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2005-08-16 Home Front: WoT

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Posted by ed 2005-08-16 07:20|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 "When lawyers blocked Able Danger's request to approach the FBI, the team simply went back to its work and kept quiet - even after the 9/11 attacks occurred."

"First, kill all the lawyers." --Henry IV, William Shakespeare

Posted by The Angry Fliegerabwehrkanonen 2005-08-16 07:54|| http://www.calderonswirbelwind.blogspot.com]">[http://www.calderonswirbelwind.blogspot.com] 2005-08-16 07:54|| Front Page Top

#2 An earlier Able Danger article from Jack Kelly: Able Danger disabled

Posted by ed 2005-08-16 08:14|| 2005-08-16 08:14|| Front Page Top

#3 "When lawyers blocked Able Danger's request to approach the FBI, the team simply went back to its work and kept quiet - even after the 9/11 attacks occurred."

There are times you need to have the guts to shortcircuit and go to a higher instance and/or to disobey orders. It was not by listening the advice of the ship's lawyer that Nelson won the battle of Copenhague.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-08-16 10:32|| 2005-08-16 10:32|| Front Page Top

#4 Wayne Inn was home to Mohammed Atta

Wayne. The middle name and hotel of choice of America's finest mass murderers.

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2005-08-16 11:06|| 2005-08-16 11:06|| Front Page Top

#5 If the Able Danger team was so concerned about U.S. security, why didn't it approach Congress or even the press to sound an alarm?

Who would have listened? None of our elites were prepared to listen then, it took 9/11 to change everyone's mindset, including mine.

I think everyone is missing the larger point of Able Danger. If they were able to spot Atta and Co. before 9/11, I wonder who they have found since and if their capabilities and resources have grown? Finding the terrorist cells still seems to me to be the hardest part of counter-terrorism. It is encouraging that the super-geeks knew how to pull back the curtain even before 9/11 when few gave a damn. Just as the Alan Turing types broke open parts of the Enigma machine/systems before WWII with little bureacratic support and money, the super-geeks spotted the purposeful operational Jihadi needle in the haystack of daily human chaos on what seems to me a small budget. Who knows what they can do now. Well done to the geeks as far as I am concerned. Never mind running with the info. I want them concentrating on getting it. That remains the hard part. The rest of us sub-par intellects can handle busting the doors open. Just let them alone to see through the doors.

Posted by Zpaz 2005-08-16 13:26|| 2005-08-16 13:26|| Front Page Top

#6 Part of the problem is data mining sounds like snakeoil. It's hard to convince people it actually works. I'm impressed they fingered Atta, but I'm not surprised they weren't taken seriously.

Posted by phil_b 2005-08-16 22:17|| 2005-08-16 22:17|| Front Page Top

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