Where’s the Outrage?

It has been about a week since the car which was in gulfed in flames crashed in the Glascow Airport.  2 doctors have been arrested.  This event seems to be linked to the London attack of last week.  That seems to be all that we truly know.  Doctors.  Attack.  From the Middle East.  It is unclear if there is a direct link to Al Qaeda.  The plot seems to have been at least inspired by Al Qaeda.  There doctors were screened by British procedures but still slid through.

One of the questions that right wing bloggers ask is why does it take a week to post something about a major terrorist attemptted attack.  There have been so many false alarms and pseudo-attacks, I don’t want to personally add to the hype.  I would like to simply put out meaningful information.

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From NYT:

Investigators have identified two “principal protagonists” in the botched terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow and are trying to establish how the other detained suspects fit in, a British security official said Saturday.

The two principal suspects are almost certainly the two men arrested after crashing their Jeep Cherokee into a terminal at Glasgow’s international airport: Dr. Bilal Abdulla, a British-born Iraqi doctor who was formally charged Saturday, and a man known both as Kaleef and Khalid Ahmed, an Indian engineer who is being treated for severe burns sustained in the attack last week.  (more…)

 

 Glasgow [1:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Security, Terrorism by ecthompson
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I know that there’s a joke here that is so easy to make but I’ll have to pass. Probably a half a dozen of them. But I’m not in the mood for shooting fish in barrels today. I just have a question.

Who’s in charge of intelligence in the Bush Administration?

No, seriously…. Who’s in charge?

Isn’t it worrisome, or telling, or whatever….., that the top two spots at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the office that is supposed to correlate, corroborate, coordinate and otherwise oversee all of the various national intelligence agencies…… that those top two spots are empty. [Read more →]

Tags: Bush Administration, National Intelligence, Security by desertbug
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Department of Homeland Security has turned to Disney to polish its image, Stephen Colbert has a few things to say about this. Colbert is funny as usual.

 

 TCR - A Small World [3:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Security, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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From CNN.com:

As many as 84 people in five Northeastern states have been confirmed as having the strain of E. coli bacteria involved in an outbreak believed to be linked to Taco Bell restaurants, officials said Thursday.

State and federal agencies are still trying to pin down the source.

At least one lawsuit relating to the outbreak already has been filed against the fast-food restaurant chain.

E. coli cases — first reported November 29 in New Jersey, followed by New York and Pennsylvania — now have appeared in Delaware and Connecticut, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said. Interviews showed that most of the first 58 who became ill had eaten at Taco Bells.

On Wednesday, Taco Bell said it had ordered the removal of all green onions from its 5,800 outlets nationwide, after three samples tested by an independent laboratory were found to be positive for E. coli.

But now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is testing several ingredients used by Taco Bell. The epidemiology detectives are also conducting more interviews to track down the source of the E. coli strain, said Dave Daigle, spokesman for the Infectious Disease Center of the CDC. more

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I may be wrong but I’m getting the notion that our food supply is not safe.  6 years after 9-11.  (9-11 was suppose to change everything)  Wasn’t just a couple of months ago the FDA was chasing down some bad spinach??

Tags: 9-11, Domestic Issues, Security by ecthompson
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From NPR

After a weeks-long battle, the White House and moderate Republicans in Congress have reached a compromise on legislation that would let the president detain suspected terrorists at CIA prisons and try them at special military tribunals.

The proposed compromise legislation has two major elements. It sets out new guidelines on military commissions — the tribunals that will be used to try suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay — and clarifies policy with regard to the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3, which prohibits torture. Sprinkled throughout the bill are provisions dealing with access to courts and culpability for war crimes. Here, key points of the bill:

ON MILITARY COMMISSIONS

Secret Evidence

Defendants can’t be convicted on the basis of evidence they haven’t seen. If classified documents are necessary to prove the defendant’s guilt or innocence, the judge will give the defendant summaries or edited versions of the documents.

Hearsay Evidence

Hearsay evidence is generally OK in these trials. A judge has to rule that the evidence is reliable and relevant to the case. [Read more →]

Tags: Domestic Issues, National Intelligence, Security, Torture, War on Terror by ecthompson
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WaPo: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is a longtime and prominent member of the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list, which notes his role as the suspected mastermind of the deadly U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa on Aug. 7, 1998.

But another more infamous date — Sept. 11, 2001 — is nowhere to be found on the same FBI notice.

The curious omission underscores the Justice Department’s decision, so far, to not seek formal criminal charges against bin Laden for approving al-Qaeda’s most notorious and successful terrorist attack. The notice says bin Laden is “a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world” but does not provide details.

The absence has also provided fodder for conspiracy theorists who think the U.S. government or another power was behind the Sept. 11 hijackings. From this point of view, the lack of a Sept. 11 reference suggests that the connection to al-Qaeda is uncertain. more

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I don’t understand the administration’s decision.  Why hasn’t capturing or killing Osama bin Laden been our goverment’s number one priority?

