charges unrelated to the 9.11.01 attacks. The Justice Dept will not reveal how many detainees have been released. Nelson says withholding information about detainees is necessary to protect the privacy of those held on immigration charges or to shield sensitive grand jury records. "The Justice Dept has consistently released to the public information on criminal complaints and INS documents as they have been made available," said Nelson. "Our practice will be to continue to release as much information as possible." No civil liberties groups are suggesting that Butt died of anything but natural causes. But they contend that the continuing secrecy surrounding the detainees, and the selective release of information by the govt, raises questions about the possible rights violations which the govt should address. On Oct. 17, the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft seeking more information about the detainees. When Ashcroft declined to provide any information, ACLU members met on Oct. 26 with Robert S. Mueller III, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The group said that Mueller was unresponsive to their requests. Prompted in part by the govt's brushoff, Kate Martin filed a Freedom of Information Request on Oct. 29 demanding that authorities identify individuals arrested or detained since 9.11.01 and produce the charges filed against them, the names of their attorneys, and where they were being held. The FOIA request was signed by a coalition of 21 civil liberties, human rights and electronic privacy organizations. According to Martin, 6 members of Congress, incl Senate Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Patrick Leahy D-VT since asked for the information in the FOIA request to be made public. On Nov. 1, the Justice Dept agreed to expedite the FOIA request, and Martin says they have 20 days to reply. Ashcroft also has announced that the Justice Dept will limit disclosures under FOIA requests whenever there is a legal basis for doing so (though the Justice Dept has not spelled out under what authority they would withhold such information). If the FOIA request is denied, Martin says it would be an unprecedented claim of secrecy. INS laws permit the agency to withhold the names of those charged with immigration violations unless questions are raised about the agency's performance. It is unclear whether the FOIA request will trigger this exemption. Martin, whose organization monitors civil liberties violations carried out in the name of national security, says she knows of no legal authority that would permit the govt to withhold the names of those arrested or detained. While the govt may argue that they need to keep intelligence gathering or terrorism investigations secret, Martin says the real issue at stake is ensuring that the criminal justice system remains an open and transparent process. "While certain aspects of the FBI investigation into the terrorist attacks need to be secret, we do not live in a country where the govt can keep secret who they arrest, where they are being held or the charges against them," said Martin. "We think it is unconstitutional for arrests to be secret and there have been a number of press reports, which if accurate, raise questions about whether people arrested have had their rights violated." None of those detained or arrested since 9.11.01 have actually been charged with crimes directly related to the highjackings. Still, these cases are held up as examples of progress in the govt's anti-terrorism campaign. On Oct. 31, Ashcroft claimed that three Middle Eastern men, held in Michigan for falsifying documents, had advanced knowledge of the attacks. But the Justice Dept later acknowledged they had no hard evidence of direct links. The Detroit Free Press quoted lawyers for two of the men who said they could not respond to the accusation because a federal judge in Detroit had barred them from discussing the case. Meanwhile, Ashcroft has firmly stated that the govt will not violate anyone's rights while investigating the 9.11.01 attacks. "We will preserve the rule of law because that's what makes us civilized," Ashcroft said in a speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors on October 25. The ACLU contends that while the govt lacks evidence to charge suspects with terrorism crimes, the Justice Dept is using minor immigration violations as a pretext for the detention and interrogation of non-citizens. "The govt's goal is to get them into custody and ask them questions, and the device for getting them into custody is that they overstayed their visa," said Steve Shapiro, national legal director for the ACLU. "Let terrorists among us be warned," Ashcroft said in his address to the mayors. "If you overstay your visas even by one day, we will arrest you. If you violate a local law, we will work to make sure that you are put in jail and kept in custody as long as possible." Khan says he is worried that Pakistanis like Butt who overstay their visas will be held under the new anti- terrorism law, which allows the U.S. govt to detain non-citizens without charging them with a crime. "We are really concerned about how many other people are being arrested for the same issue and have no access to the Pakistani embassy," said Khan. "If they arrest you on any charges under the new regulations, they can take you for a week. How is my wife going to know where I am? How is my consulate going to know about me?" Congress has largely complied with requests by law enforcement for broader powers to detain non- citizens. The initial proposal that the administration made to Congress on Sept. 19 asked for the attorney general to be able to detain non-citizens based on suspicion of involvement with terrorist groups and hold them indefinitely with no judicial review. This caused a partisan uproar in the House and the new anti-terrorism law signed into law on Oct. 26 took some steps to reign in the administration's request. It required the attorney general to start deportation of foreign detainees immediately, charge them with a crime or release them within 7 days. The anti-terrorism law, dubbed the USA Patriot Act, also gives the attorney general the power to certify individuals as a threat to national security. Non-citizens accused of terrorism can be detained for "periods of up to six months," if they cannot be deported. They are also held in jail during deportation proceedings. An INS spokesman said that Butt accepted a voluntary deportation order during a hearing Oct. 15. But his departure was delayed because he lacked travel papers, which the INS was requesting from the Pakistani consulate. Non-citizens deemed by the attorney general to be dangerous could also be held if a person's home country is unwilling to accept them back. Under the new law, Congress has the authority to review such detentions every 6 months. But Shapiro, of the ACLU, says there will be a certain percentage of people held for deportation hearings, and found to be deportable, but with no travel papers or a clear destination. "There are not many countries in the world willing to take someone we have labeled a terrorist under a deportation order," said Shaprio. "If there is nowhere to send them, these people can be held in jail indefinitely." Even if deportation proceedings go smoothly, immigration advocates say it is possible for non-citizens to disappear in