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Title: National Security Whistleblowers Hearing
Source: Anti War
URL Source: http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P2641
Published: Feb 11, 2006
Author: Sibel Edmonds
Post Date: 2006-02-11 10:31:39 by robin
Keywords: Whistleblowers, National, Security
Views: 159
Comments: 20

National Security Whistleblowers Hearing

Via Sibel Edmonds:

February 9, 2006

Greetings,

The hearing on National Security Whistleblowers by the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats & International Relations (Chairman: Christopher Shays) is set to go. The list of witnesses on three panels includes: Professor William Weaver (NSWBC), POGO, GAP, Mark Zaid (WB Attorney); DOJ-IG, DOD-IG, DOE-IG; Russ Tice (NSWBC member, NSA), Tony Shaffer (DIA), Mike German (FBI), and Major Provance (Army).

We are working on getting coverage by C-SPAN; we’ll keep you posted on that.

You are strongly encouraged to attend; this is the first hearing dealing exclusively with National Security whistleblowers. Here is the information:

Hearing Date: Tuesday, February 14

Hearing Time: 1:00 pm

Hearing Location: Rayburn House Office Building, Room #2154

For those of you who are planning to attend, we will gather in front of the Rayburn House Building Cafeteria (First Floor) at 12:00 p.m.

We will issue our press advisory on Monday, February 13; and will be available to answer questions by the press after the hearing.

Best,
Sibel Edmonds
http://www.nswbc.org

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#1. To: robin (#0)

This hearing is being reaired now on C-Span 1

Zipporah  posted on  2006-02-18   10:19:35 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#2. To: All (#1)

There is a theme among all these whistleblowers.. it is 9/11 AND Phil Zelikow with the exception of Sgt. Samuel Provance!!.. this reveals complicity and a huge coverup!

Here is some background on those who testified:

(German)Report: FBI mishandled counterterrorism case

By Chris Strohm cstrohm@govexec.com The Justice Department's inspector general has found that FBI agents mishandled a counterterrorism case in 2002, falsified records to cover up their mistakes and retaliated against a whistleblower for exposing the problems.

The IG's draft report on the case -- obtained by Government Executive -- also sheds rare light on problems with how the FBI internally handled allegations from the whistleblower, then-special agent Michael German.

But in another twist, German remains critical of the IG despite the report. He contends IG officials distorted some facts and failed to fully investigate whether the bureau missed an opportunity to infiltrate a terrorist conspiracy. He has asked the IG to do a more complete investigation before issuing a final report.

Congressional aides now are reviewing the situation to determine what action they should take, not only in relation to the counterterrorism case and subsequent cover-up, but also with regard to how the FBI and inspector general responded to German's allegations. Options under consideration include writing letters to the FBI and to the inspector general, and calling officials to Capitol Hill for briefings.

The incident could have far-reaching implications for the FBI, which made counterterrorism its top priority after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and publicly pledged to protect whistleblowers.

The FBI and the Justice IG declined to comment for this story.

The Tampa Case

In January 2002 - just four months after 9/11 - the FBI began investigating the possibility that a U.S. right-wing extremist group and an overseas Islamic terrorist organization were joining forces to launder money and funnel it to terrorists abroad.

A meeting that month between an FBI informant and a person with suspected links to terrorism in Orlando, Fla., indicated that such a conspiracy was in the works, prompting the bureau's Tampa Division to launch a formal counterterrorism investigation, the IG report stated.

In March 2002, the Tampa Division asked German, a seasoned special agent, to go undercover in the investigation. During the next few months, however, German found widespread problems with how the investigation was being managed.

He also discovered that the informant had violated FBI policy during the January meeting by leaving a recording device unattended. The informant did not have permission to do that, and the violation meant that parts of the meeting could not be used in the investigation.

German formally filed his whistleblower complaint in a letter to his supervisors in September 2002.

IG On the Case

The inspector general concluded in a draft 40-page report that the Tampa Division mismanaged the investigation.

The draft report, completed in mid-November, stated that the case agent in charge of the probe failed to prepare reports and document investigative activities in a timely manner. The IG also found that the case agent acted improperly by backdating FBI reports. The agent began adding false dates to reports after German wrote his September 2002 letter, the inspectors found.

The IG found that supervisors in the Tampa Division were aware of problems with the investigation but did not take prompt corrective action. And the IG found that dates on at least three documents were falsified using correction fluid. The IG said, however, it could not conclude who falsified those forms.

The IG concluded that FBI agent Jorge Martinez, who served as chief of the bureau's Undercover and Sensitive Operations Unit from 2001 until 2004, had retaliated against German for raising the allegations by excluding him from training programs.

Internal Confusion

The IG report also highlights a complicated and, at times, messy process inside the bureau in response to German's allegations, including a lack of coordination between offices responsible for investigating and resolving complaints.

The Tampa Division and the FBI's Inspection Division both conducted internal reviews into German's charges. The Inspection Division is responsible for ensuring the bureau follows its own rules and conducts investigations properly.

German also met with representatives from the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, which is responsible for investigating and adjudicating allegations of criminal conduct and serious misconduct by FBI employees. OPR, however, declined to investigate German's allegations, according to the IG report.

The Tampa Division and the Inspection Division both concluded that the agent in charge of the counterterrorism case failed to prepare reports and document investigative activities in a timely manner.

