Rep. Nadler Seeks ANTHRAX Answers From a 'Dissembling' FBI

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Nadler Seeks Answers from FBI on Anthrax Investigation

WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2011

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, sent a letter to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller requesting answers to remaining questions in the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks.  Nadler specifically asked Mueller why the FBI appears to have provided incorrect information on the case to Nadler and the Judiciary Committee subsequent to a September 16, 2008 oversight hearing on the FBI.

Text of the letter follows:

May 25, 2011

The Honorable Robert S. Mueller, III
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20535-0001

Dear Director Mueller:

I am writing with respect to the investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) into the 2001 anthrax attacks and information provided by the Department of Justice (DOJ)/FBI to me about that case, which appears to have been incomplete and misleading.

On September 16, 2008, the House Committee on the Judiciary, on which I sit, conducted an oversight hearing of the FBI at which you testified.  At that hearing, I asked you the following:  “[W]hat was the percentage of weight of the silicon in the powders that your experts examined?”  You testified that you would get back to me.  On November 26, 2008, I sent to you this follow-up question in writing:  “What was the percentage of weight of the silicon in the powder used in the 2001 anthrax attacks?”

On April 17, 2009, then-Acting Assistant Attorney General M. Faith Burton, of the DOJ Office of Legislative Affairs, responded with the following answer:

FBI Laboratory results indicated that the spore powder on the Leahy letter contained 14,470 ppm of silicon (1.4%). The spore powder on the New York Post letter was found to have silicon present in the sample; however, due to the limited amount of material, a reliable quantitative measurement was not possible. Insufficient quantifies of spore powder on both the Daschle and Brokaw letters precluded analysis of those samples.

A February 15, 2011 report by the National Academy of Sciences (“NAS report”), in which the NAS included its review of the FBI’s data and scientific analysis in the anthrax investigation, raises three questions about this DOJ/FBI response to me.  First, with respect to the anthrax on the letter sent to Senator Leahy, the NAS report shows on pages 66 and 67 (Table 4.4) that the silicon content found by the FBI was 1.4% in one sample and 1.8% in a second sample.  Why were both figures not provided to me in response to my questions?

Second, the NAS report shows on pages 66 and 67 (Table 4.4) that the FBI found the silicon content in the New York Post letter anthrax to be 10% when the bulk material was measured by mass and 1-2% when individual spore coats were measured by mass per spore.  Why was neither piece of data provided to me in response to my questions?

Third and finally, the NAS report raises questions about the appropriateness of the measurements taken of the anthrax on the letter to the New York Post.  Specifically, on page 77, the NAS report says:

ICP-OES analysis indicated a silicon content of the bulk New York Post letter material of 10 percent by mass, while SEM-EDX performed by SNL demonstrated silicon in individual spore coats at a level corresponding to 1 percent by mass per spore. At the January 2011 meeting, the FBI attributed this difference to a limited amount of sample available (only one replicate was performed for ICP-OES analysis) and the heterogeneous character of the New York Post letter.  An explanation based on the heterogeneous character implies that the specific samples analyzed were not representative of the letter material.  In such a case, additional samples should have been analyzed to determine representativeness.  If such data exist, they were not provided to the committee. Lacking this information, one cannot rule out the intentional addition of a silicon-based substance to the New York Post letter, in a failed attempt to enhance dispersion.  The committee notes that powders with dispersion characteristics similar to the letter material could be produced without the addition of a dispersant.

Were additional samples tested to determine the extent to which the ones examined were representative of the New York Post letter material?  If not, why not?  And, if the FBI does not have this data, how would you respond to the NAS that, without it, one cannot rule out the possibility that silicon was intentionally added?  If the FBI did do these additional tests, please provide the resulting data to me and NAS.

If you have any questions, please contact Andrew Ginsburg on my staff at 202-225-3218.  I look forward to your prompt response.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Jerrold Nadler
Member of Congress

For CITATION click here...

[Information contained in BKNT E-mail is considered Attorney-Client and Attorney Work Product privileged, copyrighted and confidential. Views that may be expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of any government, agency, or news organization.]

