Posts
Posted by Matt Gurney
.... as America’s stockpile ages and diplomats grandstand at the United Nations, Russia and China are improving their nuclear weapons systems, while Iran continues working on its own. All these powers must do is maintain their stockpiles at their current level and wait until America’s military advantages slip away. Russia and China don’t need to spend more money. They just need patience. ....
Friday, October 2, 2009
Former Muslim receiving death threats The Tulsa atheist was critical of all religions, including Islam, in a Tulsa World interview.
(Analyst's note: This man not only left Islam, but he became an atheist. This makes him a double looser in the mind of the jihadist.)
Intelligence Averts Another Attack Why do Democrats in Congress want to change key laws that have helped to discover terrorist plots?
Emergency alert system deemed 'unreliable'
A failure to test and modernize the U.S. emergency alert system leaves doubt whether the president would be able to communicate with the American people during a terrorist attack or natural disaster, congressional investigators said Thursday.
A report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) described the existing Emergency Alert System (EAS) as "antiquated" and "unreliable" and said that eight years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has made only "limited progress" in creating a system to replace it.
"Specifically, a lack of training and national-level testing raises questions about whether the relay system would actually work during a national-level emergency," said the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress. ....
11-year sentence upheld for prof linked to Hamas
CHICAGO - A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a sentence of more than 11 years in prison for a former business professor who refused to answer grand jury questions about his relationship with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. .....
Texas Man in Custody on Federal Arson Charges With Possible Eco-Terrorism Link
from FoxNews
A Texas man was arrested this week on federal charges stemming from an arson at a construction site that may have ties to eco-terrorism, according to a criminal complaint. ....
A Texas man was arrested this week on federal charges stemming from an arson at a construction site that may have ties to eco-terrorism, according to a criminal complaint. ....
Hardin, Montana update: AG launches probe
(Analyst's note: Absolutely must read. Please search on the site on "Hardin" to review the initial report.)
By Michelle Malkin
By Michelle Malkin
The latest on what’s happening in Hardin, Montana: State Attorney General Steve Bullock has launched a probe into the jail deal with American Police Force and its shady founder:
Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock launched an investigation Thursday into American Police Force, the California company founded by a Serbian immigrant with a lengthy criminal history that is seeking to run an empty, 464-bed jail in Hardin.
Bullock sent a nine-page demand letter late Thursday afternoon to Becky Shay, the spokeswoman for APF and the company’s only Montana employee.
Shay did not immediately respond to phone calls Thursday.
According to the document, Bullock is launching the civil investigation into APF over concerns that the company might be violating the Montana Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act.
Among other things, Bullock demanded that the company provide proof for many statements about the company included on APF’s Web site. The site says that the company frequently has contracts with the U.S. government and has operations in all 50 states.
Research into the company has turned up no record of APF contracting with the federal government. Bullock has requested that the company provide proof of its federal contracts and operations in other states.
Bullock also requested a copy of the contract between APF and Two Rivers Authority, the economic development arm of the city of Hardin, which built the jail two years ago.
The contract is reportedly a 10-year, multimillion-dollar deal with APF to run the jail.People involved in the deal are jumping ship:
Although Michael Hilton, the man behind APF, and local officials say the deal is as good as done, US Bank, the trustee for the bonds sold to build the jail, has never signed off on it.
A California company’s bid to take over an empty jail in rural Montana appears to be unraveling, with an attorney involved in the project cutting ties Friday and a second company, once named as a subcontractor, denying any involvement.
Those moves followed revelations earlier in the week that Michael Hilton—the lead figure of the company, American Police Force—is a convicted felon with a history of fraud and failed business dealings in California.
“We met with him and he asked us if we can support him,” said Edward Angelino, chief executive of Allied Defense Systems, an Irvine, Calif.-based defense contractor. “We checked his background, we checked his company. He’s not an adequate person to do business with.”Sunlight is always the best disinfectant.
CNN plug-in: Immoral, dangerous software
..... Using peer-to-peer software in this context is morally reprehensible, professionally irresponsible and technologically very dangerous.
Detroit: Too broke to bury their dead Struggling families abandon loved ones in morgue freezer
(Analyst's note: Troubling. We are likely to see more of this as a large number of U.S. cities are in significant financial trouble.)
'Huge threat to power grid' Homeland Security official admits vulnerability
(Analyst's note: Troubling at best.)
from WorldNetDaily
The disclosure reveals the government's familiarity with a report released more than six months ago, in which Jian-Wei Wang used publicly available data to explain exactly how the United States' West Coast grid was connected and how the computers that control the grid could be easily sabotaged.
Most Americans can recall an event fitting this description when in the summer of 2003, a surge at one plant in Ohio caused just such a "cascading failure" and led to complete blackouts in New York City, on much of the East Coast and even in the Midwest. More than 45 million people were left without electricity, and telephone and even water services were disrupted. In all, the outage caused more than $10 billion in losses.
Official reports immediately denied any possibility of terrorism, but a Wall Street Journal report in April of 2009 revealed that hackers from China and Russia have twice breached the national security grid and may have left software programs behind that could be used to remotely crash the system. The same type of hackers successfully compromised a water treatment facility in Australia and caused 200,000 gallons of sewage to flood a city.
Some experts believe the 2003 blackout was in fact caused by a hacker – a software bug within an operating system responsible for managing alarm systems led operators to believe systems were functioning normally when, in fact, they were on the verge of collapse. The "worm" inside the computer system at just one facility contributed to the scale of the catastrophe.
The Obama administration claims the problem is being solved with $200 million of funding, but the reality is that much of the grid uses 1940s equipment and that a few terrorists with a little explosive material – like the kind used at many construction sites around the country – could attack the grid in dozens of vulnerable places at once.
Threats to the grid are not limited only to terrorist attacks or hackers. As Newt Gingrich pointed out in a recent speech, a nuclear weapon detonated in the atmosphere above a U.S. city could act as an Electromagnetic Pulse device, destroying the electrical circuitry that powers every computer in the city. His claims are based on the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack from April 2008.
Natural disasters can also wreak havoc on our relatively fragile infrastructure, as was the case in New Orleans after Katrina, after the blizzard of 2006 that dumped 26 inches on New York City, and after floods in north Georgia in September of 2009.
In response to the growing threat, many consumers are turning to alternatives, such as the one offered by Solutions from Science, an Illinois-based company that sells a solar-powered generator. Bill Heid, the chief executive officer of the company, explained how the solar power generator works. "The solar powered generator harnesses free energy from the sun, stores it and then delivers it cleanly and quietly whenever you need it," explains Heid.
Unlike traditional gasoline powered generators, the solar powered generator uses entirely free energy from the sun, and emits no fumes and makes no noise. "If you've ever used a gas-powered generator, you know how loud they are and how much they smell," he said. "That's hardly a practical solution in a residential situation."
The solar-powered generator raises another concern of many survivalists whose plans rely on traditional gas or diesel powered generators; the long-term availability of those fuels in the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster. If the electric grid is down for any reason, the pumps at gas stations won't work and if there is any serious disruption to the electric grid, the entire "just in time" inventory system will fail altogether.
Consumers who have worked hard to prepare by counting on their traditional generators may find themselves with an expensive piece of equipment that does nothing but take up room.
Heid explains, "A gas powered generator may run out of fuel in as little as a few hours. If you've planned ahead maybe you've stored extra fuel, and if you've taken precautions to prevent it from spoiling, maybe that will buy you a few extra days, but then what? What will your family do when there is no more gasoline?"
Many observers have pointed out that the problems facing the U.S. power grid are likely to remain with us for generations. The aging infrastructure, the left's opposition to nuclear power, a growing population and increased electric consumption are driving demand, while fossil fuel prices inch upwards year after year.
In the book, "Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security," author Amory Lovins makes the case that the U.S. energy infrastructure is even more susceptible to disruption, by accident or through malice than even imported oil.
It is this growing danger of blackouts that has driven many consumers to prepare for the worst, while praying that day never comes. Other consumers cite a desire for peace of mind, recognizing that without electricity, even the best-prepared family will suffer many hardships that could be avoided.
The rather minor glitch that led to the blackout in the northeast in 2003 disrupted water service, communication, transportation and even contributed to the deaths of more than a dozen people. Some consumers were without power for days. A few citizens remained calm and confident in their homes, despite the chaos outside, because of their preparations.
As Heid says, "Having a solar generator is like having a secret power plant hidden in your home…with clean, quiet, permanent electrical power at your fingertips."
from WorldNetDaily
WASHINGTON – Department of Homeland Security official John Verrico admitted that a Chinese researcher had detailed precisely how vulnerable the U.S. electric grid is to a cyber-terrorist attack.
The disclosure reveals the government's familiarity with a report released more than six months ago, in which Jian-Wei Wang used publicly available data to explain exactly how the United States' West Coast grid was connected and how the computers that control the grid could be easily sabotaged.
Wang and his colleagues at the Dalian University of Technology in China demonstrated how an attack on even the most unimportant and least used networks within the power grid could cause what engineers refer to as a "cascading failure," or a domino effect, in which one grid after another becomes overloaded and shuts down.
Most Americans can recall an event fitting this description when in the summer of 2003, a surge at one plant in Ohio caused just such a "cascading failure" and led to complete blackouts in New York City, on much of the East Coast and even in the Midwest. More than 45 million people were left without electricity, and telephone and even water services were disrupted. In all, the outage caused more than $10 billion in losses.
Official reports immediately denied any possibility of terrorism, but a Wall Street Journal report in April of 2009 revealed that hackers from China and Russia have twice breached the national security grid and may have left software programs behind that could be used to remotely crash the system. The same type of hackers successfully compromised a water treatment facility in Australia and caused 200,000 gallons of sewage to flood a city.