Only the Inspection Division recommended disciplinary action against the case agent. The FBI did not act on this recommendation until February 2004, when the bureau placed the agent under a "developmental plan," the IG stated. The Inspection Division also concluded that Tampa managers failed to take necessary corrective action, but did not recommend any punishment.

Neither review reached conclusions on whether the case agent had falsified dates on reports. The IG noted confusion between the Inspection Division and OPR on the matter. Members of the Inspection Division team said they thought OPR already had investigated whether the case agent was falsifying dates. But OPR officials said they thought the Inspection Division team would investigate that issue and report any findings to them.

Managers in the Tampa Division also told FBI headquarters that the January 2002 meeting between the informant and the person with suspected terrorism links was not recorded, the IG found. But German had a partial transcript from the recording of the meeting, which he showed to OPR.

On the same day that German showed the transcript, the Tampa Division issued a clarification saying the meeting was indeed recorded and that FBI policy had been violated by the informant, the IG stated. German said he suspects that somebody within OPR tipped off the Tampa Division that he had a transcript.

The IG concluded that OPR should have investigated German's allegations, as well as the circumstances surrounding the clarification on the recording.

Whistleblower's Critique

In a 26-page response to the draft IG report, German noted the significance of some of the findings.

"These are important findings that demonstrate a dangerous lack of internal controls within the FBI that calls the integrity of every FBI investigation into question," he wrote. "The administration, Congress and the American public should be gravely concerned about these findings under the current national security threat situation."

But German, who resigned from the bureau in 2004, also was highly critical of some of the inspector general's work. He contended that parts of the investigation weren't thorough. The IG also took too long to do its investigation, he argued.

"The failure of the OIG to properly address this matter and to protect me from retaliation compelled me to resign from the FBI in order to bring this case to the attention of members of Congress and the American public, and only that public pressure compelled the OIG to act," German wrote.

He also maintained that he was retaliated against in more ways than the IG found. He asked the IG to re-evaluate its conclusion with regard to retaliation.

One congressional aide noted that German has meticulously documented his allegations, and is not seeking any compensation or reinstatement. "Frankly, he's one of the most credible whistleblowers I've ever seen," the aide said.

Terrorism Nexus?

One of the biggest areas of dispute between the FBI, IG and German is whether the Tampa case actually involved a terrorist plot.

The Tampa Division claimed in late 2002 that it could not find a "viable" terrorism connection. The IG and Inspection Division also said they did not find evidence of links to terrorism in the case.

German, however, said there was an "extraordinary amount of evidence" in FBI records to show a terrorism connection. He said it was only after he raised his allegations that Tampa managers argued that there was no link to terrorism.

German criticized the IG for failing to conduct an independent evaluation to determine if there was a terrorism connection. He asked the IG to either conduct such an investigation of case files before the report is final, or acknowledge in the report that it did not investigate whether there was a terrorism connection.

"The refusal to undertake an independent review . . . seriously undermines the integrity of this OIG report," German wrote. "More importantly, however, the OIG refusal to look at the evidence directly affects the national security of the United States and our allies."

A Public Plea

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller issued a memo in support of whistleblowers.

"The freedom to expose any impropriety within the bureau, without suffering reprisal, is fundamental to our ability to maintain high standards of organizational performance and conduct and to expeditiously root out inefficiency and malfeasance," Mueller wrote. "This critical freedom cannot be impaired by fear or reprisal or intimidation."

More than four years since Mueller issued the memo, German said the FBI still does not have adequate protection for whistleblowers and runs the risk of losing valuable, experienced agents, such as himself.

"There's nobody that wants the FBI to reform more than the agents out there doing the work, but unfortunately the way the system's set up they can't do anything about it," he said. "What I hope happens with all of this is that the public realizes there are still enormous problems with the way the FBI handles counterterrorism and compels Congress to reform the FBI, because it won't reform itself. Period."

************

Tice:

Alleged reprisals

In early 2001, Tice first reported his suspicions about a young woman he worked with at the DIA whom he believed to be a Chinese spy. He claimed that the woman voiced sympathies for China, traveled extensively abroad and displayed affluence beyond her means. Tice said he "basically got blown off by the counterintelligence office at D.I.A.", but he continued to push the issue until he was transferred to the NSA in 2002.

In April 2003, while Tice was still working at the NSA, an FBI investigation into a Chinese double agent in Los Angeles named Katrina Leung had become international news. She had been receiving classified information from two FBI agents. These revelations of Chinese spying prompted Tice to raise his concerns again.

In a 'secure' e-mail message to the DIA counterintelligence office, he demanded to know what had happened as a result of the 2001 report he had filed outlining his suspicions about his former co-worker (not to be confused with Leung.) "At the time, I sent an e-mail to Mr. James (the DIA official handling his complaint) questioning the competence of counterintelligence at FBI," Tice wrote to the Inspector General of the Pentagon's Civil Reprisal Investigation unit, which investigated his 2003 complaint. In the e-mail, he mentioned that he suspected that he was the subject of electronic monitoring.

In April, 2003, shortly after the e-mail message, Tice was ordered to undertake a psychological evaluation, which he believed was retaliatory. The Defense Department psychologist concluded that Tice suffered from psychotic paranoia. "He did this even though he admitted that I did not show any of the normal indications of someone suffering from paranoia," Tice said in a statement to the Inspector General.

