Able Danger: Weekend Update

I know many people are worried about how Hurrican Katrina is going to affect the Gulf Coast, but there is other news out there. Captain Ed has been pulling yeoman's work in pulling together the disparate threads of Able Danger over the weekend. In a second posting Captain Ed wonders whether we're looking in the right direction (at the suggestion of one of Ed's readers).

She read Countdown to Crisis by Kenneth Timmerman (a book which I have but have not yet read), a book which focuses on the nascent nuclear threat from Iran. However, after reading about Able Danger here at CQ and the numerous questions it raises about our understanding of al-Qaeda, Ginetta noticed that a passage at the beginning of Chapter 24 might connect Able Danger not just to al-Qaeda but to Iran as well.

Recall that Captain Scott Phillpott went to the 9/11 Commission about a week before Philip Zelikow wrote the report to again inform the staffers about the identification of Mohammed Atta in early 2000, and being turned away. In what seems to be a strange coincidence, Kenneth Timmerman describes a commotion among the Commission staff at exactly the same time.

So, should we be looking at Iranian involvement on top of Iraqi involvement? Quite possibly, but the fact that we're questioning all aspects of the Commission's report suggests that the Commission failed in its obligations.

UPDATE:
Captain Ed also notes that Tom McGuire of JustOneMinute suggests that Shaffer might have a credibility problem, but Ed suggests that McGuire doesn't consider the evidence in toto.

The interesting thing to note about the Able Danger story is that the high profile bloggers who are pushing the story are also the same bloggers who posit that things aren't necessarily what they seem. They link to contrary bloggers and those who suggest alternative scenarios that fit the facts as they currently stand.

We do not see this enough in the mainstream media.

UPDATE II:
Was Able Danger killed because it suggested that the Clinton Administration was spying on political opponents? That seems farfetched, but Podhoretz suggests that might be one of the reasons that the Able Danger crew got canned. He points to a story in the New York Post that suggests that Able Danger pointed to numerous prominent Americans as potential spies for the Chinese government.

Cyber-sleuths working for a Pentagon intelligence unit that reportedly identified some of the 9/11 hijackers before the attack were fired by military officials, after they mistakenly pinpointed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other prominent Americans as potential security risks, The Post has learned. The private contractors working for the counter-terrorism unit Able Danger lost their jobs in May 2000. The firings following a series of analyses that Pentagon lawyers feared were dangerously close to violating laws banning the military from spying on Americans, sources said.

This points to one of the dangers of data mining - pulling disparate information and generating links that might not be true. Yet, it is that capability that makes data mining an important tool. It is the human factor in discerning the kinds of data being culled through data mining that makes the process work (or fail).

Stay tuned.

UPDATE III:
Check out the stuff other bloggers have been saying: The Strata-Sphere, Weapons Of Mass Discussion, Let Freedom Ring, Boxer Watch, What Attitude Problem, Intel Dump, Flopping Aces, and JunkYard Blog. Just keep scrolling.

UPDATE IV:
QT Monster is quickly becoming a clearinghouse for Able Danger related information (HT Ace of Spades). Just keep scrolling.