Is media hiding Judith Miller's In June Bush Knew Al Qaeda plan's story?

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/36651 /

BUZZFLASH COMMENT http://www.buzzflash.com /

The Bombshell That No One is Pursuing Except Rory O'Connor: "senior White House official leaked top-secret NSA intelligence in 2001 to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller...that Al Qaeda was planning a major attack on the United States." This was before 9/11. If Judith Miller knew from a White House source in advance, it begs the earth-shattering question: Why did the Bush administration do nothing to prevent it? And the New York Times let the story drop, to boot.

The Burial of the 9/11 Story that Got Away
By Rory O'Connor, AlterNet
Posted on May 25, 2006, Printed on May 26, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/36651 /

Last week, William Scott Malone http://www.navyseals.com/community/aboutus/aboutus.cfm and I broke the story of how a still anonymous, senior White House official leaked top-secret NSA intelligence in 2001 to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller. The intelligence indicated that Al Qaeda was planning a major attack on the United States. But the "The 9/11 Story That Got Away" http://www.navyseals.com/community/articles/article.cfm?id=9621... never made it into the paper.

It never made it to the attention of top Times executive Bill Keller either. Keller, now executive editor of the paper, was managing editor in July 2001. But he was kept in the dark when Miller's "impeccable" source first revealed details of highly classified signals intelligence (SIGINT) concerning an impending Al Qaeda attack, perhaps to be visited on the continental United States. The NSA had been listening in on a conversation between two members of Osama bin Laden's terror network. One was overheard saying to the other, "Don't worry, we're planning something so big now that the U.S. will have to respond."

Asked to comment on our revelation, Times man Keller emailed a statement that said in part, "I heard nothing about this from Judy or Steve (Stephen Engelberg, Miller's editor) at the time."

Keller went on to note, "Obviously it would have been satisfying to have 'predicted' the 9/11 attacks -- just as it was satisfying that we identified Al Qaeda as an important threat before 9/11, in the Pulitzer-winning series Judy heavily reported and Steve edited."<snip>

because the bush administration needed the terrorist attack. How else to make the fake patriots happy? How else to justify fake outrage at the liberal and common sense approach to the problem? How else to make the fake cowboy appear to be a real man?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2503075

It goes without saying that under the 'policy shift' pre9/11 at NSA that Greg Palast reports on

""A top-level CIA operative who spoke with us on condition of strictest anonymity said that, after Bush took office, "There was a major policy shift" at the National Security Agency. Investigators were ordered to "back off " from any inquiries into Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks, especially if they touched on Saudi royals and their retainers. That put the Bin Ladens, a family worth a reported $12 billion and a virtual arm of the Saudi royal household, off limits for investigation. Osama was the exception; he remained a wanted man, but agents could not look too closely at how he filled his piggy bank. The key rule of any investigation, "follow the money," was now violated, and investigations-at least before September 11-began to die.""

Khan Job
www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=312&row=0

The wargames of 9-11 (Vigilant Warrior, Vigilant Guardian, etc. see www.oilempire.us/wargames ) which the media don't delve into, along with the Ptech whistleblowing by Indira Singh, which has gone nowhere with the FBI, lead you to believe that since Ptech (now GoAgile) still works within our DoD, FAA, and the White House, then things must be O.K.

""Ptech is used primarily to develop enterprise blueprints at the highest level of US government and corporate infrastructure. These blueprints hold every important functional, operational, and technical detail of the enterprise. A secondary use of this powerful tool is to build other smart tools in a short period of time. Ptech’s clients in 2001 included the Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, Customs, Air Force, the White House, the FAA, IBM, Sysco, Aetna, and Motorola, to name just a few. ""

Dollars of Terror
www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17730

The NSA's other pre9/11 policy shift was the instigation of Operation FirstFruits, a program to identify insiders speaking to the media:

""Firstfruits was a database that contained both the articles and the transcripts of telephone and other communications of particular Washington journalists known to report on sensitive U.S. intelligence activities, particularly those involving NSA. According to NSA sources, the targeted journalists included author James Bamford, the New York Times' James Risen, the Washington Post's Vernon Loeb, the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, the Washington Times' Bill Gertz, UPI's John C. K. Daly, and this editor , who has written about NSA for The Village Voice, CAQ, Intelligence Online, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

In addition, beginning in 2001 but before the 9-11 attacks, NSA began to target anyone in the U.S. intelligence community who was deemed a "disgruntled employee." ""

NSA spied on its own employees, other U.S. intelligence personnel, journalists, and members of Congress
http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=562&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Something stinks and most discerning people can identify the source as eminating from the White House. Miller would have been known by the NSA and accordingly anyone who spoke with her. We may have gotten lucky with the Palast contact at CIA in his reporting on this administration's activities, but there can be no denial that this Bush administration is the most inept in modern American history.

RW GOP control of the US media is stronger than I thought.

see my prior post, since edited. BTW, Time's CNN division worked with military PsyOps in the past, see Alexander Cockburn's counterpunch article on CNN and PsyOps.