Two months later, in June, 2003, the NSA suspended his security clearances and ordered him to tasks such as maintaining the agency's vehicles, pumping gas, and driving officials around. By April of 2005, after 14 months of paid leave, Tice was relegated to unloading furniture at the NSA's warehouses and cleaning them. [edit]

Whistleblower

Tice was terminated by the NSA in May, 2005, just days after publicly urging Congress to pass stronger protections for federal intelligence agency whistleblowers facing retaliation. In September, 2005, the inspector general issued an unclassified report that found "no evidence" to support Tice's claims.

In December, 2005, Tice alleged the NSA and the DIA were engaged in unlawful and unconstitutional conduct against the American people, and helped spark a national controversy. Tice stated that the activities involved the Director of the NSA, the Deputies Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations, and the U.S. Secretary of Defense, and were conducted via very highly sensitive intelligence programs and operations known as Special Access Programs (SAP), more commonly referred to as 'black world' programs, or 'black ops'. Tice was a technical intelligence specialist dealing with SAP programs and operations at both NSA and DIA.

On December 16, the New York Times revealed that the NSA was engaged in a clandestine eavesdropping program that bypassed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. Media reports on January 10, 2006, indicated Tice was a source of the Times leak, which revealed that, under the direction of the White House and without requisite court orders, the NSA has been intercepting international communications to and from points within the US.

But while Tice was a source for the Times story, he was not himself part of the classified NSA program; instead, he took part in space systems communications, non-communications signals (such as radar emissions), electronic warfare, satellite control, telemetry, sensors, and special capability systems.

In a letter dated December 18, 2005, to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and to Senator Pat Roberts, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he said he was prepared to testify about the SAP programs, under the provisions of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act. It is not known, however, what the testimony would specifically involve. While it has been assumed that the problem concerned the electronic surveillance of Americans, Tice told a reporter for the January 13, 2006 issue of Reason magazine that "there's no way the programs I want to talk to Congress about should be public ever, unless maybe in 200 years they want to declassify them. You should never learn about it; no one at the Times should ever learn about these things. But that same mechanism that allows you to have a program like this at an extremely high, sensitive classification level could also be used to mask illegality, like spying on Americans."

In a press release issued by the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition on December 22, 2005, Tice explained the public aspect of his charges, stating that:

"As a Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) officer it is continually drilled into us that the very first law chiseled in the SIGINT equivalent of the Ten Commandments (USSID-18) is that Thou shall not spy on American persons without a court order from FISA. This law is continually drilled into each NSA intelligence officer throughout his or her career. The very people that lead the National Security Agency have violated this holy edict of SIGINT."

On December 23, 2005, the Austin American-Statesman, reported Tice's allegations that spying on Americans may involve a massive computer system known as ECHELON, which is able to search and filter hundreds of thousands of phone calls and e-mails in a matter of seconds.

On January 3, 2006, Tice appeared on the national radio/tv show Democracy Now and said he wants to testify before Congress. Tice said "I'm involved with some certain aspects of the intelligence community, which are very closely held, and I believe I have seen some things that are illegal."

On January 5, 2006, the Washington Times reported that Tice wants to testify before Congress about electronic intelligence programs that he asserts were carried out illegally by the NSA and DIA. "I intend to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency and with the Defense Intelligence Agency," Tice stated in letters, dated December 16, 2005 and disclosed by the Times.

In a letter dated January 10, 2006, Renee Seymour, Director of the NSA Special Access Programs Central Office, warned Tice that members of neither the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, nor of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had clearance to receive the classified information about the SAP's that Tice was prepared to provide. An article by Chris Strohm in Government Executive says that some Congresional staffers believe that Tice "comes with baggage".

In reaction to Tice's claims, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, two prominent figures in conservative media, launched an offensive against his credibility. On his Fox News broadcast of January 11, 2006, O'Reilly said that Tice should be jailed for his whistleblowing activity. But Tice told ABC News that "As far as I'm concerned, as long as I don't say anything that's classified, I'm not worried... We need to clean up the intelligence community. We've had abuses, and they need to be addressed."

On February 14, 2006, UPI reports Tice testified to the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations that the Special Access Program might have violated millions of Americans' Constitutional rights, but that neither the committee members nor the NSA inspector general had clearance to review the program.

*****************

Robert Levernier:

Even after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, security is inadequate at some of the facilities that house America's nuclear weapons

February 16, 2004

Photo: Richard Levernier conducted mock terrorist assault drills for the Department of Energy for the years leading up to 9/11. (Photo: CBS)

"If you understand the consequences associated with the loss of that kind of material, it would make the World Trade Center event of Sept. 11 pale in comparison." — Richard Levernier

(CBS) Of all the places in the United States that you'd think would be prepared to defend against a terrorist attack, the nine nuclear weapons factories and research labs - operated by the Department of Energy - would be at the top of the list.

But a recent investigation by the government's General Accounting Office found that the Department of Energy may not be up to the task – and that security at these sites is inadequate.

Richard Levernier, a senior Department of Energy nuclear security specialist, whose job it was to test how well-prepared America's nuclear weapons sites were to defend against a terrorist attack, says security is not only inadequate, but some facilities are at high risk.

“And when you're dealing with nuclear -- assets in terms of weapons and materials, operating at high risk is unacceptable,” says Levernier, who ran annual performance tests in the years leading up to Sept. 11.

