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Originally Posted by stevo
Do you remember the 21st highjacker, Z. Massoui (sp?)? The FBI had him detained prior to 9/11 and wanted to get into his laptop, but alas, a Federal Judge DENIED the FBI access to his laptop that may have had info on 9/11 and actually prevented it. But we don't hear about that, do we?
The longer this story goes on the more obvious it is that what bush did was legal and moral.
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Stevo, we don't hear about that, because it didn't come down the way you describe. The Washington Post article below is a long one, but I have posted the relevant information.
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A Zeal to Defend Secrecy
Saturday, December 24, 2005; Page A15
In their zeal to defend President Bush for ordering the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on communications of American citizens, William Kristol and Gary Schmitt got key things wrong regarding the FBI's terrorism investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui ["Vital Presidential Power," op-ed, Dec. 20].
They are wrong about Moussaoui being a "U.S. person" who required a higher standard of probable cause under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Moussaoui was a French citizen in the United States with an expired temporary visa, which means that the higher FISA standard did not apply.
More important, and contrary to Kristol and Schmitt's assertion that "the Justice Department decided there was not sufficient evidence to get a FISA warrant to allow the inspection of his computer files," no evidence of Moussaoui's suspicious flight training and ties with terrorism was presented to the Justice Department. The department was never contacted and so did not decide anything; therefore, no decision was ever made regarding the given evidence and its subsequent application to FISA standards.
-- Coleen Rowley
Apple Valley, Minn.
The writer is a retired FBI agent who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2002 about the problems the FBI faces in investigating terrorists.
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That means the FISA procedures were not the reason the FBI failed to inspect Moussaoui's computer files. Rather, the FBI's failure to share and analyze intelligence sufficiently is what enabled Moussaoui to escape further investigation. If you recall, Rowley was the whistle blower on the ineptitude of FBI senior management in reviewing her Moussaouri intel.