Intel Officials Report Zazi's Al Qaeda Connections

How did Najibullah Zazi come to the attention of the FBI in the first place? This article sheds little light, but what it leaves out is key:

The CIA learned about Najibullah Zazi through one of its sources and alerted domestic agencies, including the FBI, the officials said.

US intelligence first became aware of Zazi in late August, a senior administration official said. Interest in Zazi surfaced just weeks before prosecutors claim he was planning to strike on the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The intelligence and administration officials declined to offer more details on the operative.

The fact that intelligence officials learned of Zazi through a CIA source sheds more light on the government's claim that the charges against him are part of a broader, international case.

It would appear that Zazi's communications were intercepted at some point, whether he was outside the US at the time or not isn't clear. If he was inside the US and someone from al Qaeda was communicating with him, that means that FISA and the Patriot Act as amended by Congress was invoked; in particular it relates to the interception of foreign communications into the US, which was one of the areas that civil libertarians were so concerned with. It would also explain why Congress was alerted to the investigation and subsequent arrest of Zazi.

So how is the Obama Administration handling this particular terror plot and investigation? Well, they want to distinguish themselves from the methods used by the Bush Administration, and that's primarily a media tactic. They want to show that the Adminnistration is engaged without hyping the threat, but using all the tools at their disposal, including the very kinds of tactics that the left lambasted the Bush Administration over:

In interviews, senior Obama officials stressed their efforts to set a different tone than the previous administration; the White House says it avoided trumpeting either the elevated threat level or the averted crisis, while portraying Obama as highly involved in monitoring developments. As Zazi drove across the country under heavy surveillance, John O. Brennan, Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, briefed the president three to four times a day on Zazi's activities .

Shortly after taking office, Obama discarded the term "global war on terror," along with some of its most controversial tools, and aides describe a president who has been deliberative in implementing his own security policy. He has come under fire for not abandoning some of George W. Bush's policies, such as warrantless wiretapping and rendition, and faced criticism for jettisoning others, including enhanced interrogation techniques and secret prisons.

At the same time, the Obama administration is pressing Congress to move swiftly to reauthorize three provisions of the USA Patriot Act set to expire in late December. They include the use of "roving wiretaps" to track movement, e-mail and phone communications, a tool that federal officials used in the weeks leading up to Zazi's arrest.

For all of the vilification of the Patriot Act, it appears that it has been tweaked sufficiently to find itself getting reauthorization support from the President.

Moreover, while law enforcement has Zazi in custody, it is all but clear that the terror plot has been fully exposed, along with his coconspirators. The CIA and other national security agencies have to track down Zazi's contacts overseas, which involves rolling up a terror cell that may lead back to top al Qaeda terrorists operating in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

UPDATE:
Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Zazi plot was one of the most serious terror plots disrupted since 9/11.

Queens FBI Raid Part of Larger Investigation Focusing on Colorado

Yesterday's news of a major FBI and NYPD raid on locations in Queens turns out to be the tip of a much larger investigation focusing on Colorado and the threat of a 9/11 sized event.

Hundreds of FBI agents are on the ground in Colorado, conducting round-the-clock surveillance on five suspects - including a man who recently visited Queens, sources told The News.

New York authorities searched three Flushing apartments and detained several men - later released - after getting a warrant to look for bomb-making components, explosive powders and fuses.

"The FBI is seriously spooked about these guys planning another 9/11," a former senior counterterrorism official told the News. "This is not some ... FBI informant-driven case. This is the real thing."

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters it's an ongoing investigation with plenty of "substance."

The 24-7 counterterror operation included Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants used to intercept calls and e-mails, as well as overseas-linked wiretaps to eavesdrop on Arabic and Pashto-speaking targets.

The FISA warrants would explain why Congress was consulted with yesterday and explains the seriousness of the issues involved. Thus far, no arrests have been made and no explosives or other related materials were taken into possession by the FBI in the Queens raids.

The Daily News also reports that the FBI and NYPD aren't playing from the same playbook. The FBI wanted to grab the entire cell, while the NYPD wanted to scare off the terrorists.

These two organizations have got to get on the same page because our security depends on it. Part of the problem is philosophy. The FBI wanted to catch them in the act, while the NYPD wanted to stop them before they got too far along in the plot. There are dangers with both approaches.

Congress Comes To Agreement On Revised FISA

This is sure to chafe the leftists and left-wing Democrats, but a deal has been struck to revise the FISA surveillance law. It's not a perfect law by any stretch, but not for the reasons that the left complains.

The big problem that has prevented passage related to telecommunications company immunity. Some 40 lawsuits have been initiated against those companies, and this law has to deal with that instance.

Democrats refused to give the companies immunity despite their critical assistance in enabling the US to listen in on enemy communications into the US from foreign countries. Republicans wanted to give such companies immunity since they were doing so in the best interests of the nation.

So, what is the provision at issue? This:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a civil action may not lie or be maintained in a Federal or State court against any person for providing assistance to an element of the intelligence community, and shall be promptly dismissed, if the Attorney General certifies to the district court of the United States in which such action is pending that...the assistance alleged to have been provided by the electronic communication service provider was in connection with an intelligence activity involving communications that was authorized by the President during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on January 17, 2007.

Well, here's what will probably happen. Leftists will wail and seethe, but they will be able to sue the telecoms. The Attorney General, however, gets the right to essentially waive those actions and bring an end to such suits. All the AG has to do is certify to the court where the action is pending that the surveillance was done subject to the authority of the President in the period at question.

That is a whole lot of power in the hands of the AG, but that's where it's headed. It also reinforces the importance of winning elections since whoever becomes President nominates the Attorney General, and will have the final say on whether such suits will be brought forth.

Those lawsuits may persist in the courts for some time to come, which means the next President will have some influence over the outcome today.

Not an ideal situation to say the least since it becomes a political one rather than a straight legal one (you've either given them immunity or not).

UPDATE:
Here's the full text of the changes at issue for immunity purposes under Section 802:

`(a) Intervention by Government- In any covered civil action, the court shall permit the Government to intervene. Whether or not the Government intervenes in the civil action, the Attorney General may submit any information in any form the Attorney General determines is appropriate and the court shall consider all such submissions.