These were tests in which U.S. Special Forces, playing the role of terrorists, armed with simulated weapons, would try to penetrate the facilities, steal imitation nuclear material, and then escape. The security guards there were expected to stop the attackers.

“Overall, the test results that I was responsible for showed a 50 percent failure rate,” says Levernier. “If you understand the consequences associated with the loss of that kind of material, it would make the World Trade Center event of Sept. 11 pale in comparison.”

Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), oversees the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons facilities -- where some 10,000 nuclear warheads and the tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium used to manufacture them are stored.

He calls the state of security at those facilities “perfectly acceptable,” and says that he’s comfortable that these nuclear weapons facilities are safe.

Is there a problem defending against terrorists? “'Safe' and 'no problem' are not the same thing,” says Brooks. “I am convinced that these facilities are secure and that nuclear material is not at risk. That's not the same thing as saying the there aren't a lot of things that we're working on, because this is a very difficult and demanding business.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ But to Levernier, "difficult and demanding" is no excuse for the fact that the mock terrorists were able to penetrate nuclear weapons sites half the time -- even though the security guards knew exactly what day and virtually what time to expect the attacks.

When Levernier conducted an unannounced inspection of security guards one January weekend at a nuclear weapons plant in Colorado, he says he was stunned by what he found.

“We found that the patrols that should be patrolling and moving around the facility were not observed,” says Levernier. “Upon further investigation, we found that the vast majority of the patrols were in a facility watching the Super Bowl game.”

The Department of Energy has admitted that security guards at other nuclear facilities have recently left front gates wide open, and failed repeatedly to respond to emergency alarms in top-security areas. Some have actually been caught sleeping on the job.

“People should know that the Department of Energy facilities cannot withstand a full terrorist attack,” says Levernier. “I mean, a realistic attack. Serious, state-sponsored, for business.”

What does Brooks think of this? “These are training exercises, so we don’t think that simplistic measures of won or lost are correct,” he says. “I don’t want to suggest that we're entirely happy with the results of all of these things. If you never do a test that shows a problem, you are not doing a rigorous enough test.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Since 9/11, 60 Minutes has learned that terrorists have penetrated multiple layers of security on at least three occasions at the Y-12 nuclear complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the country's primary facility for processing weapons-grade uranium; and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was developed.

The Department of Energy says it is now taking steps to bolster security, including more performance testing, installing more razor wire, better lighting, motion detection sensors and other new technologies, as well as the hiring of more guards.

But Matthew Zipoli, who's a member of a SWAT team of security guards at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory just outside San Francisco, and vice president of the Guards Union, says that's not enough.

“It’s all window dressing. There's really no substance to the security. It's what looks good from the outside,” says Zipoli.

He adds that guards are required to participate in annual counterterrorism drills with neighboring police departments, but said it never happened on his watch.

“1996 was the last time local law enforcement agencies participated in exercises with Livermore Laboratories,” says Zipoli, who adds that he doesn’t think he’s been adequately trained to perform his job.

“We haven't been trained on the proper skills to get past an enemy. We don't have the proper equipment, so no, we don't have the proper training. And that degrades the effectiveness of our force.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ What's more, terrorists who might want to get into a nuclear facility may not even have to fight their way in. Hundreds of master keys and electronic key cards - some of which provide access to classified areas - have disappeared.

The Energy Department's inspector general found that officials at Lawrence Livermore lab, which holds top secret information about the country's nuclear arsenal, failed to immediately report their missing keys.

And at Sandia National Laboratories, near Albuquerque, N.M., the locks have just been changed -- three years after keys there were reported missing. But this is something that Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who's been leading the charge in Congress to improve nuclear security, finds hard to believe.

“If you were going to have your house keys stolen, you would change your locks right away, wouldn't you? It's unconscionable that after three years, locks had not been changed,” says Grassley. “In that three-year period of time, how many times were those doors entered, and our classified information compromised?”

“I am concerned that bad guys could have had those keys. We don't know for sure if they did. But, the fact that they were lost, and there wasn't the proper concern about it, is a bigger problem,” adds Grassley. “Because it -- once again, is evidence of people at these labs not taking their job at security seriously.”

“I find it inexplicable and unacceptable that people don't take them seriously,” says Brooks. “All I can tell you is they do now.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ As the Department of Energy's senior safety official at Los Alamos, Chris Steele has seen his share of problems. He's responsible for making sure that the lab's operations do not put workers or the public at undue risk from an accident at a nuclear weapons plant.

What kind of grade would he give them?

“I'm giving -- in the process of giving them an F -- because they've had systematic and systemic nuclear safety violations,” says Steele.

In 2003, Steele says he cited Los Alamos for an unprecedented 45 major nuclear safety violations: “Forty-five shows that their normal mode of operation is to have violations. That they view these as glitches, that there's no sense of urgency in fixing them. And they could be precursors to disaster.”

For example, Steele says Los Alamos came up with a flawed set of safety guidelines that said that in the event of a large explosion at its radioactive liquid waste facility, the subsequent fire in thousands of gallons of nuclear waste would be extinguished by the sprinkler system. The sprinkler system there would extinguish the estimated hundreds of thousands of gallons of nuclear waste, which would catch fire.

“Under the tons of rubble, the sprinkler head would rise up somehow and put out the fire. Of course, this is impossible, for a sprinkler to work under tons of rubble,” says Steele.

After pointing out this and other safety hazards to his bosses, Steele was suspended, allegedly for breaching security in an email exchange with his co-workers at Los Alamos.