Some experts believe the 2003 blackout was in fact caused by a hacker – a software bug within an operating system responsible for managing alarm systems led operators to believe systems were functioning normally when, in fact, they were on the verge of collapse. The "worm" inside the computer system at just one facility contributed to the scale of the catastrophe.
The Obama administration claims the problem is being solved with $200 million of funding, but the reality is that much of the grid uses 1940s equipment and that a few terrorists with a little explosive material – like the kind used at many construction sites around the country – could attack the grid in dozens of vulnerable places at once.
Threats to the grid are not limited only to terrorist attacks or hackers. As Newt Gingrich pointed out in a recent speech, a nuclear weapon detonated in the atmosphere above a U.S. city could act as an Electromagnetic Pulse device, destroying the electrical circuitry that powers every computer in the city. His claims are based on the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack from April 2008.
Natural disasters can also wreak havoc on our relatively fragile infrastructure, as was the case in New Orleans after Katrina, after the blizzard of 2006 that dumped 26 inches on New York City, and after floods in north Georgia in September of 2009.
Citizens who sit back and expect the government to help them may be shocked to find that getting the power turned back on is not always easy and is rarely a priority for officials. In some cases it takes weeks before all the power facilities are back on line and lines are connected.
In response to the growing threat, many consumers are turning to alternatives, such as the one offered by Solutions from Science, an Illinois-based company that sells a solar-powered generator. Bill Heid, the chief executive officer of the company, explained how the solar power generator works. "The solar powered generator harnesses free energy from the sun, stores it and then delivers it cleanly and quietly whenever you need it," explains Heid.
Unlike traditional gasoline powered generators, the solar powered generator uses entirely free energy from the sun, and emits no fumes and makes no noise. "If you've ever used a gas-powered generator, you know how loud they are and how much they smell," he said. "That's hardly a practical solution in a residential situation."
The solar-powered generator raises another concern of many survivalists whose plans rely on traditional gas or diesel powered generators; the long-term availability of those fuels in the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster. If the electric grid is down for any reason, the pumps at gas stations won't work and if there is any serious disruption to the electric grid, the entire "just in time" inventory system will fail altogether.
Consumers who have worked hard to prepare by counting on their traditional generators may find themselves with an expensive piece of equipment that does nothing but take up room.
Heid explains, "A gas powered generator may run out of fuel in as little as a few hours. If you've planned ahead maybe you've stored extra fuel, and if you've taken precautions to prevent it from spoiling, maybe that will buy you a few extra days, but then what? What will your family do when there is no more gasoline?"
Many observers have pointed out that the problems facing the U.S. power grid are likely to remain with us for generations. The aging infrastructure, the left's opposition to nuclear power, a growing population and increased electric consumption are driving demand, while fossil fuel prices inch upwards year after year.
In the book, "Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security," author Amory Lovins makes the case that the U.S. energy infrastructure is even more susceptible to disruption, by accident or through malice than even imported oil.
It is this growing danger of blackouts that has driven many consumers to prepare for the worst, while praying that day never comes. Other consumers cite a desire for peace of mind, recognizing that without electricity, even the best-prepared family will suffer many hardships that could be avoided.
The rather minor glitch that led to the blackout in the northeast in 2003 disrupted water service, communication, transportation and even contributed to the deaths of more than a dozen people. Some consumers were without power for days. A few citizens remained calm and confident in their homes, despite the chaos outside, because of their preparations.
FBI Director: Al Qaeda-Linked Somali Group Could Attack U.S.
By Catherine Herridge
During a hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller was asked if members of al-Shabaab, which translates as "mujahideen youth," would send American recruits back to the U.S. to launch attacks.
"I would think that we have seen some information that the leaders would like to undertake operations outside of Somalia," Mueller told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
A U.S. counterterrorism official told FOX News that al-Shabaab has exploded since 2006, and it is becoming a full-fledged Al Qaeda affiliate, similar to Al Qaeda in Iraq. Initially the group's militias fought against the Somali government and Ethopian forces who are against an Islamic state in East Africa, the official said, but now the group's focus is turning toward the establishment of a "caliphate" or broad Islamic state not limited to Africa.
In fact, in an exclusive briefing on Thursday, a U.S. counterterrorism official told FOX News that al-Shabaab's leadership is bona fide Al Qaeda. In many cases, the operatives who guide the group in East Africa have pledged allegiance to Usama Bin Laden in person, and in some cases the Al Qaeda leader has entrusted them with missions outside of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, according to the official.
Training camps are now well-established in Somalia, and as many as 1,100 foreign fighters have joined the al-Shabaab movement, the president of Somalia's transitional government told a crowd gathered at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Wednesday.
A U.S. counterterrorism official said there are other troubling developments. A recent videotape from al-Shabaab pledged a formal allegiance to bin Laden, and the intelligence community is now monitoring jihadist Web sites to see if bin Laden will respond and "officially" bless their relationship, the official said.
In addition, the use of simultaneous attacks and suicide bombings -- the signature of al Qaeda -- has now taken hold in Somalia.
In October last year, a Minneapolis man, Shirwa Ahmed, became the first known American suicide bomber, according to the FBI. Ahmed, who travelled from Minnesota to the training camps of al-Shabaab, is one of nearly two dozen men from the United States who authorities believe joined the group.
The FBI is currently investigating another man, an 18-year-old from Seattle, who may be the second documented case of an American suicide bomber. Investigators are comparing the man's DNA with remains from an attack in the Somali capital last month.
After FOX News uncovered al-Amriki's identify, his family told a local TV station in Mobile, Ala., that their son traveled to Somalia with his wife but lost his passport there, where he became indoctrinated by al-Shabaab. One source within Mobile's Muslim community said that, after dropping out of college, Hamammi travelled to Toronto, where he eventually married a Somali woman and became indoctrinated there by "angry" individuals.
Both Hammami's family and the source within Mobile's Muslim community said Hammami has not spoken to his family in years.
They could strike the United States. That grim assessment is the first time the FBI director or any other senior law enforcement or intelligence official has stated on the record that the Al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab is no longer content to strike within the East African nation of Somalia.
"I would think that we have seen some information that the leaders would like to undertake operations outside of Somalia," Mueller told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Mueller said he is "absolutely" concerned that Americans who traveled to Somalia to train as terrorists would have U.S. legal status and would therefore be able to return to the United States and carry out attacks.
A U.S. counterterrorism official told FOX News that al-Shabaab has exploded since 2006, and it is becoming a full-fledged Al Qaeda affiliate, similar to Al Qaeda in Iraq. Initially the group's militias fought against the Somali government and Ethopian forces who are against an Islamic state in East Africa, the official said, but now the group's focus is turning toward the establishment of a "caliphate" or broad Islamic state not limited to Africa.
In fact, in an exclusive briefing on Thursday, a U.S. counterterrorism official told FOX News that al-Shabaab's leadership is bona fide Al Qaeda. In many cases, the operatives who guide the group in East Africa have pledged allegiance to Usama Bin Laden in person, and in some cases the Al Qaeda leader has entrusted them with missions outside of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, according to the official.
Training camps are now well-established in Somalia, and as many as 1,100 foreign fighters have joined the al-Shabaab movement, the president of Somalia's transitional government told a crowd gathered at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Wednesday.
A U.S. counterterrorism official said there are other troubling developments. A recent videotape from al-Shabaab pledged a formal allegiance to bin Laden, and the intelligence community is now monitoring jihadist Web sites to see if bin Laden will respond and "officially" bless their relationship, the official said.
In addition, the use of simultaneous attacks and suicide bombings -- the signature of al Qaeda -- has now taken hold in Somalia.
In October last year, a Minneapolis man, Shirwa Ahmed, became the first known American suicide bomber, according to the FBI. Ahmed, who travelled from Minnesota to the training camps of al-Shabaab, is one of nearly two dozen men from the United States who authorities believe joined the group.
The FBI is currently investigating another man, an 18-year-old from Seattle, who may be the second documented case of an American suicide bomber. Investigators are comparing the man's DNA with remains from an attack in the Somali capital last month.
In early September, FOX News exclusively identified the American mouthpiece for al-Shabaab as a native of Daphne, Ala. Born Omar Hammami, the big-eared and bright-eyed teenager now goes by the name Abu Mansour al-Amriki, or simply "The American."
After FOX News uncovered al-Amriki's identify, his family told a local TV station in Mobile, Ala., that their son traveled to Somalia with his wife but lost his passport there, where he became indoctrinated by al-Shabaab. One source within Mobile's Muslim community said that, after dropping out of college, Hamammi travelled to Toronto, where he eventually married a Somali woman and became indoctrinated there by "angry" individuals.
Both Hammami's family and the source within Mobile's Muslim community said Hammami has not spoken to his family in years.
Officials Outline Terrorist Threat to United States
by Mickey McCarter
FBI, NCTC, DHS also explain how they work together to defeat terrorists
More than eight years after 9/11, the United States continues to face terrorist threats from a weakened al Qaeda as well as smaller terrorist groups that provide money and training to individuals plotting violence against US communities, the heads of the FBI, National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), and Homeland Security Department (DHS) told Congress this week.
The recent arrest of Najibullah Zazi, who allegedly traveled to Pakistan for training on making bombs, is an example of the prevailing terrorist threat against the United States as terrorists attempt to support the activities of radicals already inside the country, FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The FBI also continues to watch for the threat of homegrown terrorists, who have no connection to overseas terrorist organizations, Mueller added. The FBI arrested four individuals allegedly planning to attack a Jewish community center and synagogue in New York City in May 2009, for example, he said.
In all of these cases, the FBI works with federal, state and local law enforcement and intelligence agencies to shut down terrorist operations.