SEAL TEAM 6, DISNEY -0-

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WALL STREET JOURNAL - MAY 26, 2011

Walt Disney Surrenders to Navy's SEAL Team 6

By ETHAN SMITH and JULIAN E. BARNES

Less than a month after a daring raid on Osama bin Laden's secret hideout, the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team 6 notched a victory over the Magic Kingdom.

Walt Disney Co. said Wednesday that it would pull an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in which the entertainment giant sought the exclusive right to use the term "SEAL Team 6" on items ranging from toys and games to snow globes and Christmas stockings.
 
Disney withdrew the application "out of deference to the Navy," a spokesman said.

The move comes after comics and other critics ridiculed the Burbank, Calif., company for trying to profit off bin Laden's killing. Disney first made the claim two days after the world learned of the secret special-operations unit's daring mission into the al Qaeda leader's Pakistan compound.

"Putting a trademark on SEAL Team 6 is like copyrighting 'The guys who stormed the beach at Normandy,'" joked "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart last week. "It belongs to all of us."

Navy officers privately expressed relief Wednesday that the company had chosen voluntarily to retract its application, saving the organization from a long trademark battle.

The Navy first fired back at Disney with its own filings for trademarks on the phrases 'SEAL Team' and 'Navy SEALs,' on May 13, several days after Disney's application. Those terms denote "membership in an organization of the Department of the Navy that develops and executes military missions involving special operations strategy, doctrine, and tactics," the Navy said in its filings. The Navy had a beachhead with its longstanding trademark on "SEALs," which it has licensed for videogames, among other products.

"We are fully committed to protecting our trademark rights," Commander Danny Hernandez, the chief Navy spokesman, said Wednesday...

Continue reading FULL Story here...


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BKNT--FLASH--NYT's Risen Subp'd in Sterling-CIA Iran Leak Case--OS

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May 24, 2011

Writer Is Served With Subpoena in C.I.A. Leak Case

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors, with the approval of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., are trying to force the author of a book on the C.I.A. to testify at a criminal trial about who leaked information to him about an effort by the agency to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program at the end of the Clinton administration.

The writer, James Risen, a reporter at The New York Times, was served with a subpoena late on Monday, ordering him to testify at the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former Central Intelligence Agency operations officer. Mr. Sterling was charged this year as part of a wider crackdown by the Obama administration on officials accused of disclosing restricted information to journalists.

The subpoena tells Mr. Risen that “you are commanded” to appear at a federal district court in Alexandria, Va., on Sept. 12 to testify in the case. A federal district court judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, quashed a similar subpoena to Mr. Risen late last year, when prosecutors were trying to convince a grand jury to indict Mr. Sterling.

Mr. Risen said he would ask the judge to quash the new subpoena, too.

“I am going to fight this subpoena,” Mr. Risen said. “I will always protect my sources, and I think this is a fight about the First Amendment and the freedom of the press.”

In a 30-page motion that prosecutors filed on Monday, they argued that the First Amendment did not give Mr. Risen the right to avoid testifying about his confidential sources in a criminal proceeding. The Justice Department argued that Mr. Risen was a witness and should be compelled to provide information to a jury “like any other citizen,” contending that there was no basis to conclude “that the reporter is being harassed in order to disrupt his relationship with confidential news sources.”

The motion also said that prosecutors anticipated a motion by Mr. Risen to quash the subpoena. If the court does not agree to do so and Mr. Risen still refuses to testify, he would risk being held in contempt. In 2005, a Times reporter, Judith Miller, was jailed for 85 days for refusing to testify in connection with the Valerie Plame Wilson leak case. 

Prosecutors believe that Mr. Sterling provided classified information to Mr. Risen that served as the basis for a chapter in the writer’s 2006 book, “State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration.”

The chapter details an effort by the C.I.A. in 2000 to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program by sending a former Russian scientist to give it blueprints for a nuclear triggering device with a hidden design flaw. Mr. Risen portrayed the operation as botched, saying that the agency may have helped Iranian scientists gain valuable and accurate information. 