Matthew Zipoli, the Lawrence Livermore security guard, was fired after he allegedly organized a walkout of his fellow guards.

And as for Richard Levernier, who ran the mock terrorist drills, he was demoted after giving unclassified information about his security concerns to a newspaper.

All of them claim it was retaliation, which the Department of Energy denies. But it turns out many of the allegations they told us have been substantiated by various federal government agencies.

Zipoli has since been reinstated, and Steele was cleared and is back on the job. Over at the Department of Energy, Linton Brooks says they take all incidents and allegations of lax security seriously.

“All of these concerns have been outlined in reports since 1997. And they continue to occur as recently as just in the last few months. Why is that?” Bradley asked Brooks.

”Because this is a complex system. Because there are always going to be problems, and you have to continue to deal with those problems,” says Brooks.

“And what we're trying to do is to make sure that when you're sitting here with my successor, that you don't have repetitions of these problems. Because we've got a long-term system to fix it.”

Just last week, the Department of Energy's inspector general found that security guards at the Y-12 weapons plant have been cheating on mock terrorist drills for the past 20 years, claiming they were successful in defending their facility when in fact, in some cases, they were not.

In response to continuing security problems, Brooks and the Department of Energy are conducting special inspections of all nine nuclear weapons sites.

******************

Lt. Col. Anthony Schaffer

August 17, 2005

Lawyers stopped Army unit sharing 9/11 fears

By Sam Knight, Times Online
""

A secret military unit repeatedly tried to arrange meetings with the FBI in the year before the September 11 attacks to warn them about the men who went on to lead the hijackers, an former intelligence officer has said.

In an interview with The New York Times and Fox News, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, an Army intelligence officer, said that he tried to organise three meetings with the Washington field office of the FBI to share the identities of Mohamed Atta and three other future hijackers in late 2000 and early 2001.

According to Colonel Shaffer, a small, highly secret intelligence unit known as Able Danger had used data-sorting techniques to identify Atta and his accomplices as possible US-based terrorists by mid-2000, but military lawyers prevented the team from sharing their information.

Colonel Shaffer said that lawyers working for the Special Operations Command of the Defence Department, cancelled the meetings because they believed that the surveillance techniques used by Able Danger could be understood as a violation of the rights of people who were living legally in the US.

"I was at the point of near insubordination over the fact that this was something important, that this was something that should have been pursued," Colonel Shaffer told The New York Times and Fox News.

"It was because of the chain of command saying we're not going to pass on information - if something goes wrong, we'll get blamed," said Colonel Shaffer, whose job was to liaise between Able Danger and other agencies, rather than analyse the intelligence himself.

Colonel Shaffer, 42, is the first intelligence officer to publicly identify himself in the growing controversy over how information gathered on the 9/11 hijackers was not shared by American government agencies or passed on to the 9/11 Commission which investigated the attacks.

According to Colonel Shaffer and Congressman Curt Weldon, the Republican politician who has brought to light the work of Able Danger, the full extent of the unit's findings were not passed on to the 9/11 Commission even after members of the Commission met Colonel Shaffer in Afghanistan in 2003.

Last week, the leaders of the Commission said that the panel had concluded that the intelligence programme "did not turn out to be historically significant."

But in his interview on Monday, Colonel Shaffer challenged that view, saying: "I would implore the 9/11 commission to support a follow-on investigation to ascertain what the real truth is. I do believe the 9/11 Commission should have done that job: figuring out what went wrong with Able Danger."

A former member of the Commission, Richard Ben-Veniste, the former Watergate prosecutor, yesterday called on the Pentagon hand over all the information that the Army possessed about Atta and the other hijackers.

"If these assertions are credible," said Mr Ben-Veniste, "the Pentagon would need to explain why it was that the 9/11 commissioners were not provided this information despite requests for all information regarding Able Danger."

The Defence Department has not disputed Colonel Shaffer's account of the work of Able Danger and its attempts to share its findings.

The Pentagon said in a statement that it was "working to gain more clarity on this issue" and that "it's too early to comment on findings related to the program identified as Able Danger." ************** Sgt. Samuel Provance (coverup re Abu Ghraib:

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/galland.php?articleid=3529

Sgt. Samuel Provance sealed his fate as a soldier on May 21, 2004, when he went on record with ABC News. His experiences as a U.S. Army junior noncommissioned officer since committing one of the greatest imaginable mistakes in service – speaking out to the news media – have left him dazed, afraid, wondering and confused.

Today, finally, Sgt. Provance is in Washington, D.C., upon the request of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D, Mass.). Kennedy invited Provance to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee to hear of his experiences on the ground at the Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in Iraq.

The road to Washington for this young Army NCO has not been pleasant. It has been a case study in how the Army deals with soldiers who struggle with conscience, when morality and the sense to "do the right thing" win out over going along.

What did Sam Provance do? He told the truth! In so doing he has indicted, as we come to learn, his military chain of command and many others who have been blamed for the "animal house" conditions of the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

One of the most guilty of all is his own brigade commander, Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the embattled 205th Military Intelligence (MI) Brigade, headquartered in Wiesbaden Germany.

Since publicly telling the truth, Provance has experienced a number of incidents in which his Army superiors have attempted to break his will, embarrass and belittle him in the eyes of his peers, intimidate him to silence. The actual impact has been to further tar-brush the true guilty parties.

