Winehole23
01-12-2010, 11:27 AM
The most serious unmet security need is the federal government’s ability to screen all airline tickets and reservations through a central database. Virtually every security expert says that the most important element in airline security is information. Determining who has access to airplanes and airports is, as we all were reminded again on Christmas Day, a life-and-death matter. The Transportation Security Administration is at the mercy of multiple government agencies that did not share intelligence with one another before 9/11and still do not share it today. Scores of false starts have been made toward putting together a uniform database — a series of lists of questionable, undesirable, and dangerous passengers — as a last line of defense. Unfortunately, the no-fly list has been a boon to Department of Homeland Security and other government contractors trying to fix its shortcomings, but it has never met a standard that will protect the public.
The error-filled list has caused tens of thousands of innocent people to be confused with terrorists. What was promised as protection against Al Qaeda and other terrorists through government interagency cooperation is instead a list brimming with mistakes and government agencies reluctant to correct them. But there is something worse than hassling innocent passengers. We know that known terrorists have repeatedly flown either because of gaps and mistakes in the no-fly list or because intelligence agencies allowed them to fly to see where they would go. We also know that the same government agencies that in 2001 refused to share information with the FAA — as a way to protect sources and methods — are at the heart of why there is no effective no-fly database today.
DCBureau.org’s National Security News Service obtained a copy of the March 2006 no-fly list when it arrived over the transom without a hint of who sent it. We established its authenticity through TSA and CIA sources. TSA representatives have told some media outlets the list is a secret/sensitive document. In fact, it is not classified as secret but only as sensitive — an administrative classification. As expected, it is dominated by Arabic names — the first third of the list begins with the letter A. What is unexpected is that the list is a mess, filled with names of dead people, Irish Republican Army fund-raisers, and others who have never been a threat to air travel. “The list is a joke,” a high-level official of United Airlines says. We investigated the accuracy of the no-fly list. The goal was to determine its value in protecting the nation’s air transportation system. The result of that investigation reveals a government dominated by national security organizations that continue to heavily censor the information they share with one another and TSA and the airlines. More disturbing, terrorists who present a real threat to aviation have been deliberately left off the no-fly list. The basic recommendation of the 9/11 Commission — to improve interagency communication — is unmet eight years after the 9/11 attacks despite high-level government officials saying it has been fixed.
The net effect is that by keeping important terrorism and intelligence information from the no-fly list, public safety is jeopardized and the likelihood of another 9/11-style attack is increased. One high-level TSA official describes the group of terrorism watch lists consolidated into several lists by the Department of Homeland Security as “a fake. No-fly doesn’t protect anyone. It is every government agency’s cover-your-ass list of names. Many of the really bad guys are never put on the list because the intelligence people think the airlines are not trustworthy. That makes the incomplete list we give the airlines next to worthless.” That was in 2006.
Four years later the current no-fly list is still full of errors and the CIA and other intelligence agencies are still not sharing all current known names of terrorists for inclusion on the list, something that angered and shocked President Obama after the near loss of Delta Northwest Flight 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day.
The misspelling of Umar Farouk Abulmutallab’s name in a State Department cable is being cited as one of the mistakes that helped the Al Qaeda terrorist. According to State Department officials, who spoke to the news media on the condition of anonymity, an initial check based on his father's information failed to disclose that his son had a multiple-entry US visa. The reason given was that Abulmutallab's name was misspelled. The question of who provided the misspelled name is a major issue among intelligence officials. The CIA has a history of providing incorrect spellings to avoid having terrorists they are following or other people of interest from being placed on the no-fly list. Since Abulmutallab’s father met with a top CIA official at the US Embassy in Nigeria, the question is: Did that CIA officer intentionally misspell the name that ended up in the State Department cable? It would not be the first time.
DCBureau.org’s investigation reveals that one of the 9/11 hijackers appeared on the no-fly list with a deliberately misspelled name. The CIA supplied that name just like they did Abulmutallab’s. We are publishing the page from the 2006 no-fly list with the misspelled 9/11 hijacker’s name.
http://www.dcbureau.org/images/stories/midham.jpg
Al-Mihdhar was on the no-fly list as “al-Midham.”
The terrorist was known to the CIA as one of two men who had attended a meeting of Al Qaeda officials in Malaysia before coming to the United States. That hijacker was also a Saudi intelligence agent with the General Intelligence Directorate, the Saudi agency that works closely with the CIA. DCBureau sources in both the CIA and Saudi government insist that Khalid al-Mihdhar was one of two GID agents who were supposed to feed back information on Al Qaeda. Al-Mihdhar was on the no-fly list as “al-Midham.”
The night before the 9/11the attack on the Pentagon, al-Mihdhar and his cohorts spent the night in the same motel near Dulles International Airport as the top Saudi official who provides aid to overseas Islamic causes.
The CIA giving other federal agencies a misspelled name is not inadvertent. The CIA has had software for more than a decade that will match variants of names automatically. This software was not shared with any government agencies except the National Security Agency. The software was specifically developed to deal with difficult Arab names.
