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PBS: NSA could have prevented 9/11

post #1 of 7
1/29/09 at 6:52pm
Thread Starter 
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/PBS_NS..._but_0127.html

This program is going to air on PBS, February 3. It's called "The Spy Factory"

Author James Bamford looked into the performance of the NSA in his 2008 book, The Shadow Factory, and found that it had been closely monitoring the 9/11 hijackers as they moved freely around the United States and communicated with Osama bin Laden's operations center in Yemen. The NSA had even tapped bin Laden's satellite phone, starting in 1996.

"The NSA never alerted any other agency that the terrorists were in the United States and moving across the country towards Washington," Bamford told PBS.

Sounds interesting to me.
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post #2 of 7
1/29/09 at 9:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by PookieBoy View Post
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/PBS_NS..._but_0127.html

This program is going to air on PBS, February 3. It's called "The Spy Factory"

Author James Bamford looked into the performance of the NSA in his 2008 book, The Shadow Factory, and found that it had been closely monitoring the 9/11 hijackers as they moved freely around the United States and communicated with Osama bin Laden's operations center in Yemen. The NSA had even tapped bin Laden's satellite phone, starting in 1996.

"The NSA never alerted any other agency that the terrorists were in the United States and moving across the country towards Washington," Bamford told PBS.

Sounds interesting to me.
First thing I thought of reading that is if the NSA was not authorized to communicate with other agencies because of Clinton's reorganization of the security agencies? Obviously this book is critical of the NSA (as are his other 4 books), but if they knew about this for years wouldn't this fall under Clinton's watch anyway? An assumption, I realize, but I presume this is leading to how Bush could have/should have stopped it, especially considering this book also includes the case for the war in Iraq and is very critical of the wiretapping ordered by Bush.

Of course, it also makes me wonder about his sources because much of that would still be classified. There is still parts of the Viet Nam War and especially the Cold War that are still classified; I'm sure there are large chunks of intelligence about these particular people that won't be released in our lifetimes.

Here's the actual PBS link, with an except from the book: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=95689436 It also looks like you can listen to the PBS story online now, it's 39 minutes.
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post #3 of 7
1/29/09 at 11:06pm
I've never even heard of the NSA, or, if I did, I simply didn't pay attention. It's spooky yet fascinating at the same time. The excerpt is very good - a tremendous amount of background on all the characters. If only we could get the American public interested
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post #4 of 7
1/30/09 at 12:38am
I was also under the impression that the CIA, NSA and FBI were limited in their scope of cooperation and communication under Clinton's administration. Even though I don't like the department, wasn't one of the reasons the Department of Homeland Security was created so the agencies could cooperate easier?
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post #5 of 7
1/30/09 at 4:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Essayons89 View Post
I was also under the impression that the CIA, NSA and FBI were limited in their scope of cooperation and communication under Clinton's administration. Even though I don't like the department, wasn't one of the reasons the Department of Homeland Security was created so the agencies could cooperate easier?
Exactly right, Bryan. So many agencies doing the same thing but couldn't/wouldn't talk to each other.
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post #6 of 7
1/30/09 at 5:21am
I enjoy watching programs like this, but honestly I have to look at these "could'a, should'a" stories with a wary eye. There is almost always something in every situation that looks so blatantly obvious in hindsight that was nothing more than a "hmm, that's odd" when it was actually going on.

Sort of like the old guys that sit around Mayhew's diner on Saturday mornings, talking about what the kids playing basketball the night before "should" have done to win the game.

Of course, the players didn't have all night to think about it
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post #7 of 7
1/30/09 at 1:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by catsknowme View Post
I've never even heard of the NSA, or, if I did, I simply didn't pay attention. It's spooky yet fascinating at the same time. The excerpt is very good - a tremendous amount of background on all the characters. If only we could get the American public interested
For years, the acronym NSA (National Security Agency) was said to stand for "No Such Agency." It was the target of the "aluminum foil hat fanatics," etc. Essentially, they listened to EVERYTHING everywhere. More accurately, they had the ABILITY to listen to it. Mostly, they didn't. They had "trigger words" that would cause the recorders to start. Say "bomb" and "White House" in the same sentence, and the recorders would kick in. Or, at least, that was the rumor.

The budget for the NSA was never public. It was always hidden in other appropriations.

But they accomplished some fantastic things. It was at their instigation that an American submarine actually tapped into an undersea phone cable between two parts of the Soviet Union, and listened in to conversations inside the Kremlin.

The "warrantless wiretap program" was actually an operation by the NSA.

The bad news is that journalists revealing some of these programs have seriously hurt our ability to use technology to keep track of some very bad people.
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