Sgt. Provance has had the guts to speak from his heart and say that he believed that the Army was involved in a cover-up as to the extent of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. He also told ABC News that the sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib began as a technique ordered by military intelligence interrogators. Although he had not personally witnessed this abuse, he certainly heard the internal scuttlebutt.

In fact, one evening earlier this year, Provance was driven home by Spc. Benjamin Heidenreich, also of the 205th M.I. Brigade. Heidenreich told Provance that he, Heidenreich, and Lt. Col. Steven Jordan – head of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib – had teamed up to beat up an Iraqi detainee at the prison.

Provance had served in the facility with Heidenreich during the period when the alleged abuse and total chaos prevailed in 2003. As an intelligence soldier with a top secret security clearance, it was Provance's job to administer a highly classified MI computer communication and data retrieval system.

This past spring Sgt. Provance found himself back at his home station in Weisbaden, Germany, with the 302nd MI Battalion. After he read Major Gen. Antonio Taguba's Article 15-6 investigation report, Provance became morally committed to exposing an Army whitewash and cover-up. He is not the only person so committed.

Even when Maj. Gen. George Fay was appointed to investigate further on April 23, 2004, examining the role that Military Intelligence personnel may have played in the abuses, Provance justifiably suspected that Fay's findings would sweep the dirt much deeper under the proverbial carpet. He had good reason to believe this after a face-to-face meeting with Major Gen. Fay.

When Fay interviewed Provance regarding what he saw, heard, or witnessed at Abu Ghraib, the young NCO stated that the general seemed interested in only the actions of the military police (MP) and not of the MI interrogators at the facility. It would be later on that same day that Heidenreich revealed to Provance the instances where MI personnel had abused prisoners.

In an attempt to further intimidate and ultimately muzzle Sgt. Provance, Fay threatened to take action against him for failing to report what he had seen or heard of, sooner. Provance explained to the general that he said nothing because he had no firsthand knowledge of prisoner abuse, and that he had also feared that he would be ostracized for speaking out.

The sergeant would eventually become intimately familiar with what ostracized really meant when the chain of command got serious about it.

Fay gave Provance a gag order at this point and discouraged him from speaking to anyone or testifying at any time. Fay told Provance to keep his mouth shut about these things if he valued his career.

As Provance and I both see it, keeping Provance silent would enable Fay to further shift the focus from the culpable MI personnel to the target audience of MPs that had already been portrayed by Army generals as "the real bad apples."

The final release of the Fay and Schlesinger reports would bear out Provance's concern. The reports found that MI interrogators and many other MI personnel were knee-deep in inappropriate actions, neglect, criminal malfeasance and dereliction of duty at the highest levels.

Following his first interview with Fay, and considering Fay's threats, Provance essentially considered himself the one who was inevitably going to carry some burden of punishment for "something" that the Army would devise. Thus, Provance felt that he had nothing to lose, and maybe justice and the truth to gain.

Convinced that the truth would never come out otherwise, Provance resolved to expose the cover-up to the media.

On May 18, Provance told ABC, "I feel like I'm being punished for being honest." With personal introspection, Provance noted, "If I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything, I don't know what you're talking about, then my life would be just fine right now."

This was not good enough for Sgt. Sam Provance. He was raised by a different standard. He is an honest man.

Shortly after Provance talked to ABC and the stories broke in the media, I established personal contact with the sergeant and have maintained close contact to this day. I can confirm that the very predictable reprisals against Provance began to happen very quickly.

The day after the ABC story was published, Sgt. Provance's chain of command (headed by Col. Pappas), suspended his access to classified material. A military intelligence soldier without access to classified material is virtually worthless in his or her profession.

Next, his chain of command administratively "flagged" the sergeant. This is akin to setting a soldier's feet firmly in a vat of concrete as far as any personnel action is concerned.

Sgt. Provance was now in a command-imposed limbo. His chain of command told him that he might face prosecution because his comments to ABC were not "in the national interest."

Provance was then assigned duties as a helper in the unit's NBC (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical) room. There, when left alone, he would be personally responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sensitive accountable items and equipment designed to protect soldiers from chemical attacks in battle. (This is not usually where unreliable soldiers should be stationed for daily duties.)

Then on July 23, Sgt. Provance's name appeared in the press again (following an interview months earlier) in a journalistic account of what may be the biggest story of the Iraq war, the torture of Iraqi children.

Report Mainz, a German television station, exposed accusations from the International Red Cross against the United States to the effect that over 100 children are imprisoned in U.S.-controlled detention centers, including Abu Ghraib. "Between January and May of this year, we've registered 107 children, during 19 visits in 6 different detention locations," Red Cross representative Florian Westphal said in the report.

The Red Cross report also delineated eyewitness testimony of the abuse of these children. Provance, who was stationed at Abu Ghraib, told the media that interrogating officers had gotten their hands on a 15- or 16-year-old girl. Military police apparently only stopped the interrogation when the girl was half undressed. A separate incident described a 16-year-old being soaked with water, driven through the cold, smeared with mud, and then presented before his weeping father, who was also a prisoner.

After these came to light, Army CID then went back to work on Provance with a whole new list of questions to be answered such as: "How was the interview with ABC News conducted?" "Did you call them or did they call you?" "How soon after your questioning [by Maj. Gen. Fay] was the interview with the press done?" and "Why did you feel as if the [Taguba] 15-6 was focused more on the MPs instead of MI?"

