response 50 of 67:

Jun 8 04:57 UTC 2002

I've read the article (weaknews is the only print media we
actually subscribe to).  I've already made my points that
address most of what little hard facts are in that and 
other articles.

Some additional facts, the OBL desk at the CIA was set up
in the mid 1990s (I don't think Bush was POTUS then).  The
FBI's desk was set up at about the same time.  Due to previous
legal abuses (Bush's father wasn't even POTUS) the CIA was
prohibited from domestic operations and further subject to
strict oversight from Congress on all operations.  Similarly,
restrictions on FBI operations were put in place.  I'm not
sure of the exact rules in place prior to 9/11 but they were
something like the local police talk to the FBI who talk to
the CIA and information flow was generally in one direction
with the exception of active counterintel operations inside
the US and conducted by law by the FBI.
Prior to 9/11 and primarily as the result of the realization
in the early 90s that there was a problem, the flow of information
between the CIA and FBI was increased in other areas in particular
the OBL desks.  Prior to 9/11 OBL's funds inside the US were 
already being seized and black operations against his funding
overseas were conducted by the CIA (CIA hacked into bank accounts
and transfered money out).  THis was happening in the latter part
of the 90s (Bush wasn't POTUS then).  Plans were even made to
kidnap or assassinate OBL but were never approved (Bush didn't
approve them because he was Governor of Texas and didn't even
know of them).  Prior to 9/11 the entire CIA OBL desk of a dozen
analysts and lots of other support staffers was busy tracking OBL. 
(Bush has no control over them, he wasn't POTUS when they were 
hired, and they were all civil service jobs.  Indeed, Bush kept
the previous administrations CIA chief which is a political
appointee.)  I don't know what the FBI's OBL was staffed at but
I would assume it was at least the same and probably more as they
are allowed domestic operations.

The point is that well prior to 9/11 (and prior to 012000) the
US was aware of and actively investigating OBL.  The problem
was not that there wasn't enough information, the problem was
that there was such a mass of information, and most of it useless
for anticipating what OBL was going to do.  (Remember also that
you don't hear about the success, only the failure.)  For years
prior to 9/11 (And 012000) the director of the NSA had been
actually publically speaking out (something unheard of for an
agency who's initials were joked about meaning No Such Agency)
about the huge influx of data being gathered and the inability
to keep up with the flow.  Nobody, republican or democrat, listened
or was willing to fund the vast improvements needed just by that
one agency (and a vital one).

Again it is easy with hindsite to predict what somebody is going
to do after they have done it.  It is easy to pick through all the
information and find the clues that match the event that has 
already happened.  The difficulty for any intelligence agency is
to winnow the vast amount of noise and predict the events in
advance.  And again, you should only hear about the failures of
a good intelligence agency.  (You might read about the successes
some 75 or so years later with any luck.)

response 52 of 67:

Jun 8 13:00 UTC 2002

can't wait.

response 54 of 67:

Jun 8 18:11 UTC 2002

(The thing that's been claimed as urban legend is the statement that
 Moussaoui said he didn't want to learn landings and takeoffs.)

response 56 of 67:

Jun 9 03:01 UTC 2002

the biggest problem at the CIA is theyu don't have enough translators to read
all the documents they have from the mid east.  It will take them about a year
to get more hired in.

The FBI computer system not only doesn't have e-mail ability for everyone,
but cannot do a search of more than one word of the system.

Maybe they need to talk to the people at google.

response 58 of 67:

Jun 10 11:48 UTC 2002

Re #57:  Oh, I think we could do much worse than that, Jan.  I think
we should treat terrorist activity as a reason to send in advisors,
provide local-language news coverage, and other things which directly
challenge everything that the terrorists (and their ideological icons)
stand for.  We should make it obvious that their theological purity
depends on keeping themselves innocuous; one Osama bin Laden or even
a Richard Reid, and WE BRING IN THE PRESS AND THE BROADCASTERS!

