longhorngunman wrote:
Did you watch the 9/11 commision hearings? That should explain the "wall" pretty well.
I watched the hearings, and I assume that you are referring to
John Ashcroft's statement of 13 April 2004, which I quote below.
But the simple fact of September 11 is this: we did not know an attack was coming because for nearly a decade our government had blinded itself to its enemies. Our agents were isolated by government-imposed walls, handcuffed by government-imposed restrictions, and starved for basic information technology. The old national intelligence system in place on September 11 was destined to fail.
Ashcroft's remarks are true only if stupidity is considered a form of blindness. I don't buy it, and here's why.
* On 21 August 2004 the 9/11 Commission issued a report revealing that the FBI had failed to take action against known Al Qaeda fundraisers before 9/11.
* On 30 August 2004 Americans learned of more than 750 documented reports of federal air marshalls "sleeping on duty, lying, testing positive for alcohol or ilelgal drugs while on thejob or losing weapons," according to the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General.
* On 26 September 2004 the IG reported that the FBI had failed to translate more than 126,000 hours of terrorist-related wiretaps and other intercepts. Almost half of all FBI offices had computer snafus that may have caused Al Qaeda-related wiretaps to be deleted before they could be analyzed.
* Beginning in April 2001, the CIA repeatedly sent memos to the president warning that Al Qaeda was planning a major operation. According to the 9/11 Commission, the CIA "consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a catastrophic level, indicating that they would cause the world to be in turmoil, consisting of possible multiple - but not necessarily simultaneous - attacks."
* For the previous few years, the CIA had issued several warnings that terrorists might fly commercial airplanes into buildings or cities.
* On 18 August 2001, Minneapolis FBI agents sent a 26-page memo to FBI HQ warning that Moussaoui was acting "with others yet unknown" in a hijack conspiracy. Three days later they sent a memo stating that if Massaoui "seizes an aircraft flying from Heathrow to New York City, it will have enough fuel on boardtor each D.C." FBI agents in Minneapolis could easily have gotten a search warrant from a federal judge - if they hadn't been hogtied by FBI HQ.
* Ashcroft told the 9/11 Commission that FBI agents "sought approval for a criminal search warrant to search his computer. The warrant was rejected because FBI officials feared breaching the wall." Ashcroft's statement is simply NOT TRUE. Actually, FBI agents in Minneapolis asked FBI HQ for permission to request a search warrant from a federal judge in Minnesota (which would not have involved "the wall"). FBI HQ refused the request, instead insisting that the Minnesota FBI agents file a request for a FISA search warrant - which had to be handled by FBI agents in HQ. FBI HQ incorrectly insisted that FISA required Minneapolis agents to prove that Massaoui was linked to a foreign power before a search warrant would issue. Because French intelligence indicated that Massaoui might be linked to Chechen resistance, FBI HQ insisted that Minneapolis agents find evidence connecting the Chechen reistance to a recognized terrorist organization. The Senate Judiciary Committee concluded in a 2003 report that "it is difficult to understand how the agents whose job included such a heavy FISA component could not have understood" the FISA law.
* Although Ashcroft blamed "the wall," the New York Times reported that prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, "Ashcroft had resisted signing emergency warrants that would have allowed eavesdropping int errorism investigations, apparently because he had only a rudimentary knowledge of how the warrant process worked," according to 9/11 Commisison officials.
Government incompetence was a far greater cause of 9/11 than were restrictions on government surveillance.