The material in that chapter did not appear in The New York Times. Mr. Sterling’s indictment said that Mr. Risen had worked on an article about the program in 2003, but the newspaper decided not to publish it after government officials told editors that such a disclosure would jeopardize national security..

Continue Reading FULL Story here...http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/us/25subpoena.html?hp.

BKNT--FRONTLINE: WikiSECRETS - Tues. 24 MAY 9 PM ET--OS

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Excerpt 1: Don't Ask, Don't Tell http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/wikileaks/#pressrelease

Excerpt 2: Welcome to the Hacker Space

PRESS RELEASE

It's the biggest intelligence breach in U.S. history—the leaking of more than half-a-million classified documents on the WikiLeaks website in the spring of 2010. Behind it all, stand two very different men: Julian Assange, the Internet activist and hacker who published the documents, and an Army intelligence analyst named Bradley E. Manning, who's currently charged with handing them over. Private Manning allegedly leaked the secret cables—along with a controversial video—in the hope of inciting "worldwide discussion, debates and reforms." Assange's stated mission has been to force the U.S. and other governments into maximum transparency through his whistle-blowing website. Through in-depth interviews with Manning's father, Assange, and others close to the case, veteran FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith tells the full story behind the leaks. He also reports on the U.S. government's struggle to protect national security information in a post 9/11 world.

Read more: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/wikileaks/#pressrelease#ixzz1N6dPJZLO

 

Press Release

FRONTLINE INVESTIGATES THE STORY OF PRIVATE BRADLEY MANNING AND THE WIKILEAKS CONTROVERSY

FRONTLINE presents
WikiSecrets
Tuesday, May 24, 2011, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS
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Twitter: @frontlinepbs
www.pbs.org/frontline/wikileaks

It’s the biggest intelligence breach in U.S. history—the leaking of more than a half million classified documents on the WikiLeaks website throughout 2010. At the center of the controversy stands Bradley E. Manning, the Army intelligence analyst who’s charged with handing them over.

Who is Bradley Manning, and what does his story tell us about how and why the secret cache of documents may have been leaked? In WikiSecrets, airing Tuesday, May 24, 2011, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith gains exclusive access to those closest to Manning— including his father, close friends and his Army bunkmate—and uncovers video of Manning taken around the time of the alleged handover of classified information.

Smith also examines the events surrounding the publication of the leaked documents, interviewing key players like WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange; Assange’s former colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg; and Adrian Lamo, a well-known figure in the cyber underground who eventually turned Manning over to the authorities and is now living in an undisclosed location over fears for his safety.

“I got the sense that Bradley was very depressed,” Lamo tells FRONTLINE of his impressions of Manning after the Army private sought him out in May 2010. During an online chat with Lamo that stretched over four days, Manning wrote: “Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public.”

As the film tracks Manning from his deployment to Iraq through his arrest and imprisonment, several key questions emerge—among them, the shocking ease with which Manning browsed and downloaded so much classified information from Pentagon servers despite the widely available systems developed to prevent exactly this. The case presents an important cautionary note to the theory that lower-level analysts like Manning should have access to such a wide range of intelligence: “9/11 surfaced the fact that there was less than adequate sharing of information across the government,” says former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte. “We went from a need-to-know philosophy to a need-to-share.” Former State Department official Larry Wilkerson says the government may have shared the information too widely: “Bradley Manning does not need to know what the secretary of defense said to his counterpart in Paris.”

WikiSecrets also examines the relationship between Manning and Julian Assange, the founder of WikilLeaks. In public statements, and in his interview with FRONTLINE, Assange has denied any direct contact with Manning or any WikiLeaks source. But hacker Lamo says that Manning indicated otherwise in their online chat: “He mentioned Julian Assange in the context Julian was the individual at WikiLeaks who he had initially establish contact with.”