`(b) Factual and Legal Determinations- In any covered civil action, any party may submit to the court evidence, briefs, arguments, or other information on any matter with respect to which a privilege based on state secrets is asserted. The court shall review any such submission in accordance with the procedures set forth in section 106(f) and may, based on the review, make any appropriate determination of fact or law. The court may, on motion of the Attorney General, take any additional actions the court deems necessary to protect classified information. The court may, to the extent practicable and consistent with national security, request that any party present briefs and arguments on any legal question the court determines is raised by such a submission even if that party does not have full access to the submission. The court shall consider whether the employment of a special master or an expert witness, or both, would facilitate proceedings under this section.

`(c) Location of Review- The court may conduct the review in a location and facility specified by the Attorney General as necessary to ensure security.

`(d) Removal- A covered civil action that is brought in a State court shall be deemed to arise under the Constitution and laws of the United States and shall be removable under section 1441 of title 28, United States Code.

`(e) Special Rule for Certain Cases- For any covered civil action alleging that a person provided assistance to an element of the intelligence community pursuant to a request or directive during the period from September 11, 2001 through January 17, 2007, the Attorney General shall provide to the court any request or directive related to the allegations under the procedures set forth in subsection (b).

`(f) Applicability- This section shall apply to a civil action pending on or filed after the date of the enactment of this Act.'.

UPDATE:
Hot Air wonders how much data was lost due to Congress dithering over the act despite bipartisan support and Senate support for telecom immunity. Good question, and one that we hope isn't answered

Closing the Circle

In the past week, two major Islamic terrorists were killed, Islamic Jihad's Ayman Fayed and Hizbullah's Imad Mughniyeh (Mugh the Thug), and another, Mansoor Dadullah, was taken into custody by the Pakistanis.

These stories are related. They're forcing the terrorist groups to take actions that they would not have otherwise done, they're getting sloppy, and they're starting to go after their own.

Syria denies that they'll be a joint investigation into Mugh the Thugs death. Iran's Foreign Minister had said that there would be a joint investigation. Why would Iran want to meddle in Syrian affairs unless it wants to come out of the closet and openly tout its ties to the jihadi group. They probably want to determine how Mugh's security got bypassed and their main man got whacked. It's in their best interest to find out what happened because their other prized proxy assets might find themselves similarly eliminated. Tehran has to be wondering just how this all happened right under the noses of their friends the Syrians.

The Syrians have rounded up a number of Palestinians in connection with Mughniyeh's death, but this report suggests that Iran and Hizbullah are both participating in the investigation:

The Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar, affiliated with the Hizbullah organization, reported Friday that the investigation conducted by Syrian security services into the assassination of the arch-terrorist was in advanced stages.

According to the report, investigators on behalf of Hizbullah and Iran were taking part in the Syrian investigation.

The Lebanese source also reported that Hizbullah had appointed a successor to its senior commander hours after the announcement of Mugniyah's death in a car bomb in Damascus. He did not identify the successor who would now command Hizbullah's formidable and well-armed guerrilla army.

"A successor to Imad Mugniyah has been appointed, which is natural," said the source, who requested anonymity. "That's how Hizbullah works, they move quickly to choose successors of fallen leaders."

The Syrians have to be walking a fine line - they were playing host to Mugh the Thug, and he died right under their noses. That's going to make for a whole lot of uncomfortable terror masters in Damascus and Tehran along with finger pointing over who failed whom.

Meanwhile, Hamas has to get a little paranoid themselves, wondering if Fatah is busy prepping for an attack against Haniyeh. The terrorists are eating their own, and then some.

Of course, there's also the elimination of Ayman Fayed, a major Islamic Jihad thug in a cloud of dust and debris at his home. Funny how concrete homes can be turned to so much rubble when they're filled to the brim with explosives that mysteriously go boom. The media will be sure to find a way to pin this on Israel and blame Israel for all the others injured. The terrorists have responded with firing kassams at Israel. Islamic Jihad claims that it was an Israeli airstrike, while Hamas says the circumstances aren't entirely clear. Captain Ed notes that a whole bunch of rocket parts were found among the ruins, suggesting that Fayed's house was an ammo dump. Go figure.

All this comes on the heels of the capture of Mansoor Dadullah last week by the Pakistanis.

It's been a real bad time for the jihadis, and there isn't any good news on the horizon, unless Congress decides to not authorize the FISA amendments and allows the law to expire, putting the US at risk.

FISA Finagling

Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn't like the fact that Congress overwhelmingly passed President Bush's FISA revision, so she's gone out of her way to instruct the House Intel Chairs to introduce legislation that would amend and gut the just passed and signed legislation. From Speaker Pelosi's newsroom:

Pelosi Requests Conyers and Reyes Offer Legislation to Amend FISA ‘As Soon as Possible’

"Many provisions of this legislation are unacceptable, and, although the bill has a six month sunset clause, I do not believe the American people will want to wait that long before corrective action is taken."
08/04/2007

The law went beyond simply amending certain provisions of FISA, and expands the government's ability to listen in on communications entering or leaving the US.

President Bush signed the legislation into law yesterday. It has a six-month sunset provision, which means that Congress will be able to take up any changes prior to that time and would provide the ability to see whether the provisions work as intended. Pelosi isn't about to wait that long. She'd rather gut and limit the ability to detect terrorist communiques than to see whether such efforts actually work.

The text of the legislation in question is here.

What Really Matters

I've been trying to sort through all the talk about the terrorist surveillance program and what it means. So far, I tend to agree with Bob Owens' take thus far.

While some pundits seem content to label this as a defeat of sorts for the Bush Administration (see the WaPo headline above) and some conservative legal experts are inclined to agree, I'm not sure. I'm not disagreeing necessarily, but this seems to be a case of We Don't Know What We Don't Know, and I'm not sure that is such a bad thing.

The bottom line is that we want to be able to intercept terrorist communications into the US and to track down those who are inside the US based on those extra-jurisdictional contacts.

Has the FISA court agreed to make changes in how it handles terrorist surveillance based on intel gathered from outside the US such that it is giving the President what it needs and still manages to assuage critics who complain that the President is somehow trampling on your civil rights? We simply don't know and everyone is basically engaging in speculation.

The hope is that the latest changes do not undermine US national security. As to whether Bush gave up some manner of Presidential power (giving away some part of the powers inherent in the Office of the President pursuant to the US Constitution including the warmaking/warfighting powers) is a separate issue - and one that would likely be a mistake. That wouldn't be the first time either.