custody. Elisa Massimino, director of Washington Office of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, says the human rights community is concerned that that federal agencies will hold suspects for the allotted time and then pass them back and forth to continue the period of detention. Butt, for instance, was arrested and questioned by the FBI and then transferred into INS custody. Massimino adds that those held on immigration charges are frequently shuttled between county jails, INS facilities or federal prisons, and it is sometimes difficult to determine exactly where detainees are being held. "Many innocent people are likely to be intimidated and, worse, picked up and lost in this new detention power without the ability to really challenge it," said Massimino. "We get calls from family members who say, 'My brother has been gone for 2 weeks, and we don't know where he is or what to do.'" Civil liberties groups say that it has been difficult to identify those held on immigration charges because, even before 9.11.01, their names are expunged from public immigration charging documents under INS privacy laws. Detainees are also usually entitled to bond hearing before an immigration judge where charges are read in open court. According to Massimino, the INS has taken the extraordinary step of not permitting bond hearings for those detained in anti-terrorism investigations. "Presumably, if they had evidence, then they would charge them," said Shapiro. "But now we are holding people based on suspicions of proof, and that is a fundament shift in how we administer justice in this country." Nelson, of the Justice Dept, confirms that immigration judges have the discretion to close hearings in order "to protect witnesses, interested parties or the public interest." But he could not say how many hearings associated with the detainees had been conducted or whether they have been open. He insists that those detained for immigration violations have access to phones and can contact attorneys. "Any time a detainee enters an INS facility, they are informed that they have the right to counsel, they can contact their consulate for their nation of origin and they also are provided with a list of free legal services and a handbook that lists their rights and responsibilities," said Nelson. He adds that detainees have access to attorneys, law libraries and material needed to defend their case, and and every reasonable effort is made to provide information in their language. This policy differs sharply with what civil liberties groups say they are hearing from attorneys and family members of detainees. "Some significant number of the [the detainees] are having enormous difficulty contacting attorneys," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the Immigration Rights Project of the National ACLU. He adds that very few legal services organizations that can provide counsel have open access to detainees. "The question is how many detainees are getting jailed and held for weeks and weeks without representation?" Guttentag says he has heard of detainees held for a week before being able to contact an attorney and then then losing contact again for weeks after being transferred to a new holding facility. He also said there are people who, while attempting to leave the country after overstaying their visas, have been detained at the airport before departure. There have been additional accounts of detainees permitted to make a single phone call to an unresponsive legal aid organization and then waiting a week to make another one. "Incommunicado becomes an undefined term," said Guttentag. "As a practical matter, they are being denied reasonable access to lawyers." While the USA Patriot Act expands the power of immigration laws, the existing material witness statute is being used to secretly detain others swept up in the anti-terrorism investigations. A federal judge can issue a material witness warrant to hold someone who prosecutors say may have valuable information about a crime and who is at risk for fleeing the country. Material witnesses are entitled to an attorney and a judicial hearing, but much of the information about material witnesses detained in the anti-terrorism investigations has been sealed by judges at the request of prosecutors. The material witness statute includes no time limit on how long people can be held, a fact that deeply concerns Martin. "If it is going to be evoked in this situation," she says, "we need to know when it is being evoked, what criteria they are using and whether or not is is being used as a proxy for preventative detention on mere suspicion, because that is not the intent of the laws." Martin's FOIA request asks for the names of lawyers representing those detained as material witnesses, a list of courts asked to enter orders sealing any of the proceedings, the orders that have been entered, and the legal authority that the govt relied on in seeking the order. The ACLU and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights also signed the FOIA request. As for those detainees arrested on state and local charges unrelated to the 9.11.01 attacks, Nelson says that information is available from law enforcement agencies in the jurisdictions where suspects were detained. He said the names of those arrested on federal charges are available from "two or three binders" of paper records publicly available at the Justice Dept in Washington D.C. But Nelson said he could not confirm how many people had been arrested or where and said there was no master list of those arrested on criminal charges. Civil liberties groups says they recognize that the govt has a legitimate interest in keeping some information about the terrorism investigation confidential. Martin believes there is a role for secrecy in terms of withholding information on anticipated war plans and the details of terrorism investigations. But Shapiro points out that no civil liberties organizations are asking for details of the investigation, names of informants or classified information. Rather they are requesting that basic facts on detainees should be made available so that the public can judge how the FBI is conducting their investigation. If there is no satisfactory reply to the FOIA request, Massiminio says the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and other civil liberties organizations will sue the govt for information about detainees. She said those groups will closely monitor for potential civil liberties violations and people should stay vigilant and continue to pressure the govt for more information. "People ought not to throw up their hands and say there is nothing they can do," says Massimino. "Oversight is the key." Massimino says she is particularly concerned about those who have had any contact with the 46 organizations the State Dept has labeled as terrorist organizations. She says people (not just detainees) may have supported these groups with the understanding that they were humanitarian or educational organizations. But they could now be swept up in the govt's new detention policies, which are based on a very broad definition of what constitutes terrorism. "What it means under the new powers is that you could be a terrorist and not know it," said Massimino. "It is going back to the McCarthy era where it is guilt by association, which is what we have been edging towards since 9.11.01."