Wired.com’s Kim Zetter tells FRONTLINE of an email she received from Assange not long after the story broke. “He contacted me, and he wanted the chat logs,” she said. “He said that he needed it in order to prepare Manning’s defense. ... I can only speculate, but I think that he was concerned about what was in the chat logs about himself.”

“We don’t really know whether Manning approached WikiLeaks or people around WikiLeaks or if it was the other way around,” says Eric Schmitt, the New York Times reporter first assigned by the paper to vet the leaked material. “But my theory is whichever way it is, there’s an intermediary. ... So somewhere in this mix you have Manning with access to this information; you’ve got WikiLeaks and Julian Assange with the desire to get it; and you’ve got a helpful intermediary. And somewhere in between here there’s a transfer I believe takes place.”

Was Julian Assange prepared to publish some of the leaked documents without adequately redacting the names of people who could have been harmed by the disclosures? “Julian was very reluctant to delete those names, to redact them.” David Leigh of the Guardian newspaper tells FRONTLINE of meetings he attended with Assange in the run-up to publication of the war logs. “And we said: ‘Julian, we’ve got to do something about these redactions. We really have got to.’ And he said: ‘These people were collaborators, informants. They deserve to die.’ And a silence fell around the table.”

Assange maintains WikiLeaks employed a thorough “harm-minimization process,” but insiders within the organization said the redactions were carried out in haste just prior to publication.

Currently, Manning remains jailed in the Army brig in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., awaiting his first pretrial hearing this summer, and Assange lives under police watch in a home northeast of London. He tells FRONTLINE that the work of WikiLeaks continues: “History is on our side. ... When you expose powerful organizations, there will be ad hominem attacks. Yes, in my personal case, they’ve been rather hard. But it’s not an unusual circumstance. ... WikiLeaks is continuing to step up its publishing speed, ... and it does good. We can see the effects all around us.”

WikiSecrets is a FRONTLINE production with RAIN Media, Inc. The producers are Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith. The reporters are Marcela Gaviria, Ryan Knutson, and Martin Smith. The writers are Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith. The series senior producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath. The executive producer of FRONTLINE is David Fanning. FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and by Reva and David Logan. Additional funding is provided by the Park Foundation and by the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund. FRONTLINE is closed- captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers by the Media Access Group at WGBH. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of the WGBH Educational Foundation.

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Press contact
Diane Buxton 617-300-5375 diane_buxton@wgbh.org

Read more: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/wikileaks/#pressrelease#ixzz1N6cZzeff

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/wikileaks/#pressrelease

Think Tank Seeks to End Warrentless Electronic Device Border Searchs

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US/1; - MEMBER CONTRIBUTION

[ed.note: Back in the early 1980’s, US/1 [Scott Malone] occasionally was supplied  the photocopied address books of suspected arms traffickers after they entered the US by some clever US Custom Service officials who were and are constitutionally-granted broad search powers at US boarder crossings.

As a consequence, US/1 never traveled again outside the continental US in possession his address book.

 Go figure.]

Stop Border Searches of Electronic Devices Without Warrants, Think Tank Demands 

By: Mickey McCarter

05/19/2011 ( 3:00am)

A bipartisan think tank Wednesday called for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stop searching personal electronics like laptops at smartphones at US border checkpoints without cause.

The Constitution Project (TCP) characterized DHS policy to seize and search electronic devices without reasonable suspicion as an infringement on the rights of American citizens.

"Searches of our laptops and smart phones -- without reasonable suspicion -- can easily result in a breach of our privacy rights, given the amount of personal information we carry on those devices," Sharon Bradford Franklin, TCP senior policy counsel, said in a statement.

"Courts have historically recognized a limited exception to the Fourth Amendment permitting routine searches at the border, but the scope of those searches has vastly expanded given the storage capacity of electronic devices today. It's a classic example of technology outpacing our legal system, and the government must reform its policy to restore Fourth Amendment protections," she added.

In its report Suspicionless Border Searches of Electronic Devices: Legal and Privacy Concerns with The Department of Homeland Security's Policy, a TCP task force determined that DHS searched the electronic devices of more than 6,500 people, about half of whom were US citizens, between Oct. 1, 2008, and June 2, 2010, at US border ports of entry.

