Nov 27 2005
Son Of Able Danger
Able Danger’s re-incarnation appears to be progressing with new powers and responsibilities for detecting terrorist activities in the US:
The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.
The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department’s push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public.
There are issues to be discussed with this move – I agree. But the hype from the left is ridiculous, mainly because they fear a government not under their control:
The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.
The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department’s push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public.
Efforts like Able Danger do not ‘spy’ on innocent American citizens. They use openly available data to see who is regularly in contact with known or high confidence terrorists and their organizations. The same process can be done slower with visual monitoring of suspects. Data mining just happens to do it much quicker and more objectively, while requiring very little law enforcement resources. Wyden is just playing the paranoid nutcase.
And Wyden is a nutcase because he has outlawed any undercover work
Wyden has since persuaded lawmakers to change the legislation, attached to the fiscal 2006 intelligence authorization bill, to address some of his concerns, but he still believes hearings should be held. Among the changes was the elimination of a provision to let Defense Intelligence Agency officers hide the fact that they work for the government when they approach people who are possible sources of intelligence in the United States.
So, when approaching a possible Al Qaeda terrorist to see what they are planning, the federal agents must tell the suspect they are federal investigators…
Why does this sound like a bad SNL skit?
Well, bad SNL skits don’t leak classified information that impacts our intelligence efforts:
One CIFA activity, threat assessments, involves using “leading edge information technologies and data harvesting,” according to a February 2004 Pentagon budget document. This involves “exploiting commercial data” with the help of outside contractors including White Oak Technologies Inc. of Silver Spring, and MZM Inc., a Washington-based research organization, according to the Pentagon document.
How much do you want to bet this leak came from the CIA – which is apparently so insecure about it’s monopoly that it leaks regularly to the press.
Captain Ed Morrissey has a great post on this news here. The good Captain gets to the heart of the problem with the proliferation of intelligence efforts at the Federal level:
The first problem comes from gap and overlap; with this many agencies all looking at the same mission, each with its own bureaucracy and turf to protect, expect a lot of inefficient duplication of effort and lack of sharing of data. Since these little agencies will in all likelihood follow the same kinds of dynamics that all little agencies exhibit and communicate poorly with each other, we can expect gaps to develop without any detection or accountability.
The second problem comes closer to Pincus’ concern — how to manage all of these agencies to ensure that they follow the rules properly while generating good data for enforcement. The more of these independent agencies that get spawned, the more difficult oversight becomes. In fact, it becomes more difficult to understand even basic borders like jurisdiction, let alone overreach.
All of this mischief started with the Commission’s celebration of bureaucracy as the salvation of intelligence. Rather than demand a complete restructuring of the myriad intelligence entities in the US into two or three agencies — one each for foreign, domestic, and military intel — the Commission claimed that data-sharing was hampered not by artificial divisions of labor between bureaucracies but not enough layers of bureaucracy above the agencies themselves.
Exactly. The idea the solution is in the bureaucracy is classic DC delusion. The people in DC see a problem and start forming new organizations, charters, position papers, etc. The response is culturally wired into their mindset.
Expect 50% of this to be of little additional value, 20% to be of enormous value and the rest (30%) to be a hindrance.
Send in the Marines.
Sounds like a plan to me.
I hope you will keep us informed about this.
This is what I saw on TV today. I thought it seemed like Able Danger, too.
Thanks for writing about this.
Able Danger, Atta, Prague, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Sa
I say don’t hold your breath, the evidence has been overwhelming for quite sometime and they have done an outstanding job of ignoring it.
“Sunday Night” Quick Hits
Some things I intended to excerpt in individual posts if I hadn’t run out of time:Uncle Jimbo: Beyond Neocon- Rise of the Rational Hawk Michelle Malkin: Protest Photo Of The Day Dafydd ab Hugh: Give Me That Old Time Religion
Pink Flamingo–
Why do you expect the media to explain Atta in Prague when even the President has never made the case? Why not make the case, if it’s so “overwelming”?
If the connection between Atta and Prague is “overwelming,” this would seem to justify the war, right?
So, if the case for Atta in Prague is “overwelming,” why doesn’t Bush call the networks, go into Congress, lay out the case for Atta in Prague, and get Cindy Sheehan out of his front yard? They media would report that. It would be on the front page of the NYT.
Laurie Mylroie, in her book Bush and the Beltway, blames the CIA and State Department for not promoting the Atta in Prague story.
Let us assume that Atta WAS in Prague, that he was even observed by a BIS agent and perhaps even identified using various identies by Able Danger as he travelled back and forth into the US. [I once read he had some shadow company in Prague that was something to do with electronics.]
Why doesn’t the President of the United States get the BIS and Pentagon to lay it out there for him and solve all his issues about the legitimacy of the war?
I think it is because the Administration does not want to explain the Iraq connection because then they would have to explain their sources and methods. Perhaps they have reconstituted and are using this Able Danger to identify and neutralize foreign and AMERICAN terrorists IN THE US.
Did you ever think that the debunking of Atta in Prague may have its origins in the White House?? And that they have used the left to get out this disinformation? Except for Welson, it is the far left that is pressing for disclosures about Able Danger (supposedly because it will prove that Bush was complicit in 9-11).
I think that the Administation does not want what they know by intelligence means in court; they want to protect the sources and methods.
So they use the intelligence to decide who to investigate for something that will not involve exposing Able Danger.
It’s like Elliot Ness got the gangsters for income tax evasion.
There are a lot of terrorists being prosecuted for stuff that may not seem extremely serious. Their lawyers are claiming that their clients were enticed, trapped, framed, etc. The arrests of Shah and Sabir come to mind as the best examples.
I think that these people may have done other, more serious crimes, that the government does not make the case for, because it would expose Able Danger or similar programs.
Perhaps the bad guys are going away, but not for their more spectacular crimes.
This is just my own opinion. I don’t work for the government or know anything about these kind of programs. I am only speculating.
All of this could be totally wrong. It’s just my theory.
But I think W. is onto the bad guys.
You are all discussing oil for food and money laundering, and I remembered this. Is the Electric Construction Company or the ANS Holding familiar??
Does anyone know if M. Atta owned these companies mentioned by the Boston Globe writer? These are some names Atta used:
The Czech trade register has a Mohamed Sayed Ahmed listed as owner of a Prague-based firm called the Electric Construction Company. The register also lists a Sayed Mohammad Saeed Shah as having a stake in a trading company called ANS Holding, which has owners in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Pakistan, and Germany. “We are investigating this, but we cannot confirm or deny anything right now,” Gross said.
Brian Whitmore is a Prague-based correspondent for The Boston Globe.
http://www.lightmillennium.org/summer_fall_01/prague_illicit.html
I think the problem with the Atta case is the CIA. No one in power can say anything regarding intelligence that does not have the blessing of the CIA. I think the entire reason for creating theDNI office was to end the CIAs veto power over the intel community. If the CIA rules that a case is inconclusive, it is political suicide to quote that intelligence even if all of the other agencies are on board. The minute you do that there will be a frontpage NYT story about you lying and manipulating intelligence, quoting unamed CIA officials.
It is all a matter of whether the issue involved serves the objectives of the small group at the CIA who are the experts on that particular issue. So Atta meeting with Al Ani didn’t serve their interests so it was deemed inconclusive. The CIA has no problem using inconclusive evidence when it serves their need, like hiding the fact that they have no good sources in Iraq, Curveball being a good example.
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