Very True - NSA has been spying on -1. their own employees - 2. People who resisted going along with the "party-line" of the administration.- 3 other members of the government who may have been potential whistleblowers - 4. employees of other U.S. intelligence agencies -- including the CIA and DIA – 5. CIA and DIA contacts in the media - 6. members of Congress, oversight agencies and offices - and 7. Journalists - The journalist surveillance program was code named "Firstfruits".

So why would NSA knowing her contact keep the media from publishing Millers revelation?

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BACKGROUND INFO:
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http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/19/14619/9977

NSA spied on its own employees, other U.S. intelligence personnel, and their journalist and congressional contacts.
Operation FirstFruits : NSA spied on Dissenters and Journalists?
by Vyan Wed Jan 18, 2006 at 10:46:19 PM PDT

While doing research on a post discussing the recent speech by Vice-President Al Gore, I discovered a webpage/blog called MediaChannel.org which described a secret NSA program called FirstFruits (COMMENT:previously described by not too credible on DU Wayne Madsen Report?) whose aim is even more dark and heinous than anything previously discussed concerning the current scandal of performing warrantless surveillance of partially domestic al-Qaeda communications .<snip>

In addition, beginning in 2001 but before the 9-11 attacks, NSA began to target anyone in the U.S. intelligence community who was deemed a "disgruntled employee." According to NSA sources, this surveillance was a violation of United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The surveillance of U.S. intelligence personnel by other intelligence personnel in the United States and abroad was conducted without any warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The targeted U.S. intelligence agency personnel included those who made contact with members of the media, including the journalists targeted by Firstfruits, as well as members of Congress, Inspectors General, and other oversight agencies. Those discovered to have spoken to journalists and oversight personnel were subjected to sudden clearance revocation and termination as "security risks."

“Firstfruits was a database that contained both the articles and the transcripts of telephone and other communications of particular Washington journalists known to report on sensitive U.S. intelligence activities, particularly those involving NSA. According to NSA sources, the targeted journalists included author James Bamford, the New York Times' James Risen, the Washington Post's Vernon Loeb, the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, the Washington Times' Bill Gertz, UPI's John C. K. Daly, and this editor , who has written about NSA for The Village Voice, CAQ, Intelligence Online, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).”

What is also quite interesting is that Democratic Underground reports that the CNN Transcript of this interview was altered to remove the Amanpour question –
Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?

Risen: No, no I hadn't heard that.

When originally posted it was mere speculation, but apparently the salient details have been confirmed by NBC (regarding the question, investigation and it's subsequent scrubbing...)


NBC confirms it's investigating whether Bush spied on CNN's Christiane Amanpour
by John in DC - 1/04/2006 10:27:00 PM


NBC did not say it pulled the references to Bush spying on Amanpour because it was inappropriate conjecture about something which Andrea Mitchell had no evidence.


No, NBC said it pulled the references because it was still investigating the accusation and didn't want to scoop itself before it was finished investigating. And make no mistake, NBC is "continuing their inquiry."

If they leaked news of a major terrorist attack to a reporter, then why didn't they leak it to the FAA, the Immigration Service, the FBI and NORAD (Air Defense)? If they did, they maybe some actions would have been taken that would have stopped at least part of the attacks.

warning given Cheney on July 31, 2001? The don't fly warning givem the California assemblymen on 9/10? - they just may not have had the exact date and hour?

Perhsps NORAD knew - ? - there were no planes on EAST COAST with ammo on 9/11 - plus most out of service - so Cape Cod has only planes to defend NY City - which then fly at 600 mph rather than 1700 mph and which never recieve a shoot down order - and DC is depending on planes that not the ones based in DC area. Plus NORAD got the FAA warnings.

Perhaps FBI knew ? so there may be a reason the 50 or so reports about arabs and flying lessons in FL and in our one convicted fellow's state somehow never got in the same place .

Where is Oliver Stone when you need him? :-)

No armed interceptors available.

FBI knowledge of hijackers taking lessons to fly commercial aircraft never transferred up the line.

Interceptors at Andrews AFB sitting runway alert not allowed to take off, but told to stand down.

War games going on at the same time that are so close to the scenario of 9/11 that Norad and ATC didn't know which was which.

Attorney General refusing to fly commercial that month.

Unidentified FAA inspector removing tape of pilot/controller interaction and cutting into small pieces and distributing them to various wastebaskets around the center.

FBI translater Sybel Edmonds discovering her fellow translater spying and silenced for it.

And many, many others that you can probably add for yourself.

That's why I truly believe that all this was planned from the start for Bush and his puppetmasters to take over the nation in a coup that started with the 2000 campaign, continued thru a corrupt supreme court decision that was based in NO law, but rather based on the personal and financial interests of those that annointed Mad George.

No one will convince me that September 11, 2001 was anything but their version of the Reichstag fire, intended to do the same thing - transfer power from the legislative to the executive. And it worked. Read the fouteen points of fascism and you'll see this junta has used them all.

No, my valued and wonderful fellow progressives, there is nothing coincidental or accidental about our current position in the world. It was all planned, and carried out with flourish.

The general public (a.k.a Oliver Hardy) "Well, Stanley, this is another fine mess you've gotten us into"

Stan Laurel (a.k.a. The Powers That Be)