Calling this a violation of Fourth Amendment rights, TCP recommended that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) change directives to its agents to prohibit search of information in the personal devices of American citizens without reasonable suspicion or evidence of a crime.

The think tank further called on limiting "suspicionless" searches of the devices of foreign travelers to the United States as well. However, the TCP report noted that a search of device to ensure that it was functional and not disguising a bomb would be justified.

The TCP report further recommended a clear rebuke of racial or religious profiling in border searches.

Moreover, for US citizens, CBP and ICE agents should require a warrant based o probable cause to continue search electronic devices beyond 24 hours in the case of reasonable suspicion, the report stated. Should authorities require a warrant from a court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), they could extend that time period to seven days to account for the longer period of time required to obtain a FISA warrant, the report acknowledged.

CBP and ICE also should synchronize their policies to remove any differences between them, the report suggested. The agencies should regularly audit border searches of electronic data and cite statistics on "the number of people whose devices are searched, the number of devices detained beyond 24 hours, and the number of devices from which data was retained," the report added.

In some cases, DHS agents kept electronic devices for up to a year, which was unjustified, the report said. CBP and ICE also would search through data unrelated to any cause for which they might retain devices, looking through personal e-mail accounts, photographs, calendars, and other files not related to any cause for retaining the electronic device. CBP and ICE directives should limit such searches, the report demanded.

While courts have recognized an exception to Fourth Amendment protection against searches at US borders, much of the rationale beyond such exemption is unjustified, the report said. The searches have expanded beyond the original interpretation of the exception to stop illegal goods or people from entering the country to invasive searches of personal information contained in electronic devices, the report argued.

"Historically, the scope of what was covered by the border search exception was fairly limited, since the exception is confined to the items a traveler carries across the border," the report read. "As a practical matter, most private documents, letters, photographs, and other personal effects would remain in an individual's home, safeguarded by full Fourth Amendment protections and the warrant requirement.

"With today's technology, however, people can and do travel with vast quantities of private, personal information stored on their laptops and other electronic devices," it added.

The TCP report was developed by a 19-member task force, which included William Sessions, former FBI director; Asa Hutchinson, former DHS official in charge of border and transportation security; and Mary McCarthy, a former CIA official.

http://www.hstoday.us/industry-news/general/single-article/stop-border-searches-of-electronic-devices-without-warrants-think-tank-demands/a20c93ed0fbe6fc09da90d1d38056a5d.html

[Information contained in BKNT E-mail is considered Attorney-Client and Attorney Work Product privileged, copyrighted and confidential. Views that may be expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of any government, agency, or news organization.]

BKNT--Anwar al-Awlaki - A Taste for the Ladies--OS

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TheSmokingGun.com; US/1; ATTN: HST/2; Military.com Editor

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Records Indicate That Terrorists Everywhere Enjoy Pornography And Street Prostitutes

In light of the reported discovery of a large pornography stash in the Bilal Town lair of the late Osama bin Laden, here’s a mug shot of fellow terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, who was convicted a couple of times for trolling for street hookers while living in California.

Al-Awlaki, 40, was twice collared on prostitution charges while living in San Diego. He is seen above in a booking photo snapped after a 1997 solicitation arrest. In search of an affordable blowjob, the imam apparently relaxed his devout Muslim beliefs (at least for a few minutes).

The American-born Islamic scholar, who is targeted for death by U.S. forces, was sentenced to probation, fined, and ordered to perform community service following the 1997 bust. A 1996 conviction resulted in al-Awlaki being sentenced to attend an AIDS education course and to pay fines and restitution.

Al-Awlaki could not be reached for comment about his rap sheet.

FULL Story: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/prostitution/al-awlaki-prostitution-arrets-970612

[Information contained in BKNT E-mail is considered Attorney-Client and Attorney Work Product privileged, copyrighted and confidential. Views that may be expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of any government, agency, or news organization.]

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