From Chat Room to Major Terror Plot Bust

The Canadian terrorist plot began in a chat room. It developed into a full-blown plot to acquire the means and methods to carry out a terrorist attack, the targets of which are not being revealed by law enforcement. AJ Strata notes that the plot in Canada quickly grew into an international investigation because of links to the US. The NSA can monitor the Canadians without worrying about invoking constitutional issues. However, once they began picking up US links, we cross over into the world of FISA, constitutional protections, and transnational legal issues.

This is the exact scenarion I have been espousing in the NSA-FISA debate, where the NSA’s monitoring of overseas activities ensares Americans who contact the terrorists. Now, previously to 9-11 this information on US based terrorists would NOT be shared with anyone inside the US. That was custom - not law - and can be traced back to the Church committee in 1976 and the origins of FISA. And this is pure suicide. After 9-11 the NSA would pass the leads to the FBI to follow up (see this post for evidence this is the case). And when the FBI determined that the lead was of value, that is when they took the case to FISA. Which balked because the judges felt the custom of not using NSA generated leads was somehow enshrined in the law - when it wasn’t. That is why the judge who resigned claimed the NSA ‘tainted’ (read polluted) the FISA process.

AJ believes that FISA was invoked in this case, and that the dots were being connected. Thankfully, the RCMP was up to the task of taking down the Canadian cell as they were in the process of acquiring the ammonium nitrate, which is a key component of a fuel oil bomb.

The US portion of the investigation resulted in the arrests of two people several months back, and even then noted the Canadian connection.

The local Toronta imam wants people to believe that the arrested individuals weren't interested in violence. They have an interesting way of showing that, considering the weapons recovered, along with the intention to obtain and use ammonium nitrate as part of a bomb.

Meanwhile, more arrests are expected. We're also learning a few more details about the sting operation used to arrest the 17 individuals. Undercover Mounties were going to provide the three tons of ammonium nitrate to the group.

The arrests were made Friday and Saturday after the group acquired three tons of ammonium nitrate from undercover Mounties in a sting operation, the Toronto Star has reported. The fertilizer can be mixed with fuel oil or other ingredients to make a bomb.

That is three times the amount of fertilizer used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, McDonell said. The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killed 168 people and injured more than 800.

"For various reasons, they appeared to have become adherents of a violent ideology inspired by al-Qaida," Luc Portelance, the assistant director of operations with CSIS — Canada's spy agency, said Saturday.

Officials said the operation involved some 400 intelligence and law-enforcement officers and was the largest counterterrorism operation in Canada since the nation's Anti-Terrorism Act was adopted after the Sept. 11 attacks. The Star reported that the investigation began in 2004 with the monitoring of Internet chat rooms.

"We've been investigating them for some while and it got to the point where we could no longer control the risk," McDonell told NPR on Monday.

A prayer leader at a storefront mosque west of Toronto said several suspects prayed daily there but never spoke of hurting others.

"I will say that they were steadfast, religious people. There's no doubt about it. But here we always preach peace and moderation," Qamrul Khanson, an imam at the one-room Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education, said Sunday.

The 40-50 Muslim families who worship at the mosque were astonished, he said, to learn that police had arrested 12 adults, ages 19 to 43, and five suspects younger than 18 on Friday and Saturday, charging them with plotting an attack in southern Ontario. Two Americans who met with the suspects also are in custody.

One reason that terrorist cells are able to conduct attacks is because they don't let others know what their true intentions are. They will infiltrate a community and act normally or otherwise try to blend in. They aren't going to say that they intend to blow stuff up or openly declare jihad. So, the statements that the group didn't make comments relating to hurting others rings hollow.

After all, its not like people suspected that a clown, a nurse, yuppie, church leader, or law student would turn out to be a serial killer (John Wayne Gacy, Charles Cullen, Denis Rader, or Ted Bundy respectively). The deadly nature of these threats is their ability to not attract attention to themselves.

Others blogging: Cassandra at Villainous Company, Cold Fury, Don Surber (on the Left's reaction to the arrests), and Blue Crab Boulevard.

UPDATE:
Western Resistance notes that the mosque had been warned before about the militant Islamist beliefs expounded by one of the arrested individuals:

The Globe & Mail reported that the oldest man to be arrested, 43-year old Qayyum Abdul Jamal, had used a small mosque in a strip mall in Mississauga, Toronto, to recruit young and impressionable Muslims into his brand of extremism. This mosque was the Al-Rahman Islamic Centre for Islamic Education.

The director of the Mississauga Muslim Community Centre, Fahim Bukhari, said that Jamal was only a volunteer there, who did cleaning and occasionally ran errands. Bukhari said that various individuals had warned the management of the mosque about Jamal's views. One of these was the local Liberal MP, who often prayed at the mosque because his uncle had founded the establishment.

The probe is being expanded to seven countries.

Meanwhile, there are folks like Lew Rockwell who think that this is a simple case of entrapment of some boobs who were lured into a plot to buy ammonium nitrate because the Mounties used a sting. Yeah. I'll buy that one. Considering that among those arrested were a computer programmers and health sciences graduate, a firebrand imam about whom the local mosque was warned of his pontificating, and that the adults were fully predisposed to carrying out terrorist attacks, the fact that this group would find themselves entrapped is dubious at best.

Glenn Penner has a personal connection to the group arrested:

This particular arrest struck close to my home in that at least four of them had gone to school with my children and one of the older suspects lived not far from my home. This fact, while shocking, is really not that surprising though. One of the young men, my oldest son told me, had been nicknamed "The Terrorist" by some of his classmates back in high school. Another had written in his graduation yearbook last year, "La ilaha illallah... do you really believe in it? You do? Then prove it... Before us there were many... after us there will be none... we are the ones... Allahu Akbar..."

And yet again, Muslim leaders in the Greater Toronto Area are going out of their way to try to convince the populace (and maybe themselves) that violence is not Islamic and that these men, if guilty, are not really Muslims.

How tiresome to hear to say the same old, well-worn excuses and rhetoric being bandied about that we have been hearing since 9/11.

