Terrorists In Midland? These ARE Dangerous Times
Our good friend AJ had a post earlier about how terrorists may already be adapting to the leak of the NSA eavesdropping program; it’s an almost impossible case to prove, but the timing is certainly suspect. What really caught my eye, though, was AJ’s referral to a possible terrorism-related incident in Midland:
The Midland, Texas, police report dated December 18 and obtained by ABC News states: “Information obtained by MPD [Midland Police Department] dispatch personnel indicated that approximately six individuals of Middle-Eastern origin were attempting to purchase an unusually large quantity of tracfones (disposable cell phones with prepaid minutes attached).
Evasive responses provided by the subjects, coupled with actions observed by officers at the onset of the contact prompted the notification of local FBI officials to assist in the investigation,” the report said. “Upon the arrival of special agents, and as a result of subsequent interviews, it was discovered that members of the group were linked to suspected terrorist cells stationed within the Metroplex”…
I grew up in Lamesa, TX, a town of about 10,000 situated just about halfway between Midland and Lubbock. Believe me when I tell you, then, that if terrorist cells are operating in and around Midland, then truly it can be said that nowhere is completely safe.
On a related note, NSA whistleblower Russell Tice has given an interview to Reason that we may come back to, but for now, let us close with a tantalizing hint that maybe something is going on in the world of NSA surveillance that we still know nothing about:
REASON: What prompted you to step forward now?
Tice: Well, I’ve known this for a long time and I’ve kept my mouth shut…
REASON: You’re referring to what James Risen calls “The Program,” the NSA wiretaps that have been reported on?
Tice: No, I’m referring to what I need to tell Congress that no one knows yet, which is only tertiarily connected to what you know about now.
REASON: What aspect of that, within the parameters of what you’re able to talk about, concerned you?
Tice: The lack of oversight, mainly—when a problem arose and I raised concerns, the total lack of concern that anyone could be held accountable for any illegality involved. And then these things are so deep black, the extremely sensitive programs that I was a specialist in, these things are so deep black that only a minute few people are cleared for these things. So even if you have a concern, it’s things in many cases your own supervisor isn’t cleared for. So you have literally nowhere to go.
Tertiarily connected? A most curious choice of words…
UPDATE 11:06 p.m.:The Midland Reporter-Telegram pours a bit of cold water on the story:
According to Bill Vanderland, agent in charge of Midland’s FBI office, no laws were broken when a group of men attempted to purchase a large number of cell phones from the Wal-Mart in the 200 block of Interstate 20 Dec. 18.
However, FBI agents responded to the incident at the request of the Midland Police Department, which was alerted to the attempted purchase by Wal-Mart employees.
Several members of the group were detained, Vanderland said, when authorities discovered they did not possess necessary immigration documents.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ultimately charged one man for an immigration violation, Vanderland said, and two others were released after producing appropriate documents.
ABC’s Thursday story also asserted a link between a suspected terrorist cell and the men attempting to purchase cell phones in Midland.
According to an MPD incident report quoted in an ABC online report paralleling Thursday’s televised Nightly News story, “it was discovered that members of the group were linked to suspected terrorist cells stationed within the Metroplex.”
However Vanderland said Thursday after the ABC report aired that assertions of a connection between a terror cell and the men who attempted to purchase cell phones from a Midland Wal-Mart were invalid.
“There is no known link or demonstrated link or any other kind of link at this point between the people here and any terror cell,” he said.
This is too close to home! Lamesa is my home. Don’t let it be so!
Connecting this to the NYTimes article is a bit of a stretch. Everybody admits that Al-Qaeda was using these phones prior to the publication of the NYTimes article. And anybody in a large city can find a mobile phone shop owned by “foreigners” that specialize in sales of pagers, prepaid phone cards, prepaid phones, prepaid debit cards, and relatively anonymous money transfers. I’ve seen such stores in NYC, Houston, Seattle, Dallas, etc. for over five years now. I think it’s pretty difficult to tie this all in with the NYTimes article. Unless you have a bias against the Times, and then I guess it’s easy…
I wonder if anybody is willing to claim that large numbers of prepaid cell phones have NEVER been purchased before the publication of the NYTimes article. Have we considered the possibility that these purchases may have gone unreported if the NYT article hadn’t been published? And where would we be then, Chicken Little?
Tuna, I agree that it’s a bit of a stretch…your last paragraph echoes thoughts I had as well…but still, I throw it out there as a quite disturbing trend, and as I said, the timing does give one pause…
The NY Times article revealed nothing that the terrorists didn’t already know. The idea that they were shocked to learned that their calls to or from the US may be recorded is a joke. Why propogate it?
Joe, it’s not the monitoring that is news, but the methods and the parameters…
Methods and parameters? Please. The leak didn’t hurt national security one bit. It only alerted Americans to the fact that our freedoms are being eroded, and embarrassed the president. This is what his supporters are angry about. Not some fictional tip off to terrorists.
Joe, this is not fiction; I refer you to these excellent questions, if you are so confident in your view:
(1) Why did Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the House Intel Committee, write this last December in response to the Times story?
Dec 21, 2005
Washington , D.C. – Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA), Ranking Member on the House Intelligence Committee, today issued the following statement:
“As the Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, I have been briefed since 2003 on a highly classified NSA foreign collection program that targeted Al Qaeda. I believe the program is essential to US national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.
(2) Why did Sen. Rockefeller, ranking Dem on the Senate Intel Committee, hand-write a letter to Cheney and his files about The Program rather than laugh out loud, exclaim “There is nothing new here!”, and demand that the full Senate Intel Committee be brought into the briefings?