Lives of worry, sadness; 'Why?' The L.A. 8, arrested in 1987 for allegedly aiding terrorists, still express bewilderment over it all. The govt still presses its case. 6.30.05   Peter H. King L.A. Times Picture a tidy, two-story house on the far eastern fringe of metropolitan Los Angeles, folded inconspicuously into the land of the tiled rooftop and the two-hour commute. At the front window stands an Arab man, 47 years old, with dark, brooding eyes and slumped shoulders. He stares out at the street, watching, waiting. This is on the morning after 9.11.01. The man's name is Khader Musa Hamide. A Palestinian, he has lived in U.S. for 30 years. He is a coffee bean wholesaler, an Internet day trader and the father of three boys. He is also, as he puts it, a "quote-unquote suspected terrorist." For many years now, Hamide has fought off attempts by U.S. govt to deport him for activities related to his visible, vocal advocacy of Palestinian causes. He was arrested in early 1987, along with his Kenyan wife and 6 other Palestinian immigrants. They initially appeared destined for rapid deportation to the Middle East. The proceedings stalled on legal challenges, however, and the L.A. 8, as they came to be called, were allowed to carry on with their lives as best they could while they waited for the litigation to run its course. They are waiting still. On this grim morning, the man at the front window barely resembles the dashing young organizer captured years earlier in FBI surveillance photographs. He attributes his aging more to his troubles than to the passage of time. He has lost his hair. He has lost friends. And he has lost his sense of trust: Behind every new face, he sees a potential FBI undercover agent. More than anything, though, he has lost his political voice, which, certain govt documents suggest, was precisely the point of the investigation in the first place. This is a man who once demonstrated defiantly in front of the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles, who once exhorted hundreds at a 1986 Glendale fundraiser to reach into their wallets, telling them, "People, the revolution will not continue, and the march to Palestine will not go on, with words alone." Now he tries to keep his political views to himself. His weekends are filled not with rallies for the revolution, but with suburban errands, ferrying kids to basketball practice in his van. He worries that his neighbors might discover he's a principal in a terrorism case. One man up the block, in fact, did piece it together, and his children haven't come to play since. "I can see that," Hamide will concede. "If somebody thinks that there is a quote-unquote suspected terrorist living in the neighborhood …Well, you know." Fretting about neighborhood gossip on this morning, of course, would seem misplaced and maybe moot. Hamide has convinced himself that, given the terrible events of the day before, the FBI will start at once to round up every "Arab that has a brain." Surely, he reasons, a Palestinian who already has been labeled a tool of terrorism by U.S., who for nearly 15 years has resisted a relentless govt campaign to be rid of him, surely he will be among the first swept up. This is why Hamide watches the street. He is waiting, as he will recall years later in an interview, for the sedans with multiple antennae, the agents in their windbreakers. In 1987 they had surprised him at dawn, bursting into his apartment a dozen or so strong, guns drawn. This time he is ready. "OK," he mutters to himself. "Come and get me. I've got my shoes on. Come and get me." But the agents do not come, not on this day, not on any day since. Instead, for Hamide and other members of the L.A. 8, the case simply will stagger along as it has from the start, with more legal filings and cross-filings, more revisions of the charges, more meetings with the lawyers, more paperwork to add to the heaping pile. And also, more time to ponder what they see as the central mystery of their peculiar legal predicament. "Why? This is the biggest question," Hamide says. "Why us? And why is the govt so persistent in this case? We honestly don't understand." The Los Angeles Herald Examiner announced the arrests with a headline stripped across its front page: "War on Terrorism Hits L.A." When they recall that headline today, 18 years later, members of the eight will make a point of noting that the Herald Examiner no longer exists. Their case has outlasted the paper, along with 5 U.S. attorneys general, the McCarthy-era anti-communism law under which they were originally charged, the Soviet Union, numerous Middle East peace initiatives, Yasser Arafat, the coming and going of numerous "marathon" legal struggles, the Rodney King trial, the O.J. Simpson case, the Clinton impeachment, and their youth. For the accused, the case long ago bolted the boundaries of mere jurisprudence. They tend to speak of it today as something almost animate, a hulking, many-limbed beast that stomped into their lives one gray January morning in 1987 and has refused to leave. The case, they say, has broken apart marriages and disturbs the sleep of their children. It impedes their concentration, and has cost them jobs. It dictates the terms of their lives. They seem to recognize more readily in others the marks the case has left on them all. They will shake their heads and confide how much a certain one of them has aged, how another, beset by depression, could not leave his couch for 3 years, how the child of still another required treatment for psychological scarring caused by the case. "You can see it in their eyes," said Aiad Khaled Barakat, a tall, gaunt 44-year-old. "Look at them and you see the case. Worried. Sadness. You see wonder. That's what you see." This bewilderment at what has befallen them is accompanied by a detectable wariness. Not all would agree to be interviewed, fearing repercussions. Those who did talk frequently offered up, with a certain urgency, anecdotes meant to demonstrate how ordinary their lives are, how thorough their assimilation into American mainstream, stories about the speeding ticket they beat, or the money they donated to tsunami relief, or the homeless man they set up in a successful window-washing business. "I've been here for 33 years," said Hamide, now 51. "I eat like Americans. I act like Americans. I dress like Americans. I talk like Americans. I think like Americans. I do everything like Americans." Indeed, from a distance, it would appear that the L.A. 8 have blended seamlessly into the Southern California landscape. Walk down Monrovia's main street in the middle of a workday afternoon and there, in front of the bank he manages, is Ayman Obeid, dressed in a starched shirt and creased trousers, cigarette dangling between his fingers as he discusses business with two customers. From time to time he's invited into classrooms, where he introduces youngsters to banking and the value of saving a dollar. Drop in on Barakat's apartment in Arcadia, and on the family room coffee table are rolled-up blueprints for a public school renovation. After his arrest, a budding venture in home building failed. Barakat then joined his brother in another construction firm, and they have made a success of it, securing bids on schools, public libraries, recreation halls, even winning a piece of the action on a Hollywood mogul's 45-room mansion. Michel Ibrahim Shehadeh bought a pizza parlor a few miles from Disneyland, Pizza Town. Most days this spring he could be found amid the stainless steel ovens; at the counter toiled his 21-year-old son, who as a 3-year-old had watched with horror as his father was hauled away in handcuffs. Hamide works out of his home, and eavesdropping govt agents who once strained to catch snatches of his conversations with supposed subversives now would hear him haggling about the wholesale price of coffee beans while trying to quiet a small child who had wandered into the room. They would hear him explain why he couldn't meet this particular day to talk about his terrorism case: "I have a nanny problem." All in all, Hamide would observe on another day, "we've been pretty good capitalists." This was a sly reference to the initial charges filed against the eight, allegations that their distribution of magazines published by the Marxist-leaning Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine made them subject to deportation under a provision of the McCarran-Walter Act, an immigration bill passed amid the Red Scare of the early 1950s. After their arrests, a federal lawsuit was filed on their behalf, challenging the provision as a form of guilt by association. Before the challenge reached a judge, the govt dropped the Marxist-related charges. Instead, it now sought to deport 6 of them on immigration technicalities, such things as violating the terms of a work permit or taking fewer college courses than required on a student visa. "To use a football analogy," William B. Odencrantz, then regional counsel for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, told reporters at the time, "we don't care how we score our touchdown, by pass or run. We just want to get them out of the country."