The summer months went by with the 205th MI Brigade nervously awaiting the results of the Fay report. For almost five months, the much-anticipated report has been thought to be a whitewash of accusations against senior MI officers that have been redirected at lower-ranking soldiers. During this time, political forces in Washington were gathering, and they wanted answers.

On Aug. 13, Sgt. Provance was present at his unit's morning formation. Upon this occasion, his first sergeant, 1st Sgt. William Palenik, seized the opportunity to issue stern warnings to soldiers about talking to the press in light of the anticipated release of the Fay report.

Palenik went on to advise the soldiers that Army Public Affairs would be coming to brief soldiers on how they should handle themselves in the eventuality that they may be queried by the press.

Palenik then seized the opportunity to publicly and insultingly paint an analogy of a soldier at Abu Ghraib whose "only duty is to turn screws, and that such a soldier should only, 'talk about screws,'" while indirectly referring to Provance in front of his contemporaries. During the duty day of Aug. 13, numerous other soldiers asked Provance about his "screwing responsibilities."

In view of a command climate rife with liars, self-aggrandizing and self-preserving leaders, Palenik's actions and his smart mouth are censurable at a minimum.

On Aug. 19, Provance was informed by his platoon sergeant that he would become the noncommissioned officer in charge of his unit's orderly room. Provance expressed great concern to me and his attorneys at this sudden change of duty positions.

Notwithstanding, during this entire period of time, Provance had come to the attention of many people through the media and his stalwart effort to tell the truth. Largely reliant on the coordination effected by civilian attorney Hardy Vieux, the Senate Armed Services Committee requested Sgt. Provance's appearance before the panel on Sept. 1.

A letter from Sen. Kennedy asked Sgt. Provance to be in Washington, D.C., between Sept. 3-17 in order to be available for interviews by Kennedy, his staff, and possibly other members of the Senate and their staffs. The hearings at which Sgt. Provance is requested to testify begin on Thursday, Sept. 9. The lawmakers want the straight truth from Sgt. Provance, no matter who his testimony points to. That is how the system is supposed to work. Provance was scheduled to fly to Washington last week but his chain of command refused to allow him to depart Germany. At this point, it is unknown how high up the chain of command the no-fly order came from, but as of Sunday night (Sept. 5), Provance was still in Germany. According to sources involved in the legal representation of Sgt. Provance, he was due to land at Dulles Airport at 4:00 PM, Monday, Sept. 6, 2004. It appears that despite the Army's best efforts to silence him, Sgt. Sam Provance will finally get to speak the truth, in a forum that the U.S. Army cannot ignore.

Zipporah  posted on  2006-02-18   11:12:37 ET  (1 image) Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#3. To: Zipporah (#2)

Thanks Zip, lots of good info to mull over.

"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell

robin  posted on  2006-02-18   12:31:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#4. To: robin (#3)

This thread is screwed up due to the HTML in one of the links .. I'm watching this on C-Span.. my gawd.. this is unreal what they've done to these people..

Zipporah  posted on  2006-02-18   12:34:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#5. To: Zipporah (#4)

William Weaver just delivered a good rant.

"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell

robin  posted on  2006-02-18   13:27:02 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#6. To: robin (#5)

Yes he did! .. I wonder if this will just be YET another investigation that goes nowhere.. What is happening now is that they're investigating themselves..

It seems as I said a lot of these people are tied to 9/11 and what col Shaffer said about Zelikow was interesting..

Zipporah  posted on  2006-02-18   13:30:00 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#7. To: Zipporah (#6)

These hearings were on Tuesday. Have you seen any MSM coverage? Or even outside MSM coverage?

"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell

robin  posted on  2006-02-18   13:31:09 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#8. To: robin (#7)

yes there has been some..

http://news.google.com/news?q=hearings+on+whistleblowers&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=nn&oi=newsr

Zipporah  posted on  2006-02-18   13:32:19 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#9. To: Zipporah (#8)

Thanks, I'll look at it.

There is wide agreement that the problems have to do with the Executive Branch overreaching into what should be the domain of Congress.

"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell

robin  posted on  2006-02-18   13:38:02 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#10. To: Zipporah (#8)

Zip, out of a total of 30 only ~6 were MSM, not blogs & not about something else. The Sac Bee was one of the few MSM that reported anything.

I find that shocking.

"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell

robin  posted on  2006-02-18   13:41:53 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#11. To: robin (#10)

it is shocking for this is huge.. The testimony's have shown that there is a coverup.. and that there is corruption at the very top.. and it is very telling that there is very little coverage.. The so called liberal press??

Zipporah  posted on  2006-02-18   13:45:10 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#12. To: Zipporah (#11)

Maybe the foreign press will have something. How pathetic.

"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell

robin  posted on  2006-02-18   14:45:47 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#13. To: robin (#12)

Maybe the foreign press will have something. How pathetic.

it is pathetic.. all this testimony ties directly to current events.. the NSA, the Abu Ghraib torture, Able Danger and 9/11.. so this is not something that is on the back burner.

Zipporah  posted on  2006-02-18   14:56:45 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#14. To: robin (#12)

here is Col Schaffer's prepared testimony:

http://www.house.gov/hasc/schedules/2-15-06ShafferTestimony.pdf

Now this is interesting on J. D. Smith:

Civilian Able Danger personnel such as program manager JD Smith are also slated to appear before the Armed Service Committee on the 15th, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone may also be asked to testify.

