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<br> Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the whistleblower from the classified counter-terrorist <br>outfit Able Danger, has written a book. You may recall congressional investigations <br>of claims that Able Danger's datamining team had as early as 1999 identified four <br>alleged members of the 9/11 plot as al-Qaeda agents, and that 2.5 terrabytes of <br>Able Danger's data was destroyed 2 years before 9/11. <br><br> Shaffer's book, Operation Dark Heart, had been cleared for publication by Army<br>officials, but now the Defense Intelligence Agency wants to buy all 10,000 copies<br>to keep it off the shelves, citing national security concerns. (1) Fox News claims that <br>the damaging issue is Shaffer's assertion that he had informed the 9/11 Commission <br>about Able Danger's identification of the alleged lead hijacker, Mohammed Atta. Able <br>Danger was left out of the 9/11 Commission Report.<br><br> Is national security being invoked solely to protect the dignity of the 9/11 Commission<br>Report? On another 9/11 front, the National Institute of Standards and Technology <br>recently refused a FOIA request for data related to NIST's computer models of the<br>WTC7 collapse on grounds that doing so "might jeopardize public safety." (2)<br><br> Since the the book-burning effort simply brings publicity to Col. Shaffer's allegations, <br>those of us looking for signs of hope are tempted to speculate that elements within <br>the DoD are doing that deliberately. Unfashionable though the notion may be in <br>some circles, there are people in the military and in intelligence and in government<br>agencies who have integrity and who are disgusted by what's been going on and <br>who try to help when they see a chance. Retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern, ex-FBI <br>agent Coleen Rowley, Ann Wright, Richard Clarke, Gen. Janice Karpinsky, Col. <br>Lawrence Wilkerson, and Lt. Col. Robert Bowman come to mind. Still nameless are <br>the NIST scientists who deleted the draft report's claim that their analysis is <br>"consistent with physical principles" from the final WTC7 report. <br> <br> In any case, the Defense Intelligence Agency's efforts to negotiate a purchase <br>suggests that they have no legal grounds for their national security claims. Official <br>book-burning is a very poor precedent and should be resisted vigorously IMHO.<br><br>(1) <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/09/military-intelligence-attempts-block-book-afghan-war/">http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/09/military-intelligence-attempts-block-book-afghan-war/</a></p>
<br>(2) <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="http://cryptome.org/nist070709.pdf">http://cryptome.org/nist070709.pdf</a></p>
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