Others noting the ongoing investigation, media coverage, and the wildly divergent take on the Canadian bust: Two Minute Offense, Dr. Sanity, California Conservative, Jeff Goldstein,

The Latest Leak

USA Today is reporting a new NSA program based on new leaks of classified information. Doesn't that strike anyone the least bit odd? These are actually records that are kept and maintained by the phone companies themselves. The NSA program, if the article is even accurate, is designed to study calling patterns to help figure out how terrorists communicate with each other.

They're not listening in on the calls themselves or maintaining records of the individual calls.

And once again we're seeing someone leaking classified information for political points - which happens to coincide with the nomination of Hayden to CIA.

Is it a coincidence? I'd like to think that's the case, but given the venom of those on the left and those that seek to undermine this Administration, I don't put anything past those behind the leak.

Stop the ACLU has more. AJ Strata believes that the USA Today story has once again given terrorists tips on how to evade our intel efforts to discover plots and cells in this country.

UPDATE:
The Media Blog notes that the Left is seriously atwitter with this latest leak. The Moderate Voice notes that this information came out in close proximity to the Hayden nomination and thinks the General should be asked about the program. Sister Toldjah calls this the latest non-scandal scandal.

Hot Air has a roundup, as well as points out that appears to be yet another iteration of the current Echelon program that grew out of Clinton Administration approved programs (Carnivore and Omnivore). Oh, and they also question the timing of this latest story.

UPDATE:
Rick Moran has a very thoughtful and detailed posting, which covers much of the same ground as this post. It provides the details that the USA Today article deemphasizes in trying to claim that this is some grand spying program on US citizens.

UPDATE:
Memeorandum shows the extent of this latest blogstorm. Lots of reaction coming forth, but like the earlier NSA wiretapping/eavesdropping stories - the real story is in the leak, not the program itself. Flopping Aces notes that someone in the CIA has taken it upon themselves to determine what programs are secret and which ones are made public and thereafter undermine US national security. The purpose? To affect the outcome of domestic politics.

Dan Riehl wonders what the fuss is about. Blue Crab Boulevard wonders whether we can truly trust the veracity of the story, and wondered whether the revelation of the program caused harm to national security - though President Bush seems to think that it did.

Confederate Yankee has additional thoughts.

UPDATE:
In the past few hours since the last update, the number of posts on the USA Today story and reaction has grown exponentially. Stop the ACLU notes that the ACLU ought to look within before complaining about the government. Apparently, the ACLU has gobs of financial information about all of its members and practices all kinds of sophisticated analysis.

Pajamas Media has a big roundup.

Big Lizards makes the point that this simply isn't a new story - it's a rehash of an old one, with the same questions over the source of the leaks. Outside the Beltway

Others blogging: Newsbusters, Michelle Malkin, Right Mind, and Blind Mind's Eye.

UPDATE:
Tom Maguire has a comprehensive post and picks up Glenn Greenwald's comment on the Qwest refusal to go along with the NSA program as the other telecoms did.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

Considering that the FISA court has shown itself to be antiquated, it could be understandable that the NSA would choose to avoid to get other bureaucracies involved. However, one has to wonder why the Attorney General was not involved - unless there is more to the story that the USA Today journalists either don't know or withheld from this story. It remains to be seen if the Qwest version of events is accurate and needs further investigation.

Others blogging: Decision '08, The Sandbox, and Small Town Veteran.

The NSA Story Fizzles Out

When is a story not a story? When the big media outlets slowly come to the realization that the rest of the nation still has its eyes on the prize - winning the war against the Islamic terrorists and sets aside the petty political panderings of the leading lights of the Democratic Party.

Osama's reappearance via an audiotape only reinforces the fact that the federal government has to take steps to protect this nation from attack. Some of those steps include directing the NSA and CIA to eavesdrop on communications from regions known to be inhabited by Islamic terrorists to sources within the US.

This isn't domestic spying as some of the big media outlets still misstate. It is playing offense in a counterterrorism operation, but one that has been seriously compromised by James Risen and the folks at the New York Times in a partisan political moment. The NYT is struggling to come to grips with this reality. And it's doing so poorly.

We're seeing the Democrats starting to make haste towards the emergency exits on the NSA wiretapping story, as noted by The Jawa Report. They realize that if there's a problem with the FISA courts and the law, they should fix it so that whatever the Administration is doing, they can continue doing it without worrying about the legal bases for it (not that it was stopping the Administration, but it will give them the legal and political cover that was blown when the NYT decided to preempt Risen's own book release).

As per Senator John Kerry (D-MA):

"We're prepared to eavesdrop wherever and whenever necessary in order to make America safer."

Got that? He's proposing taking the limited eavesdropping measures on foreign intercepts into the US by the Bush Administration and pushing them into areas that weren't even contemplated. True domestic wiretapping. Between sources that were entirely within the US. Think about that for a moment. For all those civil liberties folks who were complaining about the Bush Administration's efforts, I wonder whether they'll raise a voice to oppose Kerry's efforts to eavesdrop on whoever it is necessary to make America safer. Safer from who, Senator Kerry? Political opponents perhaps?

Call me a cynic, but Senator Kerry isn't exactly someone I'd trust on this issue.

Of course, the real problem is that the damage is already done, and there's not much that can be done to rebuild the capability - the terrorists know of our capabilities and may have already shifted resources and communications to other more difficult means to intercept.

Others blogging: Stop the ACLU and Flopping Aces

UPDATE:
Added the link to the CNN story that carried Kerry's comments. The story was picked up by numerous publications. The context may also help:

Kerry insisted, "We're prepared to eavesdrop wherever and whenever necessary in order to make America safer. But we put a procedure in place to protect the constitutional rights of Americans."

That tempers the original text, but not that much. The fact is that Kerry thinks that he's better suited to protecting American constitutional rights, whereas his thoughts on the subject are decidedly mixed - especially when seen as starting first and foremost with the right to keep the nation safe from further terrorist attacks.

Russell Tice: NSA Leaker

ABCNews is reporting Russell Tice, ex-NSA employee, who apparently was so obsessed about a co-worker being a Chinese spy he who violated rules and tried to investigate her, has decided to admit he was a source for the NY Times story:

But now, Tice tells ABC News that some of those secret “black world” operations run by the NSA were operated in ways that he believes violated the law. He is prepared to tell Congress all he knows about the alleged wrongdoing in these programs run by the Defense Department and the National Security Agency in the post-9/11 efforts to go after terrorists.

