By Cliff Montgomery – Nov. 18th, 2011
A Congressional report published in April offers a steady look into the mind-set of America’s current police state.
This police state continually demands more invasive and illegal powers under the banner of creating a “proactive, agile, flexible, and intelligence-driven [force] that can prevent acts of terrorism.”
The underlying idea to all this appears to be that the awful events of September 11th, 2001 occurred because democracy and civil rights were in the way, foiling our self-proclaimed “protectors” from keeping every man, woman and child completely safe from the uncertainties of existence.
A quick look at the facts reveals that this notion is simply wrong.
“Many of the agonizing missteps and missed clues leading to 9/11 are now well known,” declared Amy Zegart in a Washington Post opinion piece published in 2007.
Zegart, among other things, is an Associate Professor at UCLA’s School of Public Affairs and author of the tantalizing book, Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI and the Origins of 9/11.
“There was the failure to watchlist or spread the word about Khalid Almihdhar, the 9/11 hijacker who first attracted the CIA’s attention in January 2000,” states the Post, “when he attended an al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia carrying a multiple-entry U.S. visa in his passport.”
“There is the FBI’s ‘Phoenix memo,’ ” continued Zegart, “which warned that bin Laden could be training terrorists in U.S. flight schools but which never reached top FBI officials or any other intelligence agency.”
“And there is the refusal by FBI headquarters to seek a search warrant for the computer files of Zacarias Moussaoui,” Zegart deftly pointed out, “the only person convicted in the United States for his connection to the 9/11 plot.”
Notice these intelligence problems have nothing to do with a lack of information. In fact, the data obtained by officials were clear, numerous and accurate.
The problem is instead a rigid institutional culture that, among other matters, continues “promotion incentives that reward[s] all the wrong things,” and allows “structural weaknesses that hampered the CIA and the FBI and prevented all 15 U.S intelligence agencies from working as a unified team,” according to Zegart.
Remember these points if you read the full Congressional study. If you’d prefer to first peruse the report’s summary you may find it below, where The American Spark has re-printed it:
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI, or ‘the Bureau’) is the lead federal law enforcement agency charged with counter-terrorism investigations. Since the September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks, the FBI has implemented a series of reforms intended to transform itself from a largely reactive law enforcement agency focused on investigations of criminal activity into a more proactive, agile, flexible, and intelligence-driven agency that can prevent acts of terrorism.
“This report provides background information on key elements of the FBI terrorism investigative process based on publicly available information. It discusses:
- Several enhanced investigative tools, authorities, and capabilities provided to the FBI through post-9/11 legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, the 2008 revision to the Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations (Mukasey Guidelines), and the expansion of Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) throughout the country
- Intelligence reform within the FBI and concerns about the progress of those reform initiatives
- The FBI’s proactive, intelligence-driven posture in its terrorism investigations using preventative policing techniques such as the ‘Al Capone’ approach and the use of agent provocateurs, and the implications for privacy and civil liberties inherent in the use of preventative policing techniques to combat terrorism.
“This report sets forth possible considerations for Congress as it executes its oversight role.
“These issues include the extent to which intelligence has been integrated into FBI operations to support its counter-terrorism mission and the progress the Bureau has made on its intelligence reform initiatives.
“In addition, these issues will also be relevant during confirmation hearings for a new director. The statutory 10- year term of current FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III [expired] in September 2011. A new director will be subject to Senate confirmation.”