Smith, who worked as a civilian defense contractor, supplied more details about Able Danger activities in an interview this week, including the revelation that the Able Danger program wasn’t “just doing terrorism and Al Qaeda.”

What else did the advanced data mining operation look into? “We ran stuff on Bosnia, Serbia, drug cartels, China, lots of stuff,” Smith told me. “The point was that no one had ever done anything like this program before, and we were demonstrating that it could in fact be effective. So we were given multiple requests, and worked on a tasked basis. Everything was done off-the premises, on a tasked, daily basis, for a low amount of money. We were doing a really good job for very little money very quickly. My company’s number one customer was the DIA.”

Smith was quick to point out that while he worked on it, Able Danger involved “only open source stuff.” Later, however, after the part of the program Smith worked on was shut down, that may have changed. “In spring 2000, we made charts and some other deliverables relative to terrorism that piqued attention from the Army,” Smith said. “Then we were told that the Defense Department freaked out over ‘U.S. persons’ who were named therein. In short order, they shut us down, cancelled the contract, and confiscated everything we had.”

As reported here earlier, the Able Danger program was later reconstituted at a top secret Raytheon “black” facility in Garland, Texas. “Raytheon re-hired most of the personnel,” Smith recalled, “But not me, since I worked for another company. When I worked on it, we had nothing to do with anything classified. But I suspect that they later intermingled classified with open source in Garland.”

Ironically, while Smith was using revolutionary software to “mine” data and uncover links and patterns connecting possible terrorists, the US Army wasn’t. “I was using proprietary software, and they were using COTS (commercial off the shelf) because they were under funded and had no budget for software,” Smith said. “So every time I had to deliver a report, I had to print out everything on paper and bring over literally boxes of printouts.”

Among the materials he delivered was a copy of a photograph of Mohamed Atta. “We had multiple names for him, and for many others,” Smith said. “I didn’t have time to try to confirm any of them. Any name associated with a picture – and any spelling variants thereof – were attached to the picture.” Few of the pictures had only one name attached, according to Smith. “But our focus wasn’t on the names, it was on the pictures. We clicked on a picture, and then all the names and links came up.”

After 9/11 took place, Smith saw Atta’s picture and thought, “We HAD that guy!” he told me. “I remembered his picture because his face was unique. He had that haunting stare, and his facial structure was unique. I was just happy that we had at least one of the attackers. I assumed US intelligence had all this stuff, and the Atta picture would be enough to get them started. We had all this information and we had turned it over to them.”

But that was then, and this is now. As the fifth anniversary of the attacks approaches, Smith says he’s increasingly worried that all the data he and others on the Able Danger team found was destroyed and may never be found again. “Let me just note that Mohamed Atta was a Tier Three guy - not THAT important in the scale of things,” he concluded. “Sure, we had his picture - but we know where he is now – dead and gone. But what about all the Tier Two and Tier One guys we identified? What about all the pictures of the other, more important people we identified? Where are THEY now? To me, that’s the real danger.”

Zipporah  posted on  2006-02-18   15:02:24 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#15. To: robin (#0)

Few appreciate that under Title 18, it's a felony to NOT report a known felony; the legal term is "Misprision of a Felony."


SKYDRIFTER  posted on  2006-02-18   15:05:55 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#16. To: Zipporah (#14)

Did Schaffer mention that Eliot Spitzer is applying pressure on him? Weldon mentioned it on Fox this past week.

Jethro Tull  posted on  2006-02-18   15:07:07 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#17. To: Zipporah (#14)

Ironically, while Smith was using revolutionary software to “mine” data and uncover links and patterns connecting possible terrorists, the US Army wasn’t. “I was using proprietary software, and they were using COTS (commercial off the shelf) because they were under funded and had no budget for software,” Smith said. “So every time I had to deliver a report, I had to print out everything on paper and bring over literally boxes of printouts.”

This is dangerous and it's how the Bush admin is running things intentionally.

BTW, did you see the thread on the Israeli companies now associated with U.S. broadband companies? 5,000 Israeli are working in Atlanta, all s/w, not unlike the s/w he's talking about.

"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell

robin  posted on  2006-02-18   15:08:33 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#18. To: Jethro Tull (#16)

Did Schaffer mention that Eliot Spitzer is applying pressure on him? Weldon mentioned it on Fox this past week.

He mentioned Spritzer but I dont recall the context.

Zipporah  posted on  2006-02-18   15:08:51 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#19. To: SKYDRIFTER (#15)

Few appreciate that under Title 18, it's a felony to NOT report a known felony; the legal term is "Misprision of a Felony."

Damned if they do and damned if they don't. I suspect most do not now, they know which side their bread is buttered on.

"War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent." ~George Orwell

robin  posted on  2006-02-18   15:10:12 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

#20. To: robin (#17)

This is dangerous and it's how the Bush admin is running things intentionally.

BTW, did you see the thread on the Israeli companies now associated with U.S. broadband companies? 5,000 Israeli are working in Atlanta, all s/w, not unlike the s/w he's talking about.

it's obvious it's intentional..this brings to mind the BS Rumsfeld said about al Qaeda having better technology than the US..

NO I didnt see that thread..

Zipporah  posted on  2006-02-18   15:11:53 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

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