Hamide and Shehadeh, alleged leaders of the group, had already gained permanent-resident status, so the visa violations tactic was not applied to them. Instead, they were recharged with other provisions of the immigration act: first, for associating with an organization that advocates "the destruction of property," and then for affiliating with a group that advocates the assassination of govt officials of "any organized country."
"In those days," said Odencrantz, now with Dept of Homeland Security, "we really lacked the tools to properly deal with aliens involved in terrorist activities, whether they were threatening our domestic situation or engaged in activities that would foster terrorism around the world."
This would change over time. An immigration statute drafted in 1990 to replace the McCarran-Walter Act, after its constitutional flaws were exposed by the L.A. 8 case, allowed the deportation of aliens who had provided material support to terrorist organizations. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing led to a further toughening of anti-terrorism law.

Finally, in 9.11.01 aftermath, there would come that sling blade of counter-terrorism laws, the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, more commonly known as the Patriot Act.
All of these legislative changes contained language that allowed their retroactive application to the L.A. 8 case. Indeed, it is under the Patriot Act that the govt next month will again attempt to deport Hamide and Shehadeh.
"This is the horrendous thing about being an immigrant," Hamide said. "There is no double jeopardy. They can arrest you in '87 and charge you with a law that was enacted in 2001. It is just never-ending."

