Jul 07 2006
FBI Bomb Plot News Conference: Live Blogging
The investigation has been going on for more than a year.
The plan has mostly been thwarted (sounds bad)
Number of actions around the world
Someone exposed this action too early to the media! Sounds like they may have this person identified. Another Benedict Arnold.
The Lebonese suspect was a key Al Qaeda operative with ties that cannot be dismissed as tenuous. We avoided another 9-11.
The second speaker (Port Authority) is listing all the processes and methods they use to protect these travel and commuter lines.
<3rd speaker (NYC Police): plot in the planning stage and nowhere near being operational (which means it had plenty of intel to provide for some time).
This was an example of good intelligence (yet possibly crippled by the NY Times). It was also a warning that NY remains a top target.
Bloomberg is thanking everyone for their efforts and notes anniversary of the London bombings
Investigation on-going
Questions now coming. I will post any answers of interest
Investigation which began with intelligence and then expanded overseas (thanks NSA) and led to the arrest in Lebanon
The individuals involved only mentioned the PATH tunnel, but other discussions over the year included a range of targets.
6 other countries (3 continents) are involved and from the question one may be Canada.
They believe they have the primary leaders, but the hesitation doesn’t sound good to me.
This was not the planned date for taking action! Someone must have leaked to the media and the media had contacted government sources for comment causing this premature action. This is definitely a new damaging leak to the media.
The planning had matured to the point where they were ready to attempt to surveil targets, establish attack plans and acquire materials.
Still subjects out there with some known and some partially known – still a danger there.
2 more ‘in custody’ in foreign countries where the term is not the same as here.
Media wants to know how big a device is required to do what size damage! No risk in printing that so the terrorists can read it!
Principle players (8 individuals) not in this country (yet, since they had to survey targets) which means we needed the NSA surveillance and SWIFT financial tracking systems to track their paths here.
Investigation is just about 12 months old – which means the NY Times and other media outlets were definitely hurting this investigation by disclosing our ongoing methods.
Plot was a suicide attack plan with explosives in tunnels between NJ and NY
end of conference
I can only say I am saddened beyond belief that leaks have caused the authorities to move early and possibly lose some key players in this (5 our still free). And I am angry that the NY Times and others naively exposed programs used legally by this country to foil these plots and save lives. Keller and Co. need to be on the hot seat right now!
Score One For The FBI – Zero for the NYT
The FBI, monitoring internet “chat rooms”, nabs a plot to compromise New York’s underwater tunnels to Manhattan Island.
Boy, it’s a good thing that the New York Times didn’t get wind of this (what with their effort to kill subscriptions of the paper), otherwise they would have been able to shut down the distribution of the newspaper off of the island for a long time! They’re slip’n … they just must be asleep at the wheel.
AJ:
I too just watched this news conference and it certainly appears that the FBI is more than a bit fed up with the press and the leakers in this country. It was also a shame that Bloomberg tried to turn the attention away from the dangers involved for all citizens of this country to his political agenda of funding issues.
This borderline treasonous activity of our media, politicians and certain private citizens must be stopped or it will cost innocent lives both here and abroad. I felt it was made clear today that much mending of fences was required with overseas intelligence agencies due to these leaks. How embarrassing for a country of our stature to be called on the carpet because of a few idiots. One would hope some lessons would be learned here, however, that would assume that adults might be in control.
I believe the NYT *did* find out about it, that is why the arrests were made so soon … before the NYT could publish.
My hope is that this leak was discoved in the course of investigating another. For example, say the leaker of the NSA information to the NYT was being “debriefed” and this additional leak became known.
We need to start hanging some leakers and soon.
This is just remarkable. Obviously the funding of this plot was compromised by the asshats at the NYT. Obviously the “chatter” obtained through the NSA program indicated the plot was changing, requiring the FBI to act prematurely.
Congratulations NYT – Give yourselves a great big pat on the back for endangering the lives of not just Americans in general but New Yorkers in particular. Your need to “inform” clearly has blinded you to the FACT that those you have “informed” want to kill New Yorkers FIRST.
In essence you have signed the death warrants of your fellow citizens in your clarion call to all terrorists that America is open season.
One of the problems is that local officials want to know in advance when something’s brewing in their territory and the more people who know the more likely it is they’ll tell..even if it’s just to warn their families. Their families tell their friends and before long it’s all over town. That happened here when at least one secret service agent right after 9/11 got wind of a possible 2d attack on the WH–before you could blink, half the town had heard the rumor.
We need to start hanging some leakers and soon.
Left by crosspatch on July 7th, 2006
…..
You took the words right out of my mouth, Crosspatch!
Carol
Obviously the funding for the plot was publicly compromised. Obviously the publicly compromised NSA “chatter” indicated the plot was changing, requiring the FBI to act prematurely.