Emphasis mine. Bush is not spying on his political enemies, his administration is monitoring our enemies, who have sworn to risk all to kill us.

Is Tice the only source for the story, and just how credible a witness is he to the program? Is he qualified to examine the legalities of the program? Considering that there are divergent views on whether circumventing FISA is permissible, legal, or wholly a function of Executive Power to protect this nation against enemies foreign and domestic, is Tice really capable of making sweeping statements alleging illegal conduct? I don't think so. And this is wholly based on his credentials, such as they are. It doesn't even get into his character and fitness, which are suspect based on reports (and a reason he was fired from the NSA in the first place).

And what if the courts do eventually decide this issue against the Administration and find that the possibility of violation of civil rights is such that anyone who receives a call from a suspected terrorist cannot be subject to a warrantless search? What exactly does this mean for national security, our intel gathering means, and terrorist exploitation of the situation?

For starters, it means that any terrorist seeking to contact anyone in the US will simply cc: any US citizen on an email who is unlikely to actually read the email and thereby innoculate themselves against a warrantless search. The terrorist would attach the message to a Cialis or Viagra advertisement sent out in spam fashion to a host of people, including his intended recipient. Since most everyone would delete the email without reading, the coded message would end up in the hands of the terrorist recipient without worry for being under surveillance because the email had US persons as recipients. Since the rules, such as they are being interpreted by those on the Left, prohibit such intel gathering without going to FISA court, the terrorists will be able to exploit the time periods necessary to go to FISA for the warrants, even if they can do a post-search warrant.

MacRanger has more.

UPDATE:
Blackfive takes Tice out behind the woodshed. And the Political Pit Bull thinks that Tice may be mentally unstable.

Plumbers, Leakers, and the Information Pipeline

One has to hand it to the big media outlets like the New York Times. They can simultaneously take the position that certain leaks relating to national security must be exposed for public consumption and that others are vital breaks in national security worthy of investigations and prosecutions. And never shall they meet. Yet, it is the Times itself that gets to make that decision, not the government. Curious, but the New York Times isn't mentioned in the Constitution, nor is it one of the branches of government. So, its actions in determining what to tell the public, not to mention when it decided to tell the public, are suspect as to its intentions. One has to wonder whether the leaks, and their subsequent publication has more to do with ideology than any specific program and purported civil liberties or problematic national security operations.

In the first instance, the Times and other big domestic media outlets played up the fact that Valerie Plame's name was somehow leaked to the media, and that this leak was a violation of federal law. It was surmised that the leak had to be someone high up in the Bush Administration, so that the leak would hamstring the Administration going forward. Thus far, the Fitzgerald investigation has turned up no facts substantiating that there was in fact criminal leak - only that Scooter Libby's memory is not only rusty, but contradicts the memories of a journalist and that those contradictions hampered the investigation.

This situation - the Plame Affair - even included a contempt of court charge against Judy Miller who refused to divulge her sources on the matter, and spent 85 days in jail before finally working with the prosecutor when she received 'permission' from her source to talk (and has since 'retired' from the New York Times).

Never mind the fact that Plame's name was freely available and fungible among the various journalists working the White House and intelligence community beat. Or that Plame's five year old son spilled the beans to a reporter while heading to a vacation. It just worked into the meme that the Bush Administration was overstepping its bounds and needed to be put in its place.

So, up pops the next set of leaks less than a month ago* [that's when the story was published in the NYT- which apparently sat on the story for about a year, but I'll get to that in a moment]. Only that these ones are far more egregious and serious. Someone leaked word about NSA programs designed to intercept terrorist communications to individuals here in the US to several New York Times writers, including budding author James Risen. The programs were based on work done in earlier Administrations, including a secret program called Echelon. The whole point of the NSA is to monitor conversations around the world and develop intel on those seeking to do harm to US interests worldwide. That means, if they spotted some terrorist talking on a cell phone in Kandahar, Afghanistan to a second individual in Bonn, Germany, who had three-wayed a person in the US, the NSA wants to know this information. It might even be crucial to not only ferreting out a terrorist plot against this country, but potential links to other terrorist operatives, funding and financing, as well as operational details on what and how the terrorists are planning.

Now, the Times pushed this story as one of Bush purposefully evading the law to spy on American citizens, even though the entire purpose of the program was to hone in on those individuals being contacted from overseas by known or suspected terrorists. Most Americans realized that this was an eminently sensible thing to do since the failure to connect all the dots played a role in the intel failures surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but the Times continues to press on with its story.

Yet, it was only later revealed that the Times sat on this story for more than a year, and that it rushed the story to print after one of the co-authors, James Risen, was launching his book. The Times didn't want to be scooped by its own journalist and ran the story. In turn, Risen launched his book even earlier than first indicated. Byron Calame, the NYT Public Editor was not happy with the stonewalling about the curious timing of the whole incident, not to mention the fact that no one at the Times wants to discuss the matter or answer any questions relating to the NSA story at all.

Apparently the NYT has better operational security than the NSA when it comes to leaks. Does anyone else think there's something wrong with that picture?

Others noting the discrepancies in how the media is covering leaks, whistleblowers, and classified information include Michelle Malkin, Cox and Forkum (who skewers Sen. Schumer whose appearance on the Sunday talk shows was an object lesson in splitting hairs on a bald guy, which is to say that Chuck took the clearly partisan approach instead of the legal, logical, or rational approach), and Rick Moran. Reliapundit notes that this situation is one that further exposes the anti-Administration/anti-war bias at the NYT, which has a spillover effect on both the framing of the issues, and what people learn and understand about the issues involved.

Curiously, the Left continues to somehow think that this Administration is somehow above the law. Thus far, the only folks who appear to be above the law are those individuals leaking classified information to the press.

None of the leakers have apparently engaged in any of the necessary and proper steps to being a whistleblower. There is federal law on what that entails, and going to the New York Times is clearly not a part of the process. In fact, 18 USC 798 expressly prohibits leaks of the type of classified information exploited in the New York Times articles. For those unaccustomed to legalese, here's the deal - if you break the law, you've committed a criminal act, and in this case, it's a pretty serious one. The penalty for violating this law is up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine. Not exactly a walk in the park. It's more like Federal 'pound me in the ass prison' for those Office Space fans out there.