The legal dexterity that allows the govt to bring new charges for past activities is what concerns others in the L.A. 8. Technically the July proceedings in immigration court will not involve them, but one enduring lesson of their experience has been to never underestimate the govt's resolve to see them removed, be it by pass, run or dropkick.
If Hamide and Shehadeh win, Barakat said, "I will feel comfortable. If they lose … "
He paused here and completed the thought wordlessly, with a drag on his cigarette, a shrug and a certain look in his eyes, a look of worry and sadness and wonder.

The law offices of Van Der Hout, Brigagliano and Nightingale occupy the fifth floor of a box of a building in the heart of San Francisco. A cabinet that runs along an interior wall is stuffed with files generated by the L.A. 8 case and its numerous side skirmishes, litigation that explored the boundaries of free-speech rights for noncitizen residents.
Inviting a reporter to plunge into these archives one afternoon, a legal aide apologized that they were not yet fully organized. She said she was working on it, is always working on it. Apparently, maintenance of the L.A. 8 files is akin to the repainting of the Golden Gate Bridge, a perpetual work in progress.

For all the legal churning the case has created, the basic forensic facts have not changed over the years. The case revolves, now as then, around the results of FBI Special Agent Frank H. Knight's stakeouts of a handful of events in the mid-1980s, translated transcripts of fiery speeches, surveillance photos of the eight setting up the hall at the fundraiser in Glendale, dancing a folk dance known as the dabka.
As the facts have remained the same, so have the fundamental legal positions. Prosecutors have continually maintained that the money raised through the efforts of Hamide and the others made its way to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. And even if the PFLP ran kindergartens and clinics in Palestinian refugee camps, this did not mitigate the terrorist acts it also claimed to have committed. As one Justice Dept attorney pointed out, "The Nazis built the autobahn."

The L.A. 8 and their lawyers, meanwhile, have framed the case as an assault on inalienable freedoms: the right to speak freely, to express even unpopular political viewpoints, to be protected from selective prosecution and guilt by association. They insist, in short, that the Palestinians were targeted because they stood, loudly, on the wrong side of U.S. policy on the Middle East.
"That's really what this case has been about," said L.A. 8 lawyer Marc Van Der Hout, "trying to stifle political dissent and political activity. It's about the govt trying to stop political support in this country for groups abroad that it doesn't like, and that's the bottom line."

There have been several times in the run of litigation when it appeared the case might be resolved in the eight's favor. Their most satisfying victory came in April 1996. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson, a Reagan appointee, moved to block the deportation process, ruling that the 8 had been unfairly singled out because of their political viewpoints and that their affiliation with the PFLP was protected free speech.
The decision had added significance in that Wilson was the first judge, and to this point the only one, to weigh all of the govt's evidence, a previously classified 10,000-page monument to the persistence and investigative ingenuity of FBI agent Knight. The judge found it less than persuasive.
"The govt," he wrote, "has submitted book-length tracts published by the PFLP explaining its interpretation of Marxist-Leninist ideology. It has submitted dozens of issues of Al Hadaf, the PFLP's official newspaper, none of which mention any of the plaintiffs. It has also submitted extensive hearsay compilations of the acts of terrorism linked to the PFLP over the years, in none of which any of the plaintiffs are in any way implicated."