Tags: Al Qaeda, Security, Terrorism, War on Terror by ecthompson
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Say it ain’t so?  Progressives have said this since last December that the program was illegal.  The whole first chapter of Glenn Greenwald’s book, How Should the Patriot Act?, clearly delineates how the program is illegal.  This was actually a no-brainer.  Again, let me state for the record, that I believe that domestic surveillance is important.  It is an important tool in the war against terrorism.  This tool should be used within the scope of the law.  All domestic surveillance should be overseen by the courts.  Domestic surveillance without oversight leads to abuse.  Finally, remember that the FISA laws were written during the Cold War (the late 1970s).  At that time we had a risk of nuclear annihilation.  There is a special war provision of the FISA laws. Do not buy the neoconservatives argument that this is a special time and a special threat.  The law is flexible and it works.

Go here to read the actual FISA law.

WaPo has the story:

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 17, 2006; 2:42 PM

A federal judge in Detroit ordered a halt to the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program, ruling for the first time that the controversial effort ordered by President Bush was unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor wrote in a strongly-worded 43-page opinion that the NSA wiretapping program violates privacy and free-speech rights and the constitutional separation of powers between the three branches of government. She also found that it violates a 1978 law set up to oversee clandestine surveillance.

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The judge’s opinion 

Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer and blogger, has much more analysis on this legal topic: [Read more →]

Tags: Domestic Spying, National Intelligence, Security by ecthompson
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21 people up in arrested in London connected with a plot to blow up airplanes heading for the United States.  Early reports indicate that the plotters may be connected with Al Qaeda.  Also, that the perpetrators would use liquid explosives hidden in common drinks like a Coke or Pepsi.

We know that Ramzi Yousef, the planner of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and a nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, key planner in 9/11, was almost caught, in the Philippines if I’m not mistaken.  While in the Philippines he was working on some type of liquid explosive.  The plan at that time was to blow up airplanes over the Pacific Ocean.  Richard Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies, describes the incident. 

“And he was planning to blow up US airliners in the Pacific with bomb smuggled on board, bombs we would not notice, using liquid explosives.  There assembled on board in the bathroom and then left there.  The terrorists gets off at the first stop and the plane continues on and blows up.  The Filipinos found some of the bombs, but not all.  He had all the flights picked out, United, Northwest… 11 of them, 747s.”

The above incident happened in January of 1995.  In the intervening 11 years what have we done to prevent these kind of incidents?  If the answer is nothing, many government officials should be fired!!!  This should have been a surprise.  We were warned about this method!

 

 Bush Terror plot in London [2:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Al Qaeda, Domestic Issues, Security, Terrorism, War on Terror by ecthompson
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Representative Conyers suggests that the Bush administration has broken the law.  Really?  Is this a surprise to anyone?  I guess, my question is-what do we do with this report that suggests 23 laws have been broken?

Update: Complete house report here.  Summary here.  Discussed on Daily Kos here.

 

 Cafferty on Conyers findings [1:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Civil Liberty, Civil Rights, Domestic Issues, Iraq, Legal, Mess O'Potamia (Iraq/Iran/Israel/Palestine), Security, WMD, War on Terror by ecthompson
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This is an old story but I found a video that I would like to post.  So, NY gets the finger from Homeland Security.  One must wonder why?  Most Americans outside of politicians, if asked what American city do you think would be hit with the next terrorist attack, wound guess New York, Washington or possibly Los Angeles.  So, one would figure that NY would get an increase in its anti-terror funding.  That would be wrong.  Their budget was cut by 40%!! Appeals have landed on deaf ears. 

Decisions like these are why we will never get true Security around this country.  Republicans are handing out Homeland Security dollars like they are rewards for great campaigning instead of measuring risk but then again, what do I know?

(This is Nancy Giles from the CBS Sunday Morning News.)

 

 Giles Homeland Security [2:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Domestic Issues, National Intelligence, Security by ecthompson
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Last week, besides shooting Mr. Whittington in the face, there were two other major news stories which surrounded Vice President Cheney. First, was the revelation that Scooter Libby testified under oath that a superior instructed him to release classified information. If one looks at the government structure. There are only a few people who are superior to Mr. Libby. The vice president, the president, Andy Card, the Chief of Staff, Condoleezza Rice who was the president’s national security adviser and possibly Donald Rumsfeld. That’s about it.

During the Britt Hume interview, Vice President Cheney was asked about releasing classified information. Vice president Cheney stated that he had the authority (thru the President) to classify or declassify anything that he saw fit to declassify. Only the president had the authority to change his decision. This was an amazing revelation. So, any document that was classified by the CIA, the FBI or the State Department could be declassified by Vice President Cheney unilaterally without consultation with anyone else.

So how is this in the best interest of the United States?

Tags: Other Political Thoughts, Security by ecthompson
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