Congratulations NYT. A big ole “attaboy†for not only endangering the lives of all Americans in general, but New Yorkers in particular. See, your so-called obligation to “inform†is the tool being used by the “informed†to murder New Yorkers FIRST.
How utterly patriotic of the NYT to sign the death warrants of their fellow New Yorkers by “informing†the murderers that America is Open Season.
Sorry for the duplicate post….my computer went buggy and I lost the first one….yeesh
I like my first post better. I’m working on the short term memory loss.
Did I plagiarize myself? Hmm.
I have been finding out some more information. Apparently the plot wasn’t against the Holland tunnel, the targets of interest were the transit tunnels that carry trains under the Hudson between NY and NJ. Breeching the integrity of these tunnels WOULD flood the transit tunnels under NYC. Practically every underground station in lower Manhattan would be flooded. The large transit station under the WTC site, for example, would be completely flooded as it is below river level.
Also, it appears that our law enforcement arrested this fellow some time ago and were using him to track others involved in the plot. It seems that the publishing of the SWIFT leak apparently caused some change in how the others involved were operating causing us to lose track of them resulting in us announcing the arrest of this individual at this time.
The bottom line is that the NYT exposed a program that was involved in trying to roll up a network that was in the preparation stages of an operation targeting New Yorkers. The NYT publishing of the SWIFT leaks has quite possibly placed their own employees, neighbors, and community at greater risk of injury or death. If I were an employer of the NYT, I would be asking my boss some tough questions about now.
OOPS, ment, “if I were an employee of the NYT”
Link at American Spectator
Fox article
Thanks one whole helluva lot, NYT.
“if I were an employee of the NYTâ€
No kidding. I don’t live anywhere near NY, but if it was my local paper that committed the same crime the NYT has, I would be demanding answers as to why they assume they have the inherent “moral authority” to put my children’s lives at stake? It is mind boggling that the NYT gets away with this crap.
The really irritating part is the NYT is most likely furiously at work on their next expose’.
And what will New Yorkers do if they get attacked again? Will they wait for another 3000 people to get savagely massacred before they understand the need for National Security and the secrets that lie therein? What if it happens here in San Francisco? What will the barking moonbats do – Blame it all on GWB?
I can tell you right now, I do not give my permission to any editor, publisher, reporter, whistleblower etal to sentence me, my husband, my child or my family to death.
E,
What the Times has done in their haste to portray their opposition to the war on terror as a parallel to oppisition to Vietnam and Bush as the ghost of Nixon is to make a very crucial mistake. Neither the North Vietnamese nor the Viet Cong ever attacked us on the continental United States. The terrorists have and they have killed us by the thousands. They have also vowed to do it again and they have been caught more than once in various stages of doing so.
The terrorists are a direct threat to our children and our neighbors. The Times top staff are so blinded by their political ambitions that they would risk the lives of their own coworkers. The Times is experiancing some kind of dementia and we need to put a stop to it before they get more of us killed.
This is serious business. In fact, business of the most serious kind.
C- Absolutely.
Unfortunately, our government is enabling the NYT to continue their ill-conceived illusions of granduer – at yours and my expense.
What the NYT just does not get is the fact that someone close to them will be murdered because of their presumption of moral authority and their “obligation to inform.”
Will the NYT accept that collateral damage? I think not. They will start up the blame machine and point it at GWB. And the cycle continues – Expose, Deny, Retreat, Blame. Sickening.
Accoding to Hugh Hewitt on his show as I was on my way home from work, this leak is the fault of the New York Daily News, but I didn’t get any details.
The Sunday shows will comment on this as another example of the wannabe elite. They have already trashed the Florida Plot, an will attach the same to this.
Ya gotta have a nuke or wmd or tons of explosives in your possession to be a valid threat. They assume anything else is show dressing, a non-threat.
Oh yeah , they will try to dismiss it as a bunch of yahoos egged on by egotistical bragging rights.
However the statement in the news conference that someone leaked the info and prompted the premature action on this case somehow tells me that this is not under this classification , no matter how much they wish to deminish it.
There is a lot of coverage of the fact that Ny is above sea-level, which I assume is true. But Capillary action would mean that water from high volume, high pressure breaches would actually reach well above the actual water level of the source body.
If the genius’ who thinks that physics, is so simple (I don’t and I don’t like even thinking about how complicated a massive flood is other than the whole chicago flood thing from 1992) they should spend a time working with stuff, that sometimes doesn’t look like physics. Hell, like that glass pelican taking a sip of water doohickey every 6th grader has in his science class.
surface tension, air/water pressure, reduced outlet, and capillary action.
thats a couple reasons why this could have been a real thing. NY wouldn’t have flooded like new orleans, but it could have been flooded worse than Chicago. Also a lot of mass transit is maintained in contained underground tunnels. Thats a lot of dead people.