Wilson turned to Knight's stakeout of the 1986 Glendale fundraiser, scoffing at the agent's conclusion that khaki clothes and posters depicting AK-47 assault rifles were proof of support for terrorism.
"Instead of following the trail of the money collected at the Glendale dinner," Wilson wrote, "the govt simply advances the bald assertion that because the event had a militant tone, it must have been intended to support exclusively the PFLP's terrorist activities. There is no basis in logic or in the proffered evidence for this assertion."
3 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his decision, determining that the 8 had gone prematurely to the federal courts for relief, before the deportation process had played out. However, the opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, went beyond the technical issues the lawyers had been asked to brief.

Turning to the substance of the case, Scalia disagreed with a lower court ruling that a defense claiming selective prosecution, that is, the targeting of certain groups by law enforcement because of race, gender, political associations, could be applied to the L.A. 8 case.
"An alien unlawfully in this country," he declared, "has no constitutional right to assert selective enforcement as a defense against his deportation." Moreover, the govt "should not have to disclose its 'real' reasons for deeming nationals of a particular country a special threat, or indeed for simply wishing to antagonize a particular foreign country by focusing on that country's nationals."

In the aftermath of 9/11, this has meant that federal investigators can target specific immigrant communities, detaining or deporting anyone found to have overstayed a visa or otherwise run afoul of immigration fine print, without fear of facing a selective-prosecution challenge in court. "As a result," warns David D. Cole, another L.A. 8 lawyer who came to the case, pro bono, through the Center for Constitutional Rights, "Arab and Muslim foreign nationals with any possible immigration problem are well advised to do nothing, such as speaking out, demonstrating or joining political associations, that might bring them to the attention of the federal govt."
Lie low, what the L.A. 8 have been doing for the last 18 years. They no longer see much of one another. They don't subscribe to Palestinian magazines. Few of them attend Palestinian events, and only one, Shehadeh, has remained politically active. They would not be surprised to discover that their telephones were still tapped. Most try to avoid political discussions with strangers.

None dance the dabka anymore.
"No, not since '86, that infamous year," Ayman Obeid said. "I have just kind of isolated myself from the whole thing. I do not dance. I can dance now, I taught it. But do I dance? No."
In fact, he went on, "I don't even want to be in the vicinity of somebody who says, 'I love Palestine,' because I don't know. I know what I thought, and I know what I wanted for my life, for Palestine. But I don't know your background. So I don't want to be in the same set as you are, because I don't know what they think of you."
By "they" he meant the FBI.
From beneath his banker's dress shirt, Obeid produced a medallion that hung from a chain around his neck.
"It says 'Palestine' in Arabic," he said. "I've never taken it off. I love where I come from. If you don't, then you're not a man, or a woman, of heritage and background. Did I want to be an Arab? I don't know. Did I want to be a Palestinian? I don't know. But I am, so it is who I am….
"I mean, why can't I sing and dance for my country? I mean, everybody does it. Arabs, Italians, Armenians, Greeks. Greek movies we go to, and we pay money to see them. I bet you if I have a Palestinian movie, not only are we not going to have people going there, but probably they will shut down the movie theater. I mean, I hope I'm wrong, but why cannot I say what I feel as long as it is at a peaceful gathering?"
Then he stuffed the medallion back inside his shirt.

The early govt decision to go after six of the eight on technical visa violations in effect scattered their individual cases through the system, and as a result their current immigration statuses vary.
Basher Amer, pulled from his chemistry finals by the arresting officers, beat the charge that he had failed to take the minimum course load required by his student visa: He'd received bum advice from a college counselor. He has since returned to Bethlehem, in the West Bank, the only one of the eight to have left Southern California.
Hamide's wife, Julie Mungai, received permanent-resident status in December, a decision that came after the immigration judge noted how dated the case was: "I think we have had enough time to deliberate…. Time has been favorable to the respondent. They have a good family, good jobs."
As the family rose to leave the courtroom, the judge had words of encouragement for one of Hamide's young sons. Maybe, the judge said, the boy would become president of U.S. one day, or at least attorney general.