Assuming that you want to overlook the criminal acts involved in leaking this information and instead want to focus on what actually happened, you should get out your copy of the US Constitution. Apparently reading the US Constitution, which clearly gives the President the power to conduct war, is deemed insufficient by the Left to conduct spying that is part and parcel to the prosecution of a war. Somehow taking the actions to protect this country are not part of the Executive Branch's powers under the Constitution, but the rub is that there's nothing in the US Constitution that gives those powers to anyone else either. Congressional oversight, which isn't mandated in the US Constitution was undertaken by the Administration when dealing with the FISA courts and in those cases where the Administration believed that it did not have time to go before the court because of expediency and relevancy of the intel gathering. No where can anyone point out where and how the President clearly broke the law. It surely isn't a violation of the Constitution to take prudent action to protect and defend the United States from enemies foreign and domestic. After all, on 9/11 the terrorists exploited intel failures to kill more than 3,000 people.

Instead, we're seeing the NYT leading a not-so-whispering campaign to try and persuade people into believing that the Administration lied, exceeded its Constitutional and legal authority by having the NSA doing what is was mandated to do all along (to spy on our enemies). They've called upon some legal experts who say that the Administration broke the law, but if it were so clear cut, every legal expert out there would conclude that this Administration did something wrong, and that it would cross party lines.

That simply isn't the case. Numerous constitutional and legal scholars have come out on both sides of the controversy, which lends credence to the fact that reasonable minds can differ on the interpretation of the various laws involved, but it isn't so clear cut that there was any actual wrongdoing. Some, like Mark Levin point out that this is clearly part of the President's constitutional powers. Others, like Orin Kerr, think that the President may have run afoul of the FISA statutes, but even there, there's disagreement over who and what was involved. It's a fact specific inquiry, and given that we're dealing with a post 9/11 world, do we really want to side with the group that seeks to purposefully and deliberately limit the nation's ability to spy on terrorists around the world, especially those who contact individuals within the US because of some perceived threat to civil liberties?

Knucklehead of the Year Award

The Florida Masochist runs a daily knucklehead award and has distilled those daily awards down to an annual winner with the help of his panelists Jo at Jo's Cafe, Don Surber, John in Carolina, and Greta aka Hooah Wife.

And the award goes to.... The Justices of the Supreme Court who decided Kelo v. City of New London. That would be - Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and David Souter.

Tell 'em what they've won - they've won the right to have their homes and businesses seized in order to make way for a Quik-e-mart because you can never go home again. Oh, and the fact that a private company can get government to seize your property so that the private company can turn around and build condos or strip malls because they can claim economic improvements is something that the Founding Fathers never ever contemplated.

It's an interesting choice, but considering that many states and locales are already negating the effects of this decision with legislation to prohibit the kind of transaction involved in Kelo, it would not have been my choice.

A late dark horse candidate might be the South Korean scientists who apparently fudged all of his results on cloning. As if no one would ever notice the crayons and bad math involved (1+1=5)?

However, my choice would have to go to the ACLU. They've been an early and obvious favorite but several episodes stand out.

In July, the ACLU and its New York chapter sued the City of New York after it implemented random bag searches due to the subway bombings in London, England. The NYCLU lost its cases, but it made it clear that they were siding with terrorists over common sense.

At the end of the year, it has come to light that the ACLU opposed the FISA statutes as being unconstitutional (as set forth in amicus briefs in 2002). They now claim that the current sitting President acted unconstitutionally in bypassing the court altogether. Yet the ACLU didn't act with nearly so much horror when President Carter, President Reagan, President Bush, or President Clinton utilized the FISA courts. No full page ads in the New York Times for them.

Oh, and the ACLU wants an investigation into who leaked the NSA programs to the New York Times called off. Because it isn't a crime if you agree with the outcome and despite the fact that the law doesn't care about outcomes - only about the violations themselves, which in this case is the systematic leaking of classified programs.

Pretzel logic is a wonderful thing.

For standing on the side of terrorists and seeking to embue them with all the rights that US citizens take for granted, the ACLU is my clear winner for Knucklehead of the Year.

Posted to Jo's Cafe

Getting Around To Adult Supervision

With all the leaks about previously secret and classified programs designed to gather intel on terrorist operations worldwide and those that may have contacts in the US, someone ought to lay down the law against these leakers.

Who do they think they are? Are they above the law? The leakers certainly think that's the case.

Someone better disabuse them of this notion, and quick.

Before lives are lost in a terrorist attack that could have easily been prevented had the programs not been exposed and the terrorists altered their methods accordingly.

And another question that ought to be asked is what exactly was the purpose for these leaks in the first place? Was it to discredit and undermine a President and his Administration for political gain? Were there truly legal concerns that outweigh even the war effort? From what I've read of FISA, the applicable law, and the legal arguments, unless the leaker was a legal scholar and intimately knowledgable in all the applicable law, it is not a slam dunk case of illegal actions despite the media claims to the contrary. For every expert trotted forth by the media, there are others who can provide cogent analysis showing that the Administration was well within its legal rights to take these actions. Or, was it because the leakers thought that they could become the Ellsberg of this generation and gain the notoriety that comes with exposing secret efforts to prosecute and win a war?

After all, Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War, which quickly undermined Nixon's war effort and became an instant hero to the Left despite the fact that the documents themselves catalogued the extent to which Lyndon Johnson prosecuted and expanded the war despite his claims to the contrary. It showed the levels to which the US and the Pentagon went to prosecute the war in Vietnam - including escalating the conflict to include incursions into Laos and Cambodia.

The release of those documents - and published in the New York Times (which was later sued and became the seminal case New York Times Co. v. US. The S.Ct. held in a 6-3 decision that the injunctions to cease publication were unconstitutional prior restraints and that the government had not met the heavy burden of proof required for prior restraint. Expect the Times to reiterate the same arguments in its defense of publication and of the journalists themselves.

This is sure to be one of the hot topic bloggings of the early new year. And be sure to read AJ Strata (who should be a daily read - and on some days, hourly), Captain's Quarters, Michelle Malkin, Powerline (who wonders about the political overtones of these revelations), and Big Lizards (another daily read). Others blogging the subject: Ace of Spades, The Jawa Report, Stop the ACLU, Atlas Shrugs, Prawfsblawg, NewsHog, PunditGuy, Blackfive, MacsMind (who is another in the know source), and Flopping Aces.