"Our mission at the bureau is not only to disrupt plots, but to dismantle networks so that they no longer pose a threat. And targeted intelligence gathering takes time, requires patience, precision and dedication," Mueller described. It is a labor-intensive process that often does not provide a complete picture quickly, but it is the core of understanding the threats to the homeland..."
NCTC Director Michael Leiter said the overseas threat comes from Pakistan, where al Qaeda's base is shrinking; Yemen, where al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is reemerging; and Somalia, where the terrorist group al-Shabab has been working with insurgents. al Qaeda also possesses a significant presence in Algeria and Iraq, Leiter added, although its ability to strike beyond those nations from those bases is limited.
"We assess that the al Qaeda core is actively engaged in operational plotting and continues recruiting, training and transporting operatives to include individuals from Western Europe and the United States," Leiter stated.
He added: "And although al-Shabab's rank and file fighters remain focused on removing the current government of Somalia vice pursuing al Qaeda's agenda, we are particularly concerned with training programs run by al-Shabab that have attracted violent extremists from throughout the globe, including the United States."
The FBI has been aware that terrorist groups such as al Qaeda have been making intense efforts to recruit Europeans and Westerners to their operations, gambling that they would have an easier time passing through border security operations, Mueller said.
Terrorists also have used the Internet to find recruits, while lone wolf terrorists often turn to the Internet to find materials published by overseas organizations and use it in attempts to perpetuate self-contained terrorist plots, he added.
Interagency cooperation
Despite the recent spate of disrupted terrorist plots in New York, Colorado, Texas and Illinois, DHS has not been inclined to raise the national terror level because officials did not judge there to be an ongoing threat as a part of any of them, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified Wednesday.
However, DHS agencies have continued to work closely with FBI and NCTC staff to share information on suspected terrorists as they arise, Napolitano declared. For example, US Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration have shared information like immigration records and travel records with intelligence agencies in the course of their terrorism investigations.
The FBI, NCTC, and DHS also support state and local fusion centers, which pool the resources of law enforcement and intelligence agencies at various levels of government. The fusion centers represent good investments for law enforcement agencies, particularly in difficult financial times, because they extend the capabilities of every officer, Napolitano argued.
"[T]hey're a good deal from a law enforcement expenditure perspective, in terms of...the yield per officer, in terms of what you get particularly from a prevention standpoint," Napolitano said.
"So we have a very active outreach program with governors and mayors. And part of that is making sure they know what the fusion centers do and how they, really, from a budgetary standpoint are a very good expenditure of the limited dollars they have," she added.
DHS further has stood up a Joint Fusion Center Program Management Office to provide centralized assistance to 72 fusion centers around the United States, Napolitano revealed. DHS has deployed 70 analysts to those fusion centers, which also should have access to the Homeland Security Data Network by the end of fiscal 2010.
Leiter identified travel to Pakistan or Somalia among US citizens or residents as an area of particular concern to federal authorities. The FBI, NCTC, and DHS have collaborated in reaching out to US communities that face a heightened probability of contact from terrorist organizations operating in those areas, the officials said.
For example, dozens of the 100,000 Somali-Americans in the United States have been drawn to Somali to assist in al Qaeda's battles there, Leiter noted. So federal authorities have reached out to Somali communities such as that in Minneapolis to explain to them the rights of American citizens, to provide an understanding of the US immigration system, and to underscore the dangers of associations with groups like al-Shabab, Leiter said.
Napolitano emphasized that the US agencies have learned from experiences in the United Kingdom, where disaffected groups did not feel like they were part of the national fabric and thus felt less loyalty to their home countries.
"One of the things we've learned from the UK, for example, is that alienation is a factor or an element that is present oftentimes when someone is in the process of becoming radicalized. And so to the extent that we can engage, that undercuts at least that feature of the radicalization process," she said.
FBI, NCTC, DHS also explain how they work together to defeat terrorists
More than eight years after 9/11, the United States continues to face terrorist threats from a weakened al Qaeda as well as smaller terrorist groups that provide money and training to individuals plotting violence against US communities, the heads of the FBI, National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), and Homeland Security Department (DHS) told Congress this week.
The recent arrest of Najibullah Zazi, who allegedly traveled to Pakistan for training on making bombs, is an example of the prevailing terrorist threat against the United States as terrorists attempt to support the activities of radicals already inside the country, FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The FBI also continues to watch for the threat of homegrown terrorists, who have no connection to overseas terrorist organizations, Mueller added. The FBI arrested four individuals allegedly planning to attack a Jewish community center and synagogue in New York City in May 2009, for example, he said.
In all of these cases, the FBI works with federal, state and local law enforcement and intelligence agencies to shut down terrorist operations.
"Our mission at the bureau is not only to disrupt plots, but to dismantle networks so that they no longer pose a threat. And targeted intelligence gathering takes time, requires patience, precision and dedication," Mueller described. It is a labor-intensive process that often does not provide a complete picture quickly, but it is the core of understanding the threats to the homeland..."
NCTC Director Michael Leiter said the overseas threat comes from Pakistan, where al Qaeda's base is shrinking; Yemen, where al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is reemerging; and Somalia, where the terrorist group al-Shabab has been working with insurgents. al Qaeda also possesses a significant presence in Algeria and Iraq, Leiter added, although its ability to strike beyond those nations from those bases is limited.
"We assess that the al Qaeda core is actively engaged in operational plotting and continues recruiting, training and transporting operatives to include individuals from Western Europe and the United States," Leiter stated.
He added: "And although al-Shabab's rank and file fighters remain focused on removing the current government of Somalia vice pursuing al Qaeda's agenda, we are particularly concerned with training programs run by al-Shabab that have attracted violent extremists from throughout the globe, including the United States."
The FBI has been aware that terrorist groups such as al Qaeda have been making intense efforts to recruit Europeans and Westerners to their operations, gambling that they would have an easier time passing through border security operations, Mueller said.
Terrorists also have used the Internet to find recruits, while lone wolf terrorists often turn to the Internet to find materials published by overseas organizations and use it in attempts to perpetuate self-contained terrorist plots, he added.
Interagency cooperation
Despite the recent spate of disrupted terrorist plots in New York, Colorado, Texas and Illinois, DHS has not been inclined to raise the national terror level because officials did not judge there to be an ongoing threat as a part of any of them, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified Wednesday.
However, DHS agencies have continued to work closely with FBI and NCTC staff to share information on suspected terrorists as they arise, Napolitano declared. For example, US Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration have shared information like immigration records and travel records with intelligence agencies in the course of their terrorism investigations.
The FBI, NCTC, and DHS also support state and local fusion centers, which pool the resources of law enforcement and intelligence agencies at various levels of government. The fusion centers represent good investments for law enforcement agencies, particularly in difficult financial times, because they extend the capabilities of every officer, Napolitano argued.
"[T]hey're a good deal from a law enforcement expenditure perspective, in terms of...the yield per officer, in terms of what you get particularly from a prevention standpoint," Napolitano said.
"So we have a very active outreach program with governors and mayors. And part of that is making sure they know what the fusion centers do and how they, really, from a budgetary standpoint are a very good expenditure of the limited dollars they have," she added.
DHS further has stood up a Joint Fusion Center Program Management Office to provide centralized assistance to 72 fusion centers around the United States, Napolitano revealed. DHS has deployed 70 analysts to those fusion centers, which also should have access to the Homeland Security Data Network by the end of fiscal 2010.
Leiter identified travel to Pakistan or Somalia among US citizens or residents as an area of particular concern to federal authorities. The FBI, NCTC, and DHS have collaborated in reaching out to US communities that face a heightened probability of contact from terrorist organizations operating in those areas, the officials said.
For example, dozens of the 100,000 Somali-Americans in the United States have been drawn to Somali to assist in al Qaeda's battles there, Leiter noted. So federal authorities have reached out to Somali communities such as that in Minneapolis to explain to them the rights of American citizens, to provide an understanding of the US immigration system, and to underscore the dangers of associations with groups like al-Shabab, Leiter said.
Napolitano emphasized that the US agencies have learned from experiences in the United Kingdom, where disaffected groups did not feel like they were part of the national fabric and thus felt less loyalty to their home countries.
"One of the things we've learned from the UK, for example, is that alienation is a factor or an element that is present oftentimes when someone is in the process of becoming radicalized. And so to the extent that we can engage, that undercuts at least that feature of the radicalization process," she said.
Is There a Tide Beginning to Turn?
(Analyst's note: Must read and heed this letter from ACT for America)
Dear Readers,
Those of us who understand how real and dangerous the threat of radical Islam (jihadist) is to our country sometimes feel frustrated when we don’t understand why other people don’t seem to be concerned about this issue or even recognize it’s a threat.
We wonder why, only eight years after 9/11, it seems that so many appear disinterested in knowing why the attacks occurred and why the threat looms even larger today than it did then.
Polls have born this out. For the past couple of years, the issue of national security and the war on terrorism has steadily dropped as a concern among Americans. Not surprisingly, issues like the economy and health care, which affect people daily in a very personal way and which have dominated the news, have rocketed to the top of the list of issues people are concerned about.
But results from two polls this week reveal a small but recognizable shift in public opinion is taking place. This is almost certainly a consequence of the recent spate of foiled terrorist plots and the looming specter of a nuclear weaponized Iran may be impacting public opinion.
Indeed, had there been more news coverage of these plots (how many people heard about the one in Springfield, Illinois?), public opinion might be shifting even more.
A Rasmussen poll completed just last week showed that the issue of national security/war on terrorism was now the fourth highest concern among respondents out of a list of ten issues, jumping six percentage points.
Yesterday, Fox News reported the results of a just-completed poll that found 61% of Americans support military action against Iran and 69% do not believe President Obama is being tough enough in dealing with Iran.
It would appear that people are beginning to pay a little more attention to the issue of national security. This may only be a temporary phenomenon, but it is an opportunity for us to take action and reach out to others during a time of heightened awareness and concern.