Amjad Obeid, Ayman's brother, also has won permanent-resident status. Told that this terrorism suspect was now employed as a state transportation engineer, the immigration judge only laughed.
Ayman is awaiting a decision on his permanent-residency application; until then he must renew his work permit regularly if he is to continue as a bank manager.
Barakat and Naim Sharif at first were denied permanent-resident status after an immigration judge heard the FBI's secret evidence against them. This led to a successful challenge in federal court.

Over the last year, Barakat has sought in vain to gain citizenship. In immigration hearings, the case workers have peppered him with questions about the PFLP and his pro-Palestinian activities in the 1980s.
"Do you agree with the methods of the PFLP, their terrorist activities?" he is asked at one hearing, according to a transcript.
"I don't agree with any terrorist act," Barakat responds.
"At the time, you weren't in support of the PFLP?"
"I am not in support of any terrorist act. I support the PLO, and the PFLP is part of it. I support that we want an independent state for the Palestinians."

The hearing officer keeps pressing. He asks Barakat about his participation in events that were promoted as a celebration of the PFLP's founding.
"When you went to these events, did you know they were PFLP events?"
"They were not PFLP events. They were celebrations of that date."
"So you were celebrating the PFLP?"
"The people, yes."
"If you weren't in support of the PFLP, why were you attending a celebration of it?" Even in the cold type of the transcript, Barakat's mounting exasperation becomes obvious.
"I have no ideology," he says at last. "I don't not like this guy because of his beliefs." He went to PFLP parties, he says. He went to Fatah parties. He went to Egyptian parties, Iranian parties, Armenian parties. "I go to any party that has dance, cultural, Middle Eastern food. I love to meet people, especially women, and dance. I was a young guy."

The stakes for the eight have risen as the years have piled up. The L.A. 8, they often say, have become more like the L.A. 28, with the children and spouses who have come aboard since the arrests.
Asked if he had ever considered just giving up, Hamide's response was emphatic: "No. Absolutely not. And for a very good reason. Because it is my life, for one thing. And my family's life. I have nowhere else to go."
As their children have grown older, the parents have confronted the dilemma of what and how to tell them about Dad's terrorism problem. For Amjad Obeid, that moment came last Christmas Eve. His 14-year-old daughter had been bombarding him with questions. Why didn't he travel with them to Mexico when they went to see her mom's family? Why, if he was Arab, did he not visit the Middle East? Why did he need a lawyer?
"So Christmas Eve, I was just driving with her. I said: 'You know what? I think you're old enough to know. You're entitled. Here's the story.'
"She was shocked and surprised and then, knowing her intelligence, she went on the computer and she read the whole Supreme Court brief and very much understood the case."

Because of their immigration status and the repercussions of the case, most of the eight have not managed to visit the Middle East, even as their now elderly parents begin to pass away. It's not clear that Israel would permit them to enter the occupied Palestinian territories; it's also not clear that they would be allowed back into U.S.. In essence, they have become detainees of the country that wants to deport them.
At a later immigration hearing, Barakat tries to explain the urgency behind his effort to become a U.S. citizen.
"This has been over 16 years, 17 years," he says. "I need to go visit my family, serious…. My father passed away. When he was sick I couldn't go see him. And my mom, she is about 80 years now, and she is sick."
The hearing officer asks if formal travel restrictions are in place: With a green card, he should be able to fly overseas.
"Israel won't let me in," Barakat explains.
"I see," the hearing officer says.
"I need an American passport so I can get in. We get problems there, we come to the freedom country, we start getting problem. I don't know where to go."

In December 2004, Barakat learned that his bid for citizenship had been denied: He lacked "good moral character." The 14-page rejection leaned heavily on the works of FBI agent Knight: "You were observed rehearsing for the entrance ceremony of the event. The FBI declassified records of the investigation indicate that you participated in setting up the event."
When they contemplate the case, as they seem to do constantly, what baffles the Palestinians most is the govt's persistence. Their early victory in the bail hearing, the many federal court rulings in their favor, the enormity of 9.11.01, all of these, to them, would have provided the govt a natural opening to drop a difficult and even embarrassing case.
They have developed many theories to explain why, instead, the case was kept alive. There is the legal guinea pig theory, that the case was designed to establish precedent for removing immigrants who support disfavored foreign groups. There is the bureaucratic inertia theory, that in time the case became something of a self-justifying institution.