(3) Why did the Time sit on this story for a year after being told there were sensitive national security concerns? Why did they write (Risen/Lichtblau, Dec 16, 2005) that:
The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.
Possible unifying answer – Harman, Rockefeller, and the editors of the Times are all dupes. Uh huh. Another possible answer is, they know enough about this program to know that there might still be some secrets there.
Folks who think that the catalog of Atrios’s ignorance and the limits of his imagination define the boundaries of human endeavor will remain bemused by his question. For myself, I am convinced that I don’t know enough about this program to have any solid idea what security issues might be involved, so I am relying on the good, if unsteady, judgments of elected representatives such as Harman and Rockefeller.
So, do you have the answers? If not, I don’t think your swagger is justified…
Quite a bit of bloviating there, Joey – how about some actual, gee, I don’t know, cites to back up your highly self – regarded opinions here? Most of the commenters here tend to do that – not sure if you’ve noticed.
Don’t come to play with the big dogs if you’re carrying a popgun.
Are you a big dog, dmac? Heh.
Mark, I repeat my question: how did this leak harm national security in any way? Spare me third hand conversations with Sen. Rockefeller. Just give me a simple answer. It must be obvious, since you are all convinced the lead was bad for our war on terror. OK. So why?
Easy, Joe, I’m not going to get drawn into a fight here…if you’re convinced that all those Democrats who say the leak hurt national security are wrong, pick a fight with them.
I haven’t seen the evidence, and neither have you. That’s why I gave you the link I did…when people in the opposition party who have been briefed on the program say national security was hurt, that’s pretty powerful evidence…
You know as much as any terrorist could know from the leak. We’re all reading it in the NY Times. So what information hurts national security? Exactly. Nada. Nothing.
Anyone else want to take this one? Anyone? Perhaps one of the big dogs? Hello?
Joe, we’ve been covering this story here in excruciating detail…I can hardly go back and redo dozens of posts, especially when the blog has a search function, categories, and archives.
You want a short pithy answer of what operations were hurt and how? I can’t give it to you, and you know it…however, we are assured by DEMOCRATIC members of Congress that that is the case…I haven’t seen you answer that one yet…
Joe, I’ve in the middle of something at the moment…but sometime this weekend, I’ll try to answer your question more fully. Fair enough?…
Well, I can answer Mark’s three questions –
1) Re Jane Harmon: the quote is out of context — it omits the part of her statement where she says “Like many Americans, I am deeply concerned by reports that this program in fact goes far beyond the measures to target Al Qaeda about which I was briefed.” She was also one of a group of Democrats who wrote Hastert on 12/19 requesting him to “take steps immediately to conduct hearings on the scope of Presidential power in the area of electronic surveillance.” In its full context, what Harmon says is that surveilliance is essential, but the way the administration has conducted it is open to serious question (as well as her doubt that she was fully briefed on the program).
2) I’m not sure what the point is about Rockefeller. He hand-wrote the letter because, being sworn to secrecy, he couldn’t have his assistant type it. In the letter, he expressed serious concerns about the constitutionality of the administration’s actions. What’s the point?
3) I’m not sure why the timing of the story’s release is relevant to whether there was a breach of national security. The fact that we wiretap suspected terrorists is certainly not a secret — the only thing which the Times revealed was that it was done in violation of the law. I have yet to hear Bush or anyone else explain how the disclosure that the administration ignored FISA helps terrorists in any way.
Oh, ganging up on me, are you? I can’t resist responding to point two – the MinuteMan was, if memory serves me right, responding to those who still insist this is about conventional wiretaps by asking, if that is the case, why did Rockefeller feel the need to document his objections to the program instead of just laughing and saying ‘oh, is it just wiretaps? That’s nothing new!’…
In other words, his actions give credence to the now certainty that it is a data-mining/packet-sniffing operation of some kind…
Yes, Peter, that’s Harman’s entire statement (on that date), but if you had watched her appearance on the Fox Sunday news show last weekend, you would have heard her say – unequivocally – that the intelligence operations were hurt by this disclosure, and that the leakers should be prosecuted. I already gave you those links, and we’ve discussed this issue ad nauseum previously.
Parsing of her statements prior to that appearance just amounts to more Monday morning quarterbacking. If she still feels strongly about holding hearings, then by all means, let’s have them, and have them ASAP.
Now, do we hear anyone from the Democratic party responding to this urgent request?
(crickets chirping)
OK, Mark, fair enough. Take your time. I’m not trying to be snarky. I really want to know how this leak could have damaged national security. I just don’t see it.
There’s nothing new about wiretaps — but there is something new about a President evading judicial oversight by ordering wiretaps without getting warrants for them.
Ordering wiretaps without warrants is a different issue than data mining. If I tap your phone without getting a court order, that is different than having computers monitor traffic on trunk lines to detect patterns. If you found out that your phone lines were among the millions which were monitored, it probably wouldn’t bother you that much. If I told you that the government wiretapped your phones and didn’t seek approval to do so, my guess is that you would be hopping mad.
As for the hearings: as far as I know, the Democrats are all for them — however I believe that they have to be scheduled by the committee chairmen, who are all Republicans –
Joe, Peter, I’ve started working on a post for today or tomorrow on the subject of the NSA leak and national security…
Peter-
Here’s the LINK to Congresswoman Harman’s full statement.
In it, she explicitly states: “I believe the program is essential to US national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”
I can find nothing in the rest of her statement, nor in anything she’s said since, that contradicts this bald assertion. Can you?
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