A few weeks ago we launched our “Stop Shariah” project. If you haven’t already done so, we strongly encourage you to log on to www.actforamerica.org/stopshariahnow. Forward the link to others and encourage them to log on as well.
When you log on, you’ll find a wealth of information, resources, pictures and videos. We especially recommend you watch the Joy Brighton videos, the first of which is on the right of the landing page when you log on.
Another important feature of this project is our “Stop Shariah” grassroots lobbying effort. ACT! for America chapter leaders have already been provided an instructional packet and important resources for reaching out to local elected officials in their area.
The objective: To inform such officials about the threat of shariah-compliant finance, its connection to jihad and terrorism, and to provide them with a sample ordinance they can use to fight back against this threat.
You, too, can find out more about this grassroots lobbying effort by clicking here. If you know a school board member, city council member, or county commissioner, we urge you to check out the resources and sample ordinance and explore how you can join us in fighting back against shariah law and shariah finance.
Elected officials are likely more concerned about the issue of terrorism than they were a few months ago, given the succession of recent foiled terrorist plots. Now is a good time to reach out to them.
Another thing you can do is sign up to attend our October 10th webcast of the Citizens in Action conference. For more information, click here.
During times of heightened public awareness each and every one of us can do something to push back against the threat of radical Islam. We offer numerous ways in which each of us can take action, whether as Patriot Partner, Contributing Member, chapter leader, or getting involved in grassroots activities like our Stop Shariah project.
Prior to launching ACT! for America, Brigitte Gabriel would hear everywhere she went, and receive all kinds of emails, from people asking “what can we do?”
As you can see, there is no shortage of actions we have made available to every ACT! for America member. There literally is something for everyone. What can you do this month?
Dear Readers,
Those of us who understand how real and dangerous the threat of radical Islam (jihadist) is to our country sometimes feel frustrated when we don’t understand why other people don’t seem to be concerned about this issue or even recognize it’s a threat.
We wonder why, only eight years after 9/11, it seems that so many appear disinterested in knowing why the attacks occurred and why the threat looms even larger today than it did then.
Polls have born this out. For the past couple of years, the issue of national security and the war on terrorism has steadily dropped as a concern among Americans. Not surprisingly, issues like the economy and health care, which affect people daily in a very personal way and which have dominated the news, have rocketed to the top of the list of issues people are concerned about.
But results from two polls this week reveal a small but recognizable shift in public opinion is taking place. This is almost certainly a consequence of the recent spate of foiled terrorist plots and the looming specter of a nuclear weaponized Iran may be impacting public opinion.
Indeed, had there been more news coverage of these plots (how many people heard about the one in Springfield, Illinois?), public opinion might be shifting even more.
A Rasmussen poll completed just last week showed that the issue of national security/war on terrorism was now the fourth highest concern among respondents out of a list of ten issues, jumping six percentage points.
Yesterday, Fox News reported the results of a just-completed poll that found 61% of Americans support military action against Iran and 69% do not believe President Obama is being tough enough in dealing with Iran.
It would appear that people are beginning to pay a little more attention to the issue of national security. This may only be a temporary phenomenon, but it is an opportunity for us to take action and reach out to others during a time of heightened awareness and concern.
A few weeks ago we launched our “Stop Shariah” project. If you haven’t already done so, we strongly encourage you to log on to www.actforamerica.org/stopshariahnow. Forward the link to others and encourage them to log on as well.
When you log on, you’ll find a wealth of information, resources, pictures and videos. We especially recommend you watch the Joy Brighton videos, the first of which is on the right of the landing page when you log on.
Another important feature of this project is our “Stop Shariah” grassroots lobbying effort. ACT! for America chapter leaders have already been provided an instructional packet and important resources for reaching out to local elected officials in their area.
The objective: To inform such officials about the threat of shariah-compliant finance, its connection to jihad and terrorism, and to provide them with a sample ordinance they can use to fight back against this threat.
You, too, can find out more about this grassroots lobbying effort by clicking here. If you know a school board member, city council member, or county commissioner, we urge you to check out the resources and sample ordinance and explore how you can join us in fighting back against shariah law and shariah finance.
Elected officials are likely more concerned about the issue of terrorism than they were a few months ago, given the succession of recent foiled terrorist plots. Now is a good time to reach out to them.
Another thing you can do is sign up to attend our October 10th webcast of the Citizens in Action conference. For more information, click here.
During times of heightened public awareness each and every one of us can do something to push back against the threat of radical Islam. We offer numerous ways in which each of us can take action, whether as Patriot Partner, Contributing Member, chapter leader, or getting involved in grassroots activities like our Stop Shariah project.
Prior to launching ACT! for America, Brigitte Gabriel would hear everywhere she went, and receive all kinds of emails, from people asking “what can we do?”
As you can see, there is no shortage of actions we have made available to every ACT! for America member. There literally is something for everyone. What can you do this month?
Home Invasions – A Growing Epidemic In U.S.
from National Terror Alert
Earlier this week, we ran a story highlighting a recent episode of Spike TV’’s , Surviving Disaster. The post and the show focused on ‘How To Survive A Home Invasion‘. It was a brief post with a small video clip, however the response was anything but small. Within just the first couple of hours of posting, over 1000 people had read it… That’s unusual for a post that is not a “breaking news event”. I received a number of emails and a variety of questions.
Why so much interest? I’m still not completely sure but I believe it’s partially due to the following. To most people home invasions are a shockingly new and horrific type of crime that few are prepared for, or know how to prepare for. Most have read about them, are shocked by the violent and disturbing nature, but they themselves and the people they know have not been personally affected. People see the rising epidemic and understand that it’s no longer a crime relegated to just the big cities. They see the stories in their local newspaper and they’re afraid it could just as easily happen to them. They want to know how to prepare and hopefully prevent such an attack.
So how bad is it…. Take a look, the stories listed below. All of these stories appeared in the news in the past 24 – 36 hours, yet they represent only a fraction of the home invasions that are taking place across the country. Keep in mind, there are people behind each of these headlines, people who will probably never again enjoy the sense of safety and security they had just 48 hours ago.
- Man pistol whipped in Southwest Miami-Dade home invasion
- Novi police have arrested five men they believe to be responsible for a string of nine home invasions that have taken place in Novi since July 30.
- Home invasion leads to SWAT standoff
- Patriots CB Jonathan Wilhite victim of a home invasion early Sunday morning
- 1 Shot in Leavenworth Home Invasion
- 77 year old homeowner Hurt During Home Invasion Robbery
- Police investigating violent home invasion
- Police searching for suspects in Lubbock home invasion
- DeKalb Home Invasion Leaves 1 Injured
- Two men were arrested by Corpus Christi police after a home invasion Wednesday night.
- 2 arrested in St. Bernard home invasion
- Home Invasion Robbery in Centralia
- Shocked Neighbors Gather After Home Invasion Homicide
- Morning Home Invasion Injures Two
- Fairfield Home Invasion Gang Busted
- Two suspects on the run after violent home invasion
- Three people attack 69-year-old man in South Bend home invasion
What can you do to protect your home and family from such an attack? I had planned on writing a post on how to survive a terror attack on a hotel but instead, next Tuesday I’ll publish a special report detailing the steps you can take to reduce your risk and increase the odds of thwarting a home invasion.
Surviving a home invasion begins long before the actual event. In the report we’ll discuss the following:
- Specific actions you can take that can reduce your risk
- Fortifying your home against a home invasion
- Creating an emergency plan to thwart a home invasion
- Recognizing the signs that you have been targeted
- The first 60 seconds of a home invasion
- After the first 60 seconds
- New Products and Technologies for safeguarding your home
Martial Law Is Their Business – and Business Sure Is Swell
(Analyst's note: Oh yes, this is an absolutely must read item.)
by William Norman Grigg
The "dream" realized: The Two Rivers Detention Facility, the proudest achievement of Hardin, Montana's political class. Sure, it's empty now, but I'm sure those nice men in the black SUVs can do something about that....
If you build it, they will come.
That would appear to be the business plan of an enigmatic California company called American Police Force (APF), which appears to be effectively taking over the town of Hardin, Montana.
At present, the firm is said to be doing "market research," an ominous prospect, given that it's in the business of detention. And it has even spoken about the possibility of expanding the jail within a few years.
Say, that is good news – at least for the people on APF's payroll. Since last Thursday, when company personnel rolled into town in a convoy of black Mercedes SUVs embossed with seals advertising a non-existent "City of Hardin Police Department," the company's payroll has increased by at least one, and possibly two, key local figures.
The first to be snapped up was Becky Shay, a former Billings Gazette reporter whose beat included the Hardin jail. Within a day of APF's arrival, she was hired away from the paper to serve as a $60,000-a-year spokesperson for the company (a pretty hefty salary increase for a local reporter in Montana). So quickly and slickly was this career change made that Shay's editor didn't even know she had talked with APF about the position.
Also in "discussions" with APF is Kerri Smith, a finalist in Hardin's mayoral race and wife of Greg Smith, Executive Director of the Two Rivers Authority (TRA). The TRA is Hardin's economic development agency, which issued $27 million in bonds to build the jail as a public works project.
In what must be the most ill-conceived piece of civic boosterism ever to assault my senses, the TRA's webpage presents the Hardin jail – that's a structure intended to deprive people of their freedom, remember – as the poetic expression of a cherished dream: A YouTube video proudly displays slides of the jail set to the unbearable strains of Russell Watson's wretched ballad "Faith of the Heart" (the musical accompaniment is heard on the TRA's "Detention Center" webpage):
Yes, there's nothing quite like an effeminate power ballad to capture the pure aesthetic grace of a detention camp ringed by barbed wire.