UPDATE:
Still more bloggers covering the NSA leak investigation: Sister Toldjah, Baldilocks, Don Singleton, The Political Pit Bull, Mark Tapscott, Outside the Beltway, Jeff Goldstein (a must read - and has links to Clinton era program that did substantially the same as Bush is now accused of doing illegally), Enlighten NJ, Small Town Veteran, Cassandra at Tigerhawk provides a history lesson, and Gateway Pundit.

UPDATE:
Posted to Basil's Blog, Adam's Blog, Conservative Cat, and Don Surber, and TMH Bacon Bits.

UPDATE 12/31/2005:
Submitted to Wizbang's Carnival of Trackbacks.

What Do Those Polls Really Mean?

It all started with a Rasmussen Reports poll that shows that 64% of Americans support eavesdropping on terrorists, even when that eavesdropping includes warrantless searches. Ace of Spades was quick to point out the significance of the polling. Despite big media outlets pounding the message that these searches constitute a grave and gathering threat to civil rights of Americans and potentially impeachable offenses against the President of the US, most Americans realize that the President is simply doing his Constitutional duty to protect and defend the citizens of the United States against threats both foreign and domestic.

While there are many folks who are showing that the actions taken by the President are legal (Mark Levin and Powerline come to mind, though Cass Sunstein, John Schmidt, and Jaime Gorelick are also on the record as finding the Administration's use of warrantless searches within the powers of the President despite those searches not going through the FISA court), the big media outlets continue to pound away that these searches are illegal and that the Administration should be held accountable for those illegal actions.

What gets lost in the NYT and media coverage is that similar efforts have been undertaken by every President since Jimmy Carter was first constrained by the creation of FISA in 1978. President Carter knew that there were situations that the FISA process couldn't deal with swiftly enough for national security purposes, and therefore went ahead with warrantless searches anyway. Every president since then engaged in similar methods though President Clinton even extended the warrantless search to certain wholly domestic operations.

Yet the big media outlets, and specifically the New York Times have not shed light on how they actually obtained information about the NSA wiretapping and similar eavesdropping programs in the first place. Considering that the programs described in the NYT were classified programs, the leaks are violations of numerous federal laws and those leakers are criminals. These leaks threaten national security in a real and tangible way. It shows terrorists potential loopholes for exploitation and may cause some to change means of contacting cells in the US. Apparently, those concerns were not sufficient to keep this story out of the limelight.

The Times says that they sat on this story for more than a year, and that's troubling in and of itself. If this was such a violation of civil rights, don't you think that they would have released details of the program much sooner. Instead, we've learned that one of the journalists involved in the story, Eric Risen, is touting a new book and it appears that the Times was concerned about being scooped by one of its own journalists on an 'exclusive.'

This was a concerted effort to undermine the war effort, and the polling reflects this - both in terms of the pragmatic result and why the numbers weren't even higher.

Despite the media play, even 51% of Democrats support the continued surveillance of terrorists that includes warrantless eavesdropping. We're talking about communications intercepts between foreign terrorists with individuals domestically. This isn't about a political spy operation against political opponents or using the IRS to bully political opponents, but a natural and logical outgrowth over the need to protect the US against further terrorist attacks domestically by intercepting communcations between terror cells domestically and their international cohorts.

And we’re seeing some leftist bloggers complaining that the polling isn’t actually good news, but bad news. They think that support for this kind of eavesdropping should be even higher than it currently is. Do these bloggers and pundits not realize that the biased media coverage of the eavesdropping stories in the Times and elsewhere affects and skews the polling results? If all people read and hear is bad news, don’t these leftist bloggers realize that the polling will reflect the bad news.

Yet, despite the negative press in the Times and other big media sources, the high level of support for these kinds of warrantless searches against terrorists who are communicating with individuals inside the US shows that most folks still have some kind of functional common sense. Now, if the big media outlets actually noted that these kinds of warrantless searches are constitutional and justifiable on national security grounds, support would be much higher.

UPDATE:
And don't get me started on the repercussions of this information on all current and past terrorism investigations and convictions for terror-related charges. These revelations will inevitably spark challenges to every single terrorism case pursued by the Justice Department. It's yet another attempt to hamstring the war on terror.

Others blogging this important story are: Confederate Yankee, Rob at Say Anything, Sister Toldjah, Michelle Malkin, Captain Ed, Blogs For Bush, Jeff Goldstein, Political Teen, Decision ‘08, Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive’s, [and] Junkyard Blog.

UPDATE:
Generation Why wonders when the media will understand the definition of mainstream as most Americans favor this kind of spycraft to keep this nation safe from terror plots.

Also noting the polling data on approval of eavesdropping on terrorists: The Right Nation.

FISA: It's Everywhere You Want To Be

FISA seems to be one of the big buzzwords on the lips of many pundits and media types these days. The NYT had run with a story that was based on a leak of classified information that the US was conducting surveillance on certain communications. The implicit message of those articles was that the President was committing a criminal violation of federal law and potentially the US Constitution.

The Administration hit back hard in press conferences and speeches saying that it was justified and authorized to take such actions under the law.

That hasn't stopped some from claiming that the President acted illegally. Is this based on facts and the law, or on their opinion. I think that its more of the latter than the former.

Reasonable minds may differ over the law. In fact, while there are some folks who think that the President may have violated federal law - including Orin Kerr, others think that the President was entirely justified including John Schmidt, Jaime Gorelick, Andy McCarthy, and Mark Levin. Those first two names (Schmidt and Gorelick) were Clinton Administration officials who argued consistently during their term in office that the President had the powers that Bush is now being accused of using illegally. McCarthy and Levin both argue that the President was following a consistent and legal policy that has been in place for more than 20 years and that they operated under a legal interpretation of the law that permitted the kinds of warrantless searches on communications.

These legal questions cross party lines and focus on civil liberties. Can the President operate under his authority to protect and defend the US from foreign threats - including terrorist groups - by monitoring electronic communications between terrorists outside the US and those operating within our borders. This question has serious consequences. If the President is limited in his ability to conduct warrantless searches on those communications, even if one of the parties is a US citizen, the real and distinct possibility that a terrorist could exploit this loophole grows significantly.