A CIA official, now retired, who was responsible for contributing names to the list says, “I cannot describe to you how reluctant our operational people were to turn over names. Many terrorists act as assets for our case officers. We do deal with bad guys, and, like cops protect snitches, we protect ours, too, and none of those guys is going to show up on the no-fly list anytime soon. So we made a deal. The CIA effectively has the ability to allow people to fly who are on the no-fly list if we deem it in the national interest —just not on domestic airlines.”
http://www.dcbureau.org/20100111307/National-Security-News-Service/the-no-fly-list-part-i-americas-maginot-line.html
The error-filled list has caused tens of thousands of innocent people to be confused with terrorists. What was promised as protection against Al Qaeda and other terrorists through government interagency cooperation is instead a list brimming with mistakes and government agencies reluctant to correct them. But there is something worse than hassling innocent passengers. We know that known terrorists have repeatedly flown either because of gaps and mistakes in the no-fly list or because intelligence agencies allowed them to fly to see where they would go. We also know that the same government agencies that in 2001 refused to share information with the FAA — as a way to protect sources and methods — are at the heart of why there is no effective no-fly database today.
DCBureau.org’s National Security News Service obtained a copy of the March 2006 no-fly list when it arrived over the transom without a hint of who sent it. We established its authenticity through TSA and CIA sources. TSA representatives have told some media outlets the list is a secret/sensitive document. In fact, it is not classified as secret but only as sensitive — an administrative classification. As expected, it is dominated by Arabic names — the first third of the list begins with the letter A. What is unexpected is that the list is a mess, filled with names of dead people, Irish Republican Army fund-raisers, and others who have never been a threat to air travel. “The list is a joke,” a high-level official of United Airlines says. We investigated the accuracy of the no-fly list. The goal was to determine its value in protecting the nation’s air transportation system. The result of that investigation reveals a government dominated by national security organizations that continue to heavily censor the information they share with one another and TSA and the airlines. More disturbing, terrorists who present a real threat to aviation have been deliberately left off the no-fly list. The basic recommendation of the 9/11 Commission — to improve interagency communication — is unmet eight years after the 9/11 attacks despite high-level government officials saying it has been fixed.
The net effect is that by keeping important terrorism and intelligence information from the no-fly list, public safety is jeopardized and the likelihood of another 9/11-style attack is increased. One high-level TSA official describes the group of terrorism watch lists consolidated into several lists by the Department of Homeland Security as “a fake. No-fly doesn’t protect anyone. It is every government agency’s cover-your-ass list of names. Many of the really bad guys are never put on the list because the intelligence people think the airlines are not trustworthy. That makes the incomplete list we give the airlines next to worthless.” That was in 2006.
Four years later the current no-fly list is still full of errors and the CIA and other intelligence agencies are still not sharing all current known names of terrorists for inclusion on the list, something that angered and shocked President Obama after the near loss of Delta Northwest Flight 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day.
The misspelling of Umar Farouk Abulmutallab’s name in a State Department cable is being cited as one of the mistakes that helped the Al Qaeda terrorist. According to State Department officials, who spoke to the news media on the condition of anonymity, an initial check based on his father's information failed to disclose that his son had a multiple-entry US visa. The reason given was that Abulmutallab's name was misspelled. The question of who provided the misspelled name is a major issue among intelligence officials. The CIA has a history of providing incorrect spellings to avoid having terrorists they are following or other people of interest from being placed on the no-fly list. Since Abulmutallab’s father met with a top CIA official at the US Embassy in Nigeria, the question is: Did that CIA officer intentionally misspell the name that ended up in the State Department cable? It would not be the first time.
DCBureau.org’s investigation reveals that one of the 9/11 hijackers appeared on the no-fly list with a deliberately misspelled name. The CIA supplied that name just like they did Abulmutallab’s. We are publishing the page from the 2006 no-fly list with the misspelled 9/11 hijacker’s name.
http://www.dcbureau.org/images/stories/midham.jpg
Al-Mihdhar was on the no-fly list as “al-Midham.”
The terrorist was known to the CIA as one of two men who had attended a meeting of Al Qaeda officials in Malaysia before coming to the United States. That hijacker was also a Saudi intelligence agent with the General Intelligence Directorate, the Saudi agency that works closely with the CIA. DCBureau sources in both the CIA and Saudi government insist that Khalid al-Mihdhar was one of two GID agents who were supposed to feed back information on Al Qaeda. Al-Mihdhar was on the no-fly list as “al-Midham.”
The night before the 9/11the attack on the Pentagon, al-Mihdhar and his cohorts spent the night in the same motel near Dulles International Airport as the top Saudi official who provides aid to overseas Islamic causes.
The CIA giving other federal agencies a misspelled name is not inadvertent. The CIA has had software for more than a decade that will match variants of names automatically. This software was not shared with any government agencies except the National Security Agency. The software was specifically developed to deal with difficult Arab names.
A CIA official, now retired, who was responsible for contributing names to the list says, “I cannot describe to you how reluctant our operational people were to turn over names. Many terrorists act as assets for our case officers. We do deal with bad guys, and, like cops protect snitches, we protect ours, too, and none of those guys is going to show up on the no-fly list anytime soon. So we made a deal. The CIA effectively has the ability to allow people to fly who are on the no-fly list if we deem it in the national interest —just not on domestic airlines.”
http://www.dcbureau.org/20100111307/National-Security-News-Service/the-no-fly-list-part-i-americas-maginot-line.html