May 21 2006
Able Danger: 9,000 Found Documents?
Top Dog at the Able Danger Blog has news that the Pentagon may have found over 9,000 pages of Able Danger related documents:
Back in November, Chris submitted a FOIA request for all documents and emails that could be located related to Able Danger. He was routed from the Pentagon to SOCOM, back to the Pentagon, asked to resubmit his request, then told he had submitted duplicate requests. Last week, his request was finally denied. DOD refused to turn over a single document, but admitted there were at least 9,500 pages of data responsive to his request! Considering that DOD has maintained all along they have not been able to find much material on Able Danger, and has been slow to respond to requests for documents on Able Danger from both the Congress and the 9/11 Commission, this is quite a surprise.
Indeed it is. I wonder if this will kick off another round of congressional hearings? Able Danger fell off the radar screen because of some deal behind the scenes. I still maintain the Able Danger story should be exposed, not to understand our intel capabilities, but to understand if some high level political appointee was able to shut down our national security efforts because some information was too uncomfortable. That still worries me that politics can trump security. Anyone wishing to see all my Able Danger posts can find them here.
I really have mixed feelings about digging too deep into the Able Danger stuff. Almost feels to me little different from USA Today digging into NSA programs. If there are capabilities involved with that program that would be compromised by releasing that information, I would rather it remain unreleased.
Why shouldn’t we be able t0 conduct an investigation without exposing methods and operations? Why would this be impossible?
We need to tar and feather the guilty in this case. We need to be able to learn from our mistakes. We need to understand what the true problems were with our intelligence and policing agencies over 9/11.
The comments dismissing the Able Danger work in contrary to the facts was disgusting. The entire investigation got sidelined. Our very in-depth report on the 9/11 matter was deeply flawed, at least on the basis of this, probably on the basis of more facts.
We don’t stand a chance against most forms of terrorism. But, 9/11 was not the way of most forms of terrorism. We had these guys on our radar.
Who really cares about Joe Islamist Schmo terrorist? It is organized state and state supported terrorism that matters — even if that “State” is something like Afghanistan or Sudan. Or Iran. If we can not d0 anything about that kind of terrorism, we might as well lay down and be dead.
I agree with AJ and would love to know more about that “behind the scenes” deal. Why shut down an investigation that would have been
embarassing to the Clinton administration? I also agree with Pull On, although I would extend his list of suspect states.
Marazzi…
Marazzi prin Omnitechgroup…