Confederate Yankee has more on the possibility that the FISA court may simply disband in the new year since the President has the authority to conduct warrantless searches.

Instapundit, Volokh Conspiracy and LawDork have all been covering the subject.

UPDATE:
Sister Toldjah reports the fact that the Clinton Administration utilized warrantless searches on communications and other physical searches in wholly domestic situations. No such uproar and call for Congressional investigations ensued. Stop the ACLU is reporting that the ACLU is trying to release all kinds of information relating to the policies and procedures involved in the warrantless search program.

Others noting the kerfuffle are Dean Esmay and Bryan Preston.

September 10 Mindsets

Point Five has come up with an instant classic - a calendar for the Democratic Party.

Of course, it's perpetually on September 10, 2001, but for them, every day is 9/10. With all the recent revelations about wiretaps, eavesdropping, and other intel gathering techiques, it is hard to reconcile with the outrage by Democrats.

Why is there outrage that the NSA actually does its job by gathering intel from wiretaps, scanning the electromagnetic spectrum for communications between enemies of the US outside the country to those within? That's their job. And the better they do their job, the more likely they can find terrorists planning to attack US interests worldwide and here at home.

Roving wiretaps make that job easier, as does the selective use of FISA, or the Presidential order to take actions as necessary when time-pressure prevents the ordinary use of FISA.

For all the screaming by Democrats, answer me this - how is the President of the US supposed to carry out his Constitutional duties to protect and defend the citizens of the US when the tools available to him are taken off the table? How can the President protect and defend against terrorist plots unless we know of them by intelligence gathering. If intelligence gathering is restricted, terrorists can and will exploit the possibility, putting the lives of Americans at risk.

On the one hand Democrats cry 'civil rights abuses' and 'impeachable offenses' but on the other there is no actual impeachable offense for doing the job of the President - to protect and defend the US of A.

Able Danger: Not Just a Wall Anymore

Geraghty has some tasty nuggets this morning, including some information from an Ashcroft DoJ'er who believes that the wall of separation between intel and law enforcement was, in part, a PR decision because of the perception that the United States was engaging in operations against foreign nationals living in the United States. Frankly, I'm disappointed in everyone at DoJ and the DoD on this, we're talking about national security and the overriding concern was bad press? When will these people ever learn?

Meanwhile, Geraghty gets to the crux of the matter:

[T]hese are terrorists we’re talking about, not garden-variety bank robbers or mobsters. The objective shouldn’t be airtight prosecutions after the attack; the objective should be catching these guys before they attack.

The message of the Gorelick memo, and Reno’s concurring memo months later, and the kiss-off to Mary Jo White’s objections, all indicate that the attitude during the Clinton years was not, “do whatever it takes, communicate with whoever you have to, in order to prevent attacks.” The attitude was, “don’t botch our prosecutions by doing anything that might even appear to be a violation of FISA.”

And, oh, by the way… 9/11 Commission, you guys stink for not even mentioning Mary Jo White’s objections to the wall in a footnote. It’s stuff like this that makes people start chanting, “White-wash! White-wash!”

Curious why the White memos were not included or even mentioned in an off-handed way in the 9/11 Report. Did they not get the memo? Actually, Andrew McCarthy has the goods on that front. The Commission gets around this by stating in the final report:

In July 1995, Attorney General Reno issued formal procedures aimed at managing information sharing between Justice Department prosecutors and the FBI. They were developed in a working group led by the Justice Department’s Executive Office of National Security, overseen by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. [The commission here drops a footnote, which reads as follows:] The group included representatives from the FBI, OIPR [i.e., Justice’s Office of Intelligence & Policy Review, which oversees applications for national security wiretaps], and the Criminal Division. In addition, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York [i.e., Mary Jo White] was given an opportunity to comment on the procedures. The procedures that were eventually issued were agreed to by all involved in the drafting process. As a member of the Commission, Gorelick has recused herself from participation in this aspect of our work. [Final Report at pp. 79 & 473 n.33 (italics mine)]

So, there you have it folks. The Commission had the White memos but chose not to share what they stated. And Gorelick recused herself from this portion from the report. Thank goodness. I was starting to get worried that there might be a conflict of interests or something about Gorelick participating.

When is Congress going to take the Commission to task for this huge gaffe (or should I say cluster$@^#)?

Meanwhile, there are more signs that the Clinton Administration dropped the ball about al Qaeda in 1996. Apparently the State Department warned President Clinton of the grave and gathering threat of OBL moving to Afghanistan where he could export his brand of international terrorism without interference.

And, I have a few more questions, but let's start with this:
Lt. Col. Shaffer and Rep. Weldon have stories that snych up. Shaffer may be Weldon's source, or could be the independent confirmation that we've been waiting for. If he's the confirmation, then we've got a huge mess on our hands, and that appears to be the case. If he was the source, then all we have is another version of the same details without advancing the story except to include the origin of Weldon's claims. If that is the case, then we still need to get to the bottom of the story. In either case, much more investigation must be done.

BTW, if any Freepers come this way, and you know who you are, welcome. FYI, I'm not a center-right kinda guy who would like to see the right thing done. If that means perpwalking Bush Administration or Clinton Administration guys and gals because of their actions in this matter, so be it. I'm an equal opportunity offender in this case. You see, I was in NYC on 9/11, and saw the horrors first hand. I smelled the smells. I saw the sights. I walked through the dust and smoke clouds for weeks thereafter. That is what the results of a failure of the US government looks like.

I don't want to see it happen again, especially if there were ways that could have prevented it from happening in the first place, but for some legal mumbo jumbo that should never have been applied in the first place.

UPDATE:
Captain Ed sets sail and fires broadside after broadside against the 9/11 Commission. He shoots. He scores! Just keep scrolling. Lots of bloggy goodness there.

UPDATE II:
Powerline discusses the pitfalls of anonymous sources for stories, even ones that may confirm your predisposed beliefs.

UPDATE III:
Transcript of Shaffer appearing on CNN has been released. Also, check out The Corner for continued updates, plus pithy commentary from the likes of Mark Steyn. He quips about folks who question Weldon and Shaffer's memories, yet give the 9/11 Commission a pass on why they forgot about being informed of Able Danger, the Mary Jo White memos, or even the 1996 State Department memo to President Clinton warning of OBL's move to Afghanistan.