Apparently, the "long road" to building that jail didn't end in prosperity. Since the finished jail has remained empty, the bonds have gone into default. At one point, Hardin's city government indicated it would accept relocated detainees from Gitmo; this prompted a legal battle between the city and the Montana state government.
City officials eventually announced an agreement with the mysterious firm that would bring in $2.6 million for use of the jail, in addition to an "investment" of $23 million to build a new training facility for military and police (which are assumed to be part of one integrated coercive apparatus, of course) on the same TRA-owned property.
The deal – which was publicly announced although the specifics were never publicly disclosed – is supposedly a cornucopia of civic benefits: New computers for the schools; a homeless shelter; a fleet of Mercedes patrol cars for the envisioned city police force; donations to the local food pantry; an animal shelter; gold-plated fixtures for the Mayor's executive washroom. OK, I made that last one up. I think. TRA Executive Director Greg Smith, whose wife is in discussions for a position with APF, helped negotiate the deal. Immediately after it was finished, he was put on "administrative leave," and went to ground. (Calls from Pro Libertate to Mr. Smith's number at the TRA were not returned.)
At a press conference a few days ago, Becky Shay grandly announced that "The decision is the name of the parent company will not be released."
Suspicions were immediately aroused that APF is a tentacle of the corporatist mercenary company formerly known as Blackwater, but now doing business under the odd name Xe (pronounced "Zee"). However, a press spokeswoman for Xe informed Pro Libertate that "We have no connection to that company, and had never heard of it" prior to recent developments in Montana.
by William Norman Grigg
The "dream" realized: The Two Rivers Detention Facility, the proudest achievement of Hardin, Montana's political class. Sure, it's empty now, but I'm sure those nice men in the black SUVs can do something about that....
If you build it, they will come.
That would appear to be the business plan of an enigmatic California company called American Police Force (APF), which appears to be effectively taking over the town of Hardin, Montana.
The "it" in question is a large jail facility outside Hardin, Montana, that was built several years ago but thus far remains unused. "They" refers to prisoners to fill said jail – a 114,000 square foot, 464-bed facility. APF has yet to become firmly established in Hardin (pop. 3,400), but the company's representatives are confident "the place [meaning the jail] would start filling up by 2010."
At present, the firm is said to be doing "market research," an ominous prospect, given that it's in the business of detention. And it has even spoken about the possibility of expanding the jail within a few years.
Say, that is good news – at least for the people on APF's payroll. Since last Thursday, when company personnel rolled into town in a convoy of black Mercedes SUVs embossed with seals advertising a non-existent "City of Hardin Police Department," the company's payroll has increased by at least one, and possibly two, key local figures.
The first to be snapped up was Becky Shay, a former Billings Gazette reporter whose beat included the Hardin jail. Within a day of APF's arrival, she was hired away from the paper to serve as a $60,000-a-year spokesperson for the company (a pretty hefty salary increase for a local reporter in Montana). So quickly and slickly was this career change made that Shay's editor didn't even know she had talked with APF about the position.
Also in "discussions" with APF is Kerri Smith, a finalist in Hardin's mayoral race and wife of Greg Smith, Executive Director of the Two Rivers Authority (TRA). The TRA is Hardin's economic development agency, which issued $27 million in bonds to build the jail as a public works project.
In what must be the most ill-conceived piece of civic boosterism ever to assault my senses, the TRA's webpage presents the Hardin jail – that's a structure intended to deprive people of their freedom, remember – as the poetic expression of a cherished dream: A YouTube video proudly displays slides of the jail set to the unbearable strains of Russell Watson's wretched ballad "Faith of the Heart" (the musical accompaniment is heard on the TRA's "Detention Center" webpage):
Yes, there's nothing quite like an effeminate power ballad to capture the pure aesthetic grace of a detention camp ringed by barbed wire.
Apparently, the "long road" to building that jail didn't end in prosperity. Since the finished jail has remained empty, the bonds have gone into default. At one point, Hardin's city government indicated it would accept relocated detainees from Gitmo; this prompted a legal battle between the city and the Montana state government.
Last March, APF was incorporated in California. Shortly thereafter it began talks with Hardin city officials and the TRA.
City officials eventually announced an agreement with the mysterious firm that would bring in $2.6 million for use of the jail, in addition to an "investment" of $23 million to build a new training facility for military and police (which are assumed to be part of one integrated coercive apparatus, of course) on the same TRA-owned property.
The deal – which was publicly announced although the specifics were never publicly disclosed – is supposedly a cornucopia of civic benefits: New computers for the schools; a homeless shelter; a fleet of Mercedes patrol cars for the envisioned city police force; donations to the local food pantry; an animal shelter; gold-plated fixtures for the Mayor's executive washroom. OK, I made that last one up. I think. TRA Executive Director Greg Smith, whose wife is in discussions for a position with APF, helped negotiate the deal. Immediately after it was finished, he was put on "administrative leave," and went to ground. (Calls from Pro Libertate to Mr. Smith's number at the TRA were not returned.)
What appears to be happening here – and until relevant details are pried out of the prehensile grip of the people running things, we can't know for sure – is nothing less than a corporatist-style military coup: the takeover of a small town in Montana by a politically connected, federally subsidized paramilitary organization.
At a press conference a few days ago, Becky Shay grandly announced that "The decision is the name of the parent company will not be released."
Suspicions were immediately aroused that APF is a tentacle of the corporatist mercenary company formerly known as Blackwater, but now doing business under the odd name Xe (pronounced "Zee"). However, a press spokeswoman for Xe informed Pro Libertate that "We have no connection to that company, and had never heard of it" prior to recent developments in Montana.
Hardin may well be the first of many economically devastated communities to be given a lifeline by the burgeoning military-homeland security-prison-industrial complex. Lifelines of that kind can quickly become nooses.
Glenn Beck discusses Valerie Jarret and the Chicago Olympics "Should this woman be anywhere near the President of the U.S.?"
(Analyst's note: Absolutely must read - see)
Video: Rush Gives Platform to ‘Susan From Glendale’ in Epic 21-Minute Call Her Passion Speaks for Millions
(Analyst's note: Today's politician's should seriously consider employment counseling -- you'll agree after listening to this absolutely must read - hear call. "We the People" just may be waking up!!!!)
If you want to listen to the rest of this phone call click here.
Did you hear about THIS? Senators Have Wires Crossed on Nation's Security
by Left Coast Conservative
[Najibullah Zazi was caught by authorities using the Federal Intelligence Surveillance
Act that liberal Democrat senators now want to abrogate! What's WRONG with them?! Do they have short circuits in their BRAINS?!]
In Washington, a group of Democratic senators are working to undermine FISA. Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Russ Feingold, D-Wis.; and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; introduced the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act that would make the country free again for lawyers who want to sue telephone companies for cooperating with the federal government.
[Najibullah Zazi was caught by authorities using the Federal Intelligence Surveillance
Act that liberal Democrat senators now want to abrogate! What's WRONG with them?! Do they have short circuits in their BRAINS?!]
In Washington, a group of Democratic senators are working to undermine FISA. Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Russ Feingold, D-Wis.; and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; introduced the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act that would make the country free again for lawyers who want to sue telephone companies for cooperating with the federal government.
The Feminization of American Education – Destroying Western Civilization?
Robert Weissberg
Bitter Fruits of Mideast Wars
By Patrick J. Buchanan
The first is whether to approve Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for thousands more U.S. troops he says he needs to prevent “mission failure” — i.e, to stave off a U.S. defeat in Afghanistan.
The second is whether Obama will start up the road of “crippling sanctions” to war with Iran, to prevent Tehran from moving closer to a capacity to produce nuclear weapons. ....
Impending today are two of the most critical decisions Barack Obama will ever make, which may determine the fate of his presidency, as well as the future of the United States in the Near and Middle East.
The first is whether to approve Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for thousands more U.S. troops he says he needs to prevent “mission failure” — i.e, to stave off a U.S. defeat in Afghanistan.
The second is whether Obama will start up the road of “crippling sanctions” to war with Iran, to prevent Tehran from moving closer to a capacity to produce nuclear weapons. ....
Swine flu could overload U.S. hospitals: report
By Julie Steenhuysen
Fifteen states could run out of hospital beds and 12 more could fill 75 percent of their beds with swine flu sufferers if 35 percent of Americans catch the virus in coming weeks, a report released Thursday said.
The study, based on estimates from a computer model developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows the strain hospitals and health departments could face as a second wave of swine flu surges. ....
Fifteen states could run out of hospital beds and 12 more could fill 75 percent of their beds with swine flu sufferers if 35 percent of Americans catch the virus in coming weeks, a report released Thursday said.
The study, based on estimates from a computer model developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows the strain hospitals and health departments could face as a second wave of swine flu surges. ....
Thursday, October 1, 2009
American Police Force Corporation Takes Over Small Town Police Force and Prisoner-Less Jail
by Neil Katz
HARDIN, Mont. (CBS/AP) This is the strange story of how American Police Force, a little known company which claims to specialize in training military and security forces overseas, has seemingly taken control of a $27 million, never-used jail, and a rural Montana town's nonexistent police force.
Significant obstacles remain - including a lack of any contracts to acquire prisoners from other jails or other states.
The agreement with American Police Force has been heavily promoted by members of the city's economic development branch, the Two Rivers Authority. Authority Vice President Albert Peterson on Friday repeated his claim to be “100 percent” confident in the company.
The lead public figure for American Police Force, Michael Hilton, said more than 200 employees would be sought for the jail and a proposed military and law enforcement training center.
That would be a significant boost to Hardin, a struggling town of 3,500 located about 45 miles east of Billings. An earlier announcement that a job fair would be held during the last week never came to fruition.
The bonds used to pay for the jail have been in default since May, 2008.
Hilton also said he planned a helicopter tour of the region in coming days to look at real estate for a planned tactical military training ground. He said 5,000 to 10,000 acres were needed to complement the training center, a $17 million project.