There is the theory that the case has been driven by some mysterious order from on high, that someone in the top tier of govt has it out for them. And there is the theory that it was rooted in their fledgling success in the early 1980s as proponents of Palestinian statehood.
The govt lawyer Odencrantz did not necessarily reject all of these theories. Yes, he said, the case has provided a vehicle to test "very important" legal issues and to accumulate the "tools" needed to proactively deal with terrorism threats. As for bureaucratic inertia, yes, "the case has its own momentum. As they have bitterly resisted the decision to remove them, we see no reason that their resistance should cause us to simply say: 'Well, we'll forget it. It has gone on too long.' "

9/11 not suggest to the govt that circulating PFLP magazines and participating in folk dances perhaps no longer met the terrorism bar. From a brief filed in the L.A. 8 case after 9/11:
"This case involves an issue of critical importance to the nation's ability to deport aliens who have provided financial and material support to a foreign terrorist organization. In light of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the importance of this issue cannot be overstated."
Within weeks of the Sept. 11 attacks, L.A. 8 attorney Cole received a call in his Washington office from a congressional aide. The lead Justice Dept attorneys on the case, he was told, were in the conference room where the bill that would become the Patriot Act was being drafted. Perhaps Cole should come over. He did, but the Justice Dept lawyers protested.
"The compromise was that I got to sit outside," Cole said. "It was like being a lawyer in a grand jury proceeding. I sat outside and the [congressional] folks would come out and say, 'What do you think of this? What are the implications of this?' And then they'd go back in."

The questions convinced Cole that the govt lawyers "were definitely in there trying to write a law that would basically knock these guys out of the park."
In its final form, the Patriot Act did render moot many of the legal issues in the L.A. 8 case. As a result, the coming trial of Hamide and Shehadeh will revolve around two questions: Did the money raised at the fundraisers actually go to the PFLP, and, if so, did the two know, or should they have known, that it would be used to underwrite terrorist activities?
Asked whether, if the govt prevails, deportation charges will be brought against other members of the L.A. 8, Odencrantz replied: "Probably not. Obviously, if we get information that suggests one of the others did something…."

One day in late May, 6 weeks before the scheduled start of the trial, Shehadeh and his wife were scrubbing the kitchen at Pizza Town one final time. The next day they were to turn over the keys to new owners.
"This way," Maxine Shehadeh said, "whatever they dish out, we will be able to deal with it."
Michel Shehadeh expressed confidence, as had Hamide, that they would win. If they did not, he said, there would be the opportunity to appeal again through the federal courts. That the case might come to provide a constitutional test of the Patriot Act is not out of the question, and, in an odd way, might even be fitting.
"The lawyers," Shehadeh said, "have been saying it may be another 20 years."

The talk turned to the topic of Frank Knight. They all seem to have Knight stories, how he would appear at seemingly every court hearing over the years, how he would look coldly beyond them whenever they tried to make eye contact or engage him in small talk during recesses, his palpable fury when rulings went their way, his intimidation tactics, his threats to flick them from the country, like flies.
They wonder what drove him. Was he out, as Barakat put it, "to win a star"? They question his methods. They mimic his gait and mock his performance in deposition, 4 days of sometimes combative, sometimes stammering testimony about the fungible nature of money, about the "statement" one makes by moving the American flag off a stage, about how to connect the dots between a folk dance performance in Glendale and an assassination in the West Bank.
"He always struck me as professorial, always deep in thought," Shehadeh said. "Who knew he was just deeply unthoughtful?"

Frank Knight, standing in the doorway of his San Diego condominium, was 3 inches shorter and substantially thinner than the hulking 6-foot-5 linebacker of a man the Palestinians had described. He was wearing jeans, a polo shirt, running shoes.
He smiled almost shyly as he congratulated his unexpected visitor for tracking him down. Unfortunately, Knight said, govt policy prohibited him and any other agents who worked the L.A. 8 case from discussing it.
"It's not that we don't want to talk," he said. "We can't. We would end up in jail."
He fairly beamed when it was suggested that he and the New York agent who had conceived of the plan to go after the eight with immigration laws had been, it turned out, many years ahead of their time.
"We were two Lone Rangers," he recalled.

As he remained in the doorway, Knight was given a rushed update on the lives the Palestinians had carved for themselves in the years since he first began to track them, running a bank branch, opening a pizza parlor near Disneyland, building public schools, selling coffee beans, buying houses, raising families, all of it.
"Well," he said, smile quickly fading, "if you have read my reports, if you have done your homework, you should know they shouldn't be in those positions. But I really can't talk."
Come back, he suggested, when the case is over. He would be happy to discuss it then, he said, for hours, for days, "for as long as you want." It was a polite offer, delivered with one last winning smile, but of course it ran counter to the one incontrovertible rule that has governed the case of the L.A. 8 for 18 years now: For whatever reason, it is never over.

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