Able Danger

Although I know of no documentation to support this conjecture, my guess is that ninety-five percent of America has probably never heard of Able Danger. If you are reading this, you are probably among the five percent who has. The reason, of course, is that the major news networks have barely mentioned this potentially explosive story; however, bloggers and talk radio have been examining and discussing the situation in depth.

The situation, in brief, is that U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) has disclosed that in 1999, a military intelligence program known as "Able Danger" had identified a terrorist cell operating in New York. The cell included Mohammed Atta and three other 9-11 hijackers.

According to Weldon, in September of 2000, Able Danger recommended that information on the cell be passed on to the FBI. However, Pentagon lawyers rejected the idea because Atta was in the country legally, and the matter was never pursued.

Weldon further states that the 9-11 Commission was informed on two occasions of the Able Danger information; however, the Commission did not investigate or make any mention of Able Danger in its final report.

There are at this point many more questions than answers on this story. A few questions that I would like to see investigated and answered include the following:

1. What roll, if any, did the so-called "wall," a policy that restricted the sharing of information between intelligence and law enforcement, play in the fact that information collected by Able Danger was not shared with the FBI?

2. What role, if any, did the fact that Jamie Gorelick was a member of the 9-11 Commission play in the Commission's decision not to fully investigate or to include revelations concerning Able Danger? (Gorelick is the former Clinton administration deputy attorney general whom former Attorney General John Ashcroft and others claim to have been the architect of the intel information wall.)

3. In what way, if any, were the classified documents that former Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger stole from the National Archives related to the Able Danger info? (Berger took the documents from the National Archives in October of 2003; according to Weldon, the 9-11 Commission was first briefed on Able Danger in... October, 2003!)

4. Why do the major news outlets seem to have such an overwhelming lack of curiosity about this issue?

For more information on Able Danger, try these websites:
Government Security News
The New York Times
Michelle Malkin (Michelle has links to about eight or ten more sources of info.