But the company's flashy arrival this week stirred new questions. The logo on the black Mercedes SUVs said “City of Hardin Police Department.”
“Pretty looking police car, ain't it?” Hardin resident Leroy Frickle, 67, said as he eyed one of the vehicles parked in front of a bed and breakfast where Hilton and other company representatives were staying. “The things you hear about this American Police, I don't know what to think.”
After meeting briefly with Hilton on Friday, Mayor Ron Adams said he wanted the police logos removed.
“This helps, but it doesn't answer everything until the contract is signed,” Adams said. “Talk is cheap.”
Hilton said the company's arrival in Hardin would help allay such concerns. And he promised that on Feb. 1, 2010, Hardin would receive its first check under a deal said to be worth more than $2.6 million annually.
Members of Montana's congressional delegation say they have been closely monitoring the events in Hardin, but the city has largely been going it alone.
In the two years since the jail was built, city leaders have clashed repeatedly with the administration of Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who opposed efforts to bring in out-of-state prisoners.
After then-Attorney General Mike McGrath issued a 2007 opinion saying prisoners from other states were prohibited, Hardin successfully sued the state.
Despite the city's contention that the state has continued to foil its efforts to find prisoners, Montana Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Anez said his agency is no longer involved. “That's water under the bridge,” Anez said.
On Friday, American Police Force announced its first local hire: a reporter for the Billings Gazette, Becky Shay, who has covered events surrounding the jail since its construction. She will be the company's spokeswoman for $60,000 a year.
Shay said she intended to bring new transparency to the process, but declined to directly answer the first question posed to her: Where is American Police Force getting the money to operate the jail and build the training center?
“I know enough about where the money is coming from to be confident signing on with them,” she said.
Gazette Editor Steve Prosinski said he was first informed about Shay's decision to leave the paper on Friday. “We weren't aware that she was talking with them about employment,” he said.
Hilton said he also had a job discussion with Kerri Smith, wife of Two Rivers Authority Executive Director Greg Smith, who helped craft the deal to bring American Police Force to Hardin. Greg Smith was placed on unpaid leave two weeks ago for reasons that have not been explained.
Kerri Smith is one of two finalists in the city's mayoral race. Hilton said he asked her to call him about possible employment if she did not win the race.
Kerri Smith could not be reached immediately for comment. A message was left by The Associated Press at a theater owned by the Smith family. Her home number is unlisted.
HARDIN, Mont. (CBS/AP) This is the strange story of how American Police Force, a little known company which claims to specialize in training military and security forces overseas, has seemingly taken control of a $27 million, never-used jail, and a rural Montana town's nonexistent police force.
After arriving in this tiny city with three Mercedes SUVs marked with the logo of a police department that has never existed, representatives of the obscure California security company said preparations were under way to take over Hardin's jail, which has no prisoners.
Significant obstacles remain - including a lack of any contracts to acquire prisoners from other jails or other states.
And on Friday came the revelation the company's operating agreement for the facility has yet to be validated - two weeks after city leaders first unveiled what they said was a signed agreement.
Still, some Hardin leaders said the deal to turn over the 464-bed jail remained on track.
The agreement with American Police Force has been heavily promoted by members of the city's economic development branch, the Two Rivers Authority. Authority Vice President Albert Peterson on Friday repeated his claim to be “100 percent” confident in the company.
The lead public figure for American Police Force, Michael Hilton, said more than 200 employees would be sought for the jail and a proposed military and law enforcement training center.
That would be a significant boost to Hardin, a struggling town of 3,500 located about 45 miles east of Billings. An earlier announcement that a job fair would be held during the last week never came to fruition.
The bonds used to pay for the jail have been in default since May, 2008.
Hilton also said he planned a helicopter tour of the region in coming days to look at real estate for a planned tactical military training ground. He said 5,000 to 10,000 acres were needed to complement the training center, a $17 million project.
But the company's flashy arrival this week stirred new questions. The logo on the black Mercedes SUVs said “City of Hardin Police Department.”
Yet the city has not had a police force of its own for 30 years.
“Pretty looking police car, ain't it?” Hardin resident Leroy Frickle, 67, said as he eyed one of the vehicles parked in front of a bed and breakfast where Hilton and other company representatives were staying. “The things you hear about this American Police, I don't know what to think.”
Hilton said the vehicles would be handed over to the city if it forms a police force of its own. The city is now under the jurisdiction of the Big Horn County Sheriff's Office.
After meeting briefly with Hilton on Friday, Mayor Ron Adams said he wanted the police logos removed.
“This helps, but it doesn't answer everything until the contract is signed,” Adams said. “Talk is cheap.”
Hilton said the company's arrival in Hardin would help allay such concerns. And he promised that on Feb. 1, 2010, Hardin would receive its first check under a deal said to be worth more than $2.6 million annually.
Little has been revealed to date about American Police Force. The company was incorporated in California in March, soon after Hardin's empty jail gained notoriety after city leaders suggested it could be used for the Guantanamo Bay terrorism detainees.
Members of Montana's congressional delegation say they have been closely monitoring the events in Hardin, but the city has largely been going it alone.
In the two years since the jail was built, city leaders have clashed repeatedly with the administration of Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who opposed efforts to bring in out-of-state prisoners.
After then-Attorney General Mike McGrath issued a 2007 opinion saying prisoners from other states were prohibited, Hardin successfully sued the state.
Despite the city's contention that the state has continued to foil its efforts to find prisoners, Montana Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Anez said his agency is no longer involved. “That's water under the bridge,” Anez said.
On Friday, American Police Force announced its first local hire: a reporter for the Billings Gazette, Becky Shay, who has covered events surrounding the jail since its construction. She will be the company's spokeswoman for $60,000 a year.
Shay said she intended to bring new transparency to the process, but declined to directly answer the first question posed to her: Where is American Police Force getting the money to operate the jail and build the training center?
“I know enough about where the money is coming from to be confident signing on with them,” she said.
Gazette Editor Steve Prosinski said he was first informed about Shay's decision to leave the paper on Friday. “We weren't aware that she was talking with them about employment,” he said.
Hilton said he also had a job discussion with Kerri Smith, wife of Two Rivers Authority Executive Director Greg Smith, who helped craft the deal to bring American Police Force to Hardin. Greg Smith was placed on unpaid leave two weeks ago for reasons that have not been explained.
Kerri Smith is one of two finalists in the city's mayoral race. Hilton said he asked her to call him about possible employment if she did not win the race.
Kerri Smith could not be reached immediately for comment. A message was left by The Associated Press at a theater owned by the Smith family. Her home number is unlisted.
Who’s Afraid of Sibel Edmonds?
(Analyst's note: Absolutely must read. This one will "curl your toes." If you're like me, you may actually feel sick to your stomach and sense that you very much need a long shower.)
By Sibel Edmonds and Philip Giraldi
The monitoring of the Turks picked up contacts with Feith, Wolfowitz, and Perle in the summer of 2001, four months before 9/11. They were discussing with the Turkish ambassador in Washington an arrangement whereby the U.S. would invade Iraq and divide the country. The UK would take the south, the rest would go to the U.S. They were negotiating what Turkey required in exchange for allowing an attack from Turkish soil. The Turks were very supportive, but wanted a three-part division of Iraq to include their own occupation of the Kurdish region. The three Defense Department officials said that would be more than they could agree to, but they continued daily communications to the ambassador and his defense attaché in an attempt to convince them to help.
Meanwhile Scowcroft, who was also the chairman of the American Turkish Council, Baker, Richard Armitage, and Grossman began negotiating separately for a possible Turkish protectorate. Nothing was decided, and then 9/11 took place. Scowcroft was all for invading Iraq in 2001 and even wrote a paper for the Pentagon explaining why the Turkish northern front would be essential. I know Scowcroft came off as a hero to some for saying he was against the war, but he was very much for it until his client’s conditions were not met by the Bush administration.
GIRALDI: Armitage was deputy secretary of state at the time Scowcroft and Baker were running their own consulting firms that were doing business with Turkey. Grossman had just become undersecretary, third in the State hierarchy behind Armitage.
You’ve previouly alluded to efforts by Grossman, as well as high-ranking officials at the Pentagon, to place Ph.D. students. Can you describe that in more detail?
EDMONDS: The seeding operation started before Marc Grossman arrived at the State Department. The Turkish agents had a network of Turkish professors in various universities with access to government information. Their top source was a Turkish-born professor of nuclear physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was useful because MIT would place a bunch of Ph.D. or graduate-level students in various nuclear facilities like Sandia or Los Alamos, and some of them were able to work for the Air Force. He would provide the list of Ph.D. students who should get these positions. In some cases, the Turkish military attaché would ask that certain students be placed in important positions. And they were not necessarily all Turkish, but the ones they selected had struck deals with the Turkish agents to provide information in return for money. If for some reason they had difficulty getting a secuity clearance, Grossman would ensure that the State Department would arrange to clear them.
But some of the agents continued to investigate the congressional connection. In 1999, they wiretapped the congressmen directly. (Prior to that point they were getting all their information secondhand through FISA, as their primary targets were foreigners.) The questionably legal wiretap gave the perfect excuse to the Justice Department. As soon as they found out, they refused permission to monitor the congressmen and Grossman as primary targets. But the inquiry was kept alive in Chicago because the FBI office there was pursuing its own investigation. The epicenter of a lot of the foreign espionage activity was Chicago.
GIRALDI: So the investigation stopped in Washington, but continued in Chicago?
