Before Weldon spoke on the House Floor in the infamous June 27th, 2005 speech, Reporter Dan Verton broke the story nearly two years ago. In this article, he tells the story.

Yes, has been saying that from day one -that is what most of this is about. Able Danger claims to have identified Atta and, under some speculated timelines, he is in the US earlier than the 9-11 commission has them.

SHAFFER: Our focus of the Able Danger oversight fiasco is the fact that this data also identified a cell here in the states.

GSN: Let’s get to the crunch. Now you’ve identified five cells, one of which is in the United States.

SHAFFER: Right

SHAFFER: Capt. Philpott came to me and said, “Based on our internal discussions within Able Danger, we are concerned by the fact that this appears to be a group of terrorists here within the United States.” It was at that point in time that he asked me to broker a relationship or a meeting with the FBI.

GSN: When was that?

SHAFFER: My best recollection is between summer of 2000 and fall of 2000, somewhere in that like.

Yes, Shaffer does mention then in the US:

” That’s where the whole issue comes in of lawyers saying, “You can’t look at these guys, who are suspected as being terrorists.” All this information is coming in. They had this vetting process. And then, all this information comes to us regarding these [suspected terrorists] who were here legally, as part of these data runs. But, the lawyers are now saying, “You can’t look at that. We’re going to put that in the ‘U.S person’ category that you can’t look at.” ”

“here legally” implies here in the US, and why they were being treated, legally, as US citizens.

….. Capt. Philpott came to me and said, “Based on our internal discussions within Able Danger, we are concerned by the fact that this appears to be a group of terrorists here within the United States.” It was at that point in time that he asked me to broker a relationship or a meeting with the FBI…..

Shaffer has only said Able Danger identified the cells and Atta in 2000. Shaffer has never said specifically that Atta or the cells were actually in the US, has he? All I see is that Atta and the cells were only linked to the US.

Unless the original data is found and reanalyzied, there is nothing currently that disputes Atta’s timeline vs the 9/11 Commission Report.

GSN: Suppose you get to the point, where everybody says, “Yes, Able Danger existed; yes, they did this great data mining; yes, they identified the cells and Atta;
What, beyond everybody agreeing that your story is 100 percent accurate, are you looking for?

SHAFFER:
The ultimate goal is what created this whole event to begin with. The intent of Congressman Weldon, and the Army and maybe the leadership was to re-create this [data mining] capability.