That'll teach 'em.

response 60 of 67:

Jun 12 03:20 UTC 2002

WSJ Opinionjournal (wsj.com) 6/7:

". . . In an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live". . . (Andy) Rooney said Mr.
Ashcroft's rules are "how dictatorships get started."

". . . Dictatorships? Reporters afraid to speak ill of the Attorney General?
John Ashcroft has to be the easiest target in politics; . . .  Not to single
out Mr. Rooney, but his otherworldly statements are perfect examples of how
the civil-liberties left prefers to mouth hysteria rather than argue on the
merits. . .
"Once you move past the noise, it's hard to see what the fight is about. Take
the uproar over this week's announcement of a National Security Entry-Exit
Registration System.  Beginning this fall, the U.S. will begin photographing
and fingerprinting about 100,000 foreigners who represent an "elevated
national security concern."  Almost immediately this proposal raised shrieks
of an Ashcroft inquisition.

"But Mr. Ashcroft didn't invent this system.  He's implementing a
Congressional mandate to develop by 2005 a registration and tracking system
for all 35 million visitors to the U.S.--a mandate signed by Bill Clinton.
. .  Even the fingerprint provision is not Mr. Ashcroft's:  It stems from a
1952 law that remains on the books but has been widely ignored.

"We don't pretend that the new system is perfect, or that it won't create
inconvenience.  Already the American Civil Liberties Union has filed suits
. . .  But amid a terror cold war in which the enemy lives among us and has
targeted civilians, surely it's prudent to weigh being bumped from a flight
against the horrific loss of life of September 11.

"Most Americans, after all, understand the difference between pulling over
an African-American on the New Jersey Turnpike simply because he's black and
pulling aside a group of Arab men asking for separate seats and carrying no
hand luggage.  John Ashcroft did not create that profile. Osama bin Laden
did.. . .

Ditto for the new FBI guidelines announced last week. Most of these allow
agents to do what Americans already believe they're allowed to do:  Surf the
Net, enter a mosque, start tracking people who might be terrorists.  Yet no
sooner had Mr. Ashcroft spoken, than critics started talking about J. Edgar
Hoover spying on Martin Luther King.

"Leaving aside that the Attorney General who authorized the King wiretaps was
Bobby kennedy, liberals want to have it both ways. They want to complain that
the FBI and CIA didn't connect the dots before September 11.  But they also
want to keep the rules and restrictions that ensured that the FBI and CIA will
never be allowed to connect those dots.

"Mr. Ashcroft has been through this before.  Last autumn he was raked over
the coals for insisting that the Justice Department be allowed to monitor
meetings between 16 federal inmates and their attorneys, on the grounds of
preventing another attack.  At the time his concern was ridiculed.  But the
critics have had little to say since attorney Lynne Stewart, representing
convicted terrorist Sheik Omar, was indicted on charges she conspired to relay
messages to his radical followers.

""We are an open country," Mr. Ashcroft told reporters Wednesday.  "We welcome
people from around the world to visit a land which we believe is a blessed
land. We will continue to greet our international neighbors with goodwill.
Asking some neighbors and visitors to verify their activities while they are
here is fully consistent with that outlook."

"Most Americans seem to have figured that out, which is why the political
hysteria raised about Mr. Ashcroft's proposals always seems to fade after a
few days.  Maybe that's what really bothers Andy Rooney.

response 64 of 67:

Jun 15 01:43 UTC 2002

re:  "There, acts of terrorism are in general more common"  True, and many
are directed at Jews, which, as we all know, really don't count.

response 66 of 67:

Jun 17 14:53 UTC 2002

Re #60: Still, when the FBI has had the power to infiltrate domestic
political groups in the past, they haven't exactly shown good judgement in
using it.  Do you really think they'll do better now?  Or will we just see
them wasting time investigating people with politically unpopular opinions
that aren't a threat to anyone?