EDMONDS: Yes, and in 2000, another representative was added to the list, Jan Schakowsky, the Democratic congresswoman from Illinois. Turkish agents started gathering information on her, and they found out that she was bisexual. So a Turkish agent struck up a relationship with her. When Jan Schakowsky’s mother died, the Turkish woman went to the funeral, hoping to exploit her vulnerability. They later were intimate in Schakowsky’s townhouse, which had been set up with recording devices and hidden cameras. They needed Schakowsky and her husband Robert Creamer to perform certain illegal operational facilitations for them in Illinois. They already had Hastert, the mayor, and several other Illinois state senators involved. I don’t know if Congresswoman Schakowsky ever was actually blackmailed or did anything for the Turkish woman.
As soon as Obama became president, he showed us that the State Secrets Privilege was going to continue to be a tool of choice. It’s an arcane executive privilege to cover up wrongdoing—in many cases, criminal activities. And the Obama administration has not only defended using the State Secrets Privilege, it has been trying to take it even further than the previous terrible administration by maintaining that the U.S. government has sovereign immunity. This is Obama’s change: his administration seems to think it doesn’t even have to invoke state secrets as our leaders are emperors who possess this sovereign immunity. This is not the kind of language that anybody in a democracy would use.
The other thing I noticed is how Chicago, with its culture of political corruption, is central to the new administration. When I saw that Obama’s choice of chief of staff was Rahm Emanuel, knowing his relationship with Mayor Richard Daley and with the Hastert crowd, I knew we were not going to see positive changes. Changes possibly, but changes for the worse. It was no coincidence that the Turkish criminal entity’s operation centered on Chicago.
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By Sibel Edmonds and Philip Giraldi
Sibel Edmonds has a story to tell. She went to work as a Turkish and Farsi translator for the FBI five days after 9/11. Part of her job was to translate and transcribe recordings of conversations between suspected Turkish intelligence agents and their American contacts. She was fired from the FBI in April 2002 after she raised concerns that one of the translators in her section was a member of a Turkish organization that was under investigation for bribing senior government officials and members of Congress, drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation. She appealed her termination, but was more alarmed that no effort was being made to address the corruption that she had been monitoring.
A Department of Justice inspector general’s report called Edmonds’s allegations “credible,” “serious,” and “warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review by the FBI.” Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee members Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have backed her publicly. “60 Minutes” launched an investigation of her claims and found them believable. No one has ever disproved any of Edmonds’s revelations, which she says can be verified by FBI investigative files.
John Ashcroft’s Justice Department confirmed Edmonds’s veracity in a backhanded way by twice invoking the dubious State Secrets Privilege so she could not tell what she knows. The ACLU has called her “the most gagged person in the history of the United States of America.”
But on Aug. 8, she was finally able to testify under oath in a court case filed in Ohio and agreed to an interview with The American Conservative based on that testimony. What follows is her own account of what some consider the most incredible tale of corruption and influence peddling in recent times. As Sibel herself puts it, “If this were written up as a novel, no one would believe it.”
PHILIP GIRALDI: We were very interested to learn of your four-hour deposition in the case involving allegations that Congresswoman Jean Schmidt accepted money from the Turkish government in return for political favors. You provided many names and details for the first time on the record and swore an oath confirming that the deposition was true.
Basically, you map out a corruption scheme involving U.S. government employees and members of Congress and agents of foreign governments. These agents were able to obtain information that was either used directly by those foreign governments or sold to third parties, with the proceeds often used as bribes to breed further corruption. Let’s start with the first government official you identified, Marc Grossman, then the third highest-ranking official at the State Department.
SIBEL EDMONDS: During my work with the FBI, one of the major operational files that I was transcribing and translating started in late 1996 and continued until 2002, when I left the Bureau. Because the FBI had had no Turkish translators, these files were archived, but were considered to be very important operations. As part of the background, I was briefed about why these operations had been initiated and who the targets were.
Grossman became a person of interest early on in the investigative file while he was the U.S. ambassador to Turkey [1994-97], when he became personally involved with operatives both from the Turkish government and from suspected criminal groups. He also had suspicious contact with a number of official and non-official Israelis. Grossman was removed from Turkey short of tour during a scandal referred to as “Susurluk” by the media. It involved a number of high-level criminals as well as senior army and intelligence officers with whom he had been in contact.
Another individual who was working for Grossman, Air Force Major Douglas Dickerson, was also removed from Turkey and sent to Germany. After he and his Turkish wife Can returned to the U.S., he went to work for Douglas Feith and she was hired as an FBI Turkish translator. My complaints about her connection to Turkish lobbying groups led to my eventual firing.
Grossman and Dickerson had to leave the country because a big investigation had started in Turkey. Special prosecutors were appointed, and the case was headlined in England, Germany, Italy, and in some of the Balkan countries because the criminal groups were found to be active in all those places. A leading figure in the scandal, Mehmet Eymür, led a major paramilitary group for the Turkish intelligence service. To keep him from testifying, Eymür was sent by the Turkish government to the United States, where he worked for eight months as head of intelligence at the Turkish Embassy in Washington. He later became a U.S. citizen and now lives in McLean, Virginia. The central figure in this scandal was Abdullah Catli. In 1989, while “most wanted” by Interpol, he came to the U.S., was granted residency, and settled in Chicago, where he continued to conduct his operations until 1996.
GIRALDI: So Grossman at this point comes back to the United States. He’s rewarded with the third-highest position at the State Department, and he allegedly uses this position to do favors for “Turkish interests”—both for the Turkish government and for possible criminal interests. Sometimes, the two converge. The FBI is aware of his activities and is listening to his phone calls. When someone who is Turkish calls Grossman, the FBI monitors that individual’s phone calls, and when the Turk calls a friend who is a Pakistani or an Egyptian or a Saudi, they monitor all those contacts, widening the net.
EDMONDS: Correct.
GIRALDI: And Grossman received money as a result. In one case, you said that a State Department colleague went to pick up a bag of money…
EDMONDS: $14,000
GIRALDI: What kind of information was Grossman giving to foreign countries? Did he give assistance to foreign individuals penetrating U.S. government labs and defense installations as has been reported? It’s also been reported that he was the conduit to a group of congressmen who become, in a sense, the targets to be recruited as “agents of influence.”
EDMONDS: Yes, that’s correct. Grossman assisted his Turkish and Israeli contacts directly, and he also facilitated access to members of Congress who might be inclined to help for reasons of their own or could be bribed into cooperation. The top person obtaining classified information was Congressman Tom Lantos. A Lantos associate, Alan Makovsky worked very closely with Dr. Sabri Sayari in Georgetown University, who is widely believed to be a Turkish spy. Lantos would give Makovsky highly classified policy-related documents obtained during defense briefings for passage to Israel because Makovsky was also working for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
GIRALDI: Makovsky is now working for the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, a pro-Israeli think tank.
EDMONDS: Yes. Lantos was at the time probably the most outspoken supporter of Israel in Congress. AIPAC would take out the information from Lantos that was relevant to Israel, and they would give the rest of it to their Turkish associates. The Turks would go through the leftovers, take what they wanted, and then try to sell the rest. If there were something relevant to Pakistan, they would contact the ISI officer at the embassy and say, “We’ve got this and this, let’s sit down and talk.” And then they would sell it to the Pakistanis.
GIRALDI: ISI—Pakistani intelligence—has been linked to the Pakistani nuclear proliferation program as well as to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
So the FBI was monitoring these connections going from a congressman to a congressman’s assistant to a foreign individual who is connected with intelligence to other intelligence people who are located at different embassies in Washington. And all of this information is in an FBI file somewhere?
EDMONDS: Two sets of FBI files, but the AIPAC-related files and the Turkish files ended up converging in one. The FBI agents believed that they were looking at the same operation. It didn’t start with AIPAC originally. It started with the Israeli Embassy. The original targets were intelligence officers under diplomatic cover in the Turkish Embassy and the Israeli Embassy. It was those contacts that led to the American Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations and then to AIPAC fronting for the Israelis. It moved forward from there.
GIRALDI: So the FBI was monitoring people from the Israeli Embassy and the Turkish Embassy and one, might presume, the Pakistani Embassy as well?
EDMONDS: They were the secondary target. They got leftovers from the Turks and Israelis. The FBI would intercept communications to try to identify who the diplomatic target’s intelligence chief was, but then, in addition to that, there are individuals there, maybe the military attaché, who had their own contacts who were operating independently of others in the embassy.
GIRALDI: So the network starts with a person like Grossman in the State Department providing information that enables Turkish and Israeli intelligence officers to have access to people in Congress, who then provide classified information that winds up in the foreign embassies?
EDMONDS: Absolutely. And we also had Pentagon officials doing the same thing. We were looking at Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. They had a list of individuals in the Pentagon broken down by access to certain types of information. Some of them would be policy related, some of them would be weapons-technology related, some of them would be nuclear-related. Perle and Feith would provide the names of those Americans, officials in the Pentagon, to Grossman, together with highly sensitive personal information: this person is a closet gay; this person has a chronic gambling issue; this person is an alcoholic. The files on the American targets would contain things like the size of their mortgages or whether they were going through divorces. One Air Force major I remember was going through a really nasty divorce and a child custody fight. They detailed all different kinds of vulnerabilities.
GIRALDI: So they had access to their personnel files and also their security files and were illegally accessing this kind of information to give to foreign agents who exploited the vulnerabilities of these people to recruit them as sources of information?
EDMONDS: Yes. Some of those individuals on the list were also working for the RAND Corporation. RAND ended up becoming one of the prime targets for these foreign agents.
GIRALDI: RAND does highly classified research for the U.S. government. So they were setting up these people for recruitment as agents or as agents of influence?
EDMONDS: Yes, and the RAND sources would be paid peanuts compared to what the information was worth when it was sold if it was not immediately useful for Turkey or Israel. They also had sources who were working in some midwestern Air Force bases. The sources would provide the information on CD’s and DVD’s. In one case, for example, a Turkish military attaché got the disc and discovered that it was something really important, so he offered it to the Pakistani ISI person at the embassy, but the price was too high. Then a Turkish contact in Chicago said he knew two Saudi businessmen in Detroit who would be very interested in this information, and they would pay the price. So the Turkish military attaché flew to Detroit with his assistant to make the sale.
GIRALDI: We know Grossman was receiving money for services.
EDMONDS: Yes. Sometimes he would give money to the people who were working with him, identified in phone calls on a first-name basis, whether it’s a John or a Joe. He also took care of some other people, including his contact at the New York Times. Grossman would brag, “We just fax to our people at the New York Times. They print it under their names.”
GIRALDI: Did Feith and Perle receive any money that you know of?
EDMONDS: No.
GIRALDI: So they were doing favors for other reasons. Both Feith and Perle were lobbyists for Turkey and also were involved with Israel on defense contracts, including some for Northrop Grumman, which Feith represented in Israel.
EDMONDS: They had arrangements with various companies, some of them members of the American Turkish Council. They had arrangements with Kissinger’s group, with Northrop Grumman, with former secretary of state James Baker’s group, and also with former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft.
The monitoring of the Turks picked up contacts with Feith, Wolfowitz, and Perle in the summer of 2001, four months before 9/11. They were discussing with the Turkish ambassador in Washington an arrangement whereby the U.S. would invade Iraq and divide the country. The UK would take the south, the rest would go to the U.S. They were negotiating what Turkey required in exchange for allowing an attack from Turkish soil. The Turks were very supportive, but wanted a three-part division of Iraq to include their own occupation of the Kurdish region. The three Defense Department officials said that would be more than they could agree to, but they continued daily communications to the ambassador and his defense attaché in an attempt to convince them to help.
Meanwhile Scowcroft, who was also the chairman of the American Turkish Council, Baker, Richard Armitage, and Grossman began negotiating separately for a possible Turkish protectorate. Nothing was decided, and then 9/11 took place. Scowcroft was all for invading Iraq in 2001 and even wrote a paper for the Pentagon explaining why the Turkish northern front would be essential. I know Scowcroft came off as a hero to some for saying he was against the war, but he was very much for it until his client’s conditions were not met by the Bush administration.
GIRALDI: Armitage was deputy secretary of state at the time Scowcroft and Baker were running their own consulting firms that were doing business with Turkey. Grossman had just become undersecretary, third in the State hierarchy behind Armitage.
You’ve previouly alluded to efforts by Grossman, as well as high-ranking officials at the Pentagon, to place Ph.D. students. Can you describe that in more detail?
EDMONDS: The seeding operation started before Marc Grossman arrived at the State Department. The Turkish agents had a network of Turkish professors in various universities with access to government information. Their top source was a Turkish-born professor of nuclear physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was useful because MIT would place a bunch of Ph.D. or graduate-level students in various nuclear facilities like Sandia or Los Alamos, and some of them were able to work for the Air Force. He would provide the list of Ph.D. students who should get these positions. In some cases, the Turkish military attaché would ask that certain students be placed in important positions. And they were not necessarily all Turkish, but the ones they selected had struck deals with the Turkish agents to provide information in return for money. If for some reason they had difficulty getting a secuity clearance, Grossman would ensure that the State Department would arrange to clear them.
In exchange for the information that these students would provide, they would be paid $4,000 or $5,000. And the information that was sold to the two Saudis in Detroit went for something like $350,000 or $400,000.
GIRALDI: This corruption wasn’t confined to the State Department and the Pentagon—it infected Congress as well. You’ve named people like former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, now a registered agent of the Turkish government. In your deposition, you describe the process of breaking foreign-originated contributions into small units, $200 or less, so that the source didn’t have to be reported. Was this the primary means of influencing congressmen, or did foreign agents exploit vulnerabilities to get what they wanted using something like blackmail?
EDMONDS: In early 1997, because of the information that the FBI was getting on the Turkish diplomatic community, the Justice Department had already started to investigate several Republican congressmen. The number-one congressman involved with the Turkish community, both in terms of providing information and doing favors, was Bob Livingston. Number-two after him was Dan Burton, and then he became number-one until Hastert became the speaker of the House. Bill Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno, was briefed on the investigations, and since they were Republicans, she authorized that they be continued.
Well, as the FBI developed more information, Tom Lantos was added to this list, and then they got a lot on Douglas Feith and Richard Perle and Marc Grossman. At this point, the Justice Department said they wanted the FBI to only focus on Congress, leaving the executive branch people out of it. But the FBI agents involved wanted to continue pursuing Perle and Feith because the Israeli Embassy was also connected. Then the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted, and everything was placed on the back burner.
But some of the agents continued to investigate the congressional connection. In 1999, they wiretapped the congressmen directly. (Prior to that point they were getting all their information secondhand through FISA, as their primary targets were foreigners.) The questionably legal wiretap gave the perfect excuse to the Justice Department. As soon as they found out, they refused permission to monitor the congressmen and Grossman as primary targets. But the inquiry was kept alive in Chicago because the FBI office there was pursuing its own investigation. The epicenter of a lot of the foreign espionage activity was Chicago.
GIRALDI: So the investigation stopped in Washington, but continued in Chicago?
EDMONDS: Yes, and in 2000, another representative was added to the list, Jan Schakowsky, the Democratic congresswoman from Illinois. Turkish agents started gathering information on her, and they found out that she was bisexual. So a Turkish agent struck up a relationship with her. When Jan Schakowsky’s mother died, the Turkish woman went to the funeral, hoping to exploit her vulnerability. They later were intimate in Schakowsky’s townhouse, which had been set up with recording devices and hidden cameras. They needed Schakowsky and her husband Robert Creamer to perform certain illegal operational facilitations for them in Illinois. They already had Hastert, the mayor, and several other Illinois state senators involved. I don’t know if Congresswoman Schakowsky ever was actually blackmailed or did anything for the Turkish woman.
GIRALDI: So we have a pattern of corruption starting with government officials providing information to foreigners and helping them make contact with other Americans who had valuable information. Some of these officials, like Marc Grossman, were receiving money directly. Others were receiving business favors: Pentagon associates like Doug Feith and Richard Perle had interests in Israel and Turkey. The stolen information was being sold, and the money that was being generated was used to corrupt certain congressmen to influence policy and provide still more information—in many cases information related to nuclear technology.
EDMONDS: As well as weapons technology, conventional weapons technology, and Pentagon policy-related information.
GIRALDI: You also have information on al-Qaeda, specifically al-Qaeda in Central Asia and Bosnia. You were privy to conversations that suggested the CIA was supporting al-Qaeda in central Asia and the Balkans, training people to get money, get weapons, and this contact continued until 9/11…
EDMONDS: I don’t know if it was CIA. There were certain forces in the U.S. government who worked with the Turkish paramilitary groups, including Abdullah Çatli’s group, Fethullah Gülen.
GIRALDI: Well, that could be either Joint Special Operations Command or CIA.
EDMONDS: Maybe in a lot of cases when they said State Department, they meant CIA?
GIRALDI: When they said State Department, they probably meant CIA.
EDMONDS: Okay. So these conversations, between 1997 and 2001, had to do with a Central Asia operation that involved bin Laden. Not once did anybody use the word “al-Qaeda.” It was always “mujahideen,” always “bin Laden” and, in fact, not “bin Laden” but “bin Ladens” plural. There were several bin Ladens who were going on private jets to Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. The Turkish ambassador in Azerbaijan worked with them.
There were bin Ladens, with the help of Pakistanis or Saudis, under our management. Marc Grossman was leading it, 100 percent, bringing people from East Turkestan into Kyrgyzstan, from Kyrgyzstan to Azerbaijan, from Azerbaijan some of them were being channeled to Chechnya, some of them were being channeled to Bosnia. From Turkey, they were putting all these bin Ladens on NATO planes. People and weapons went one way, drugs came back.
GIRALDI: Was the U.S. government aware of this circular deal?
EDMONDS: 100 percent. A lot of the drugs were going to Belgium with NATO planes. After that, they went to the UK, and a lot came to the U.S. via military planes to distribution centers in Chicago and Paterson, New Jersey. Turkish diplomats who would never be searched were coming with suitcases of heroin.
GIRALDI: And, of course, none of this has been investigated. What do you think the chances are that the Obama administration will try to end this criminal activity?
EDMONDS: Well, even during Obama’s presidential campaign, I did not buy into his slogan of “change” being promoted by the media and, unfortunately, by the naïve blogosphere. First of all, Obama’s record as a senator, short as it was, spoke clearly. For all those changes that he was promising, he had done nothing. In fact, he had taken the opposite position, whether it was regarding the NSA’s wiretapping or the issue of national-security whistleblowers. We whistleblowers had written to his Senate office. He never responded, even though he was on the relevant committees.
As soon as Obama became president, he showed us that the State Secrets Privilege was going to continue to be a tool of choice. It’s an arcane executive privilege to cover up wrongdoing—in many cases, criminal activities. And the Obama administration has not only defended using the State Secrets Privilege, it has been trying to take it even further than the previous terrible administration by maintaining that the U.S. government has sovereign immunity. This is Obama’s change: his administration seems to think it doesn’t even have to invoke state secrets as our leaders are emperors who possess this sovereign immunity. This is not the kind of language that anybody in a democracy would use.
The other thing I noticed is how Chicago, with its culture of political corruption, is central to the new administration. When I saw that Obama’s choice of chief of staff was Rahm Emanuel, knowing his relationship with Mayor Richard Daley and with the Hastert crowd, I knew we were not going to see positive changes. Changes possibly, but changes for the worse. It was no coincidence that the Turkish criminal entity’s operation centered on Chicago.
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Sibel Edmonds is a former FBI translator and the founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Philip Giraldi is a former CIA officer and The American Conservative’s Deep Background columnist.
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