Ruh-roh... More holes in the official 9/11 story...

the official line is unraveling faster than a twelve-dollar, wal-mart, polyester sweater...

larisa alexandrovna and raw story have the scoop and a lot more...

Newly-released records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request contradict the 9/11 Commission’s report on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and raise fresh questions about the role of Saudi government officials in connection to the hijackers.

The nearly 300 pages of a Federal Bureau of Investigation timeline used by the 9/11 Commission as the basis for many of its findings were acquired through a FOIA request filed by Kevin Fenton, a 26 year old translator from the Czech Republic. The FBI released the 298-page “hijacker timeline” Feb. 4.

The FBI timeline reveals that alleged hijacker Hamza Al-Ghamdi, who was aboard the United Airlines flight which crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, had booked a future flight to San Francisco. He also had a ticket for a trip from Casablanca to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

Though referenced repeatedly in the footnotes of the final 9/11 Commission report, the timeline has not previously been made available to the public.

The FBI timeline is dated Nov. 14, 2003 but appears to have been put together earlier (since the last date mentioned in the document is Oct. 22, 2001) and was provided to the 9/11 Commission during its 2003 investigation. The final Commission report cites the FBI timeline 52 times.

The FBI timeline reveals that Al-Ghamdi, the alleged United hijacker, was booked onto several flights scheduled for after the 9/11 attacks, a piece of information not documented in the Commission’s final report. According to the FBI timeline, Al-Ghamdi was booked on another United Airlines flight on the very day of the attack.

and ya gotta LOVE this line...

“There are enough discrepancies and unanswered questions in the 9/11 Commission report that under a friendly administration, the 9/11 investigation should be re-opened,” Baer wrote in an email message Tuesday night [Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer in the Middle East whose See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism became the inspiration for the award winning film Syriana].

we need the truth and i'm sick and goddam tired of waiting for it...

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Jimmy Carter says secrecy is a violation of human rights

and you know WHY he thinks that...? because not having access to information stifles growth and change... it's become an axiom, thanks to research on complex adaptive systems, that for complex systems to be effective, for them to even survive, they must be OPEN, open to change, open to adaptation, and adaptation and change cannot take place without new information about changing conditions in the larger environment... a corollary to that axiom is that closed systems, sooner or later, die...

The Bush administration has violated Americans' basic human rights by blocking access to information and creating more government secrets than at any other time in U.S. history, former President Carter said Wednesday.

Carter made the remarks at the start of a three-day conference aimed at helping other countries develop "access to information" laws, drawing participants from nearly 40 nations.

To applause, Carter said he looks forward to more freedom after a new U.S. administration takes office in January.

The Atlanta-based Carter Center has been working to help other countries with right-to-information laws since 1999, when it piloted a program in Jamaica. At that time only a handful of countries had such laws.

Today, nearly 70 nations have laws granting the public access to government information.

"Powerful leaders in order to stay in office deprive their citizens of a right to know," Carter said. "Access to information can change the landscape of an entire society."

access to information not only "'CAN' change the landscape of an entire society," it WILL change it...

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Sibel Edmonds: FBI cover-up

the hits just keep on comin'...

luke offers up another explosive story from the uk london sunday times about sibel edmonds...

THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets.

The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency’s investigation of the network.

Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie”.

“I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did exist from 1996 to February 2002. The file refers to the counterintelligence programme that the Department of Justice has declared to be a state secret to protect sensitive diplomatic relations,” she said.

The freedom of information request had not been initiated by Edmonds. It was made quite separately by an American human rights group called the Liberty Coalition, acting on a tip-off it received from an anonymous correspondent.

The letter says: “You may wish to request pertinent audio tapes and documents under FOIA from the Department of Justice, FBI-HQ and the FBI Washington field office.”

It then makes a series of allegations about the contents of the file – many of which corroborate the information that Edmonds later made public.

cripes... when is this going to blow down the goddam house of cards...? soon...? please...?

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Where are the 39 "ghost prisoners"?

bad, bad, bad business...

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said they filed a U.S. federal lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information about the 39 people it terms "ghost prisoners" in the U.S. "war on terror."

Reuters

Six human rights groups urged the U.S. government on Thursday to name and explain the whereabouts of 39 people they said were believed to have been held in U.S. custody and "disappeared."

"Since the end of Latin America's dirty wars, the world has rejected the use of 'disappearances' as a fundamental violation of international law," Professor Meg Satterthwaite of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University's School of Law said in a statement.

The report said suspects' relatives, including children as young as seven, had been held in secret detention on occasion.

sometimes i have to stop and remind myself that i'm reading about my own country, not el salvador, chile, honduras, or argentina...

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Suing the White House over the missing emails

this is good... this is very good...

CREW’s suit is based on a FOIA request filed with the OA on March 29, 2007 for records regarding the over five million missing emails. Although on April 27, 2007, the OA agreed to expedite CREW’s FOIA request, the OA has yet to provide CREW with so much as a single document.

According to confidential sources, the OA created documents that detail the exact dates for which the over five million emails are missing and that analyzed the scope of the problem. CREW has learned that there is also a political assessment of the harm to public perception of the White House if it became known so many emails had disappeared. In addition, the requested documents include plans CREW was told were presented almost two years ago to restore the missing emails, but were never acted on.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today, “This White House has decided to play an unlawful game of high-tech hide and seek with the American public. Thus far, CREW has learned that the Administration has both lost five million White House emails and pro-actively tried to cover up the loss. CREW has sued the Office of Administration to shine a spotlight on these reckless and possibly illegal activities and to restore these records for the benefit of future generations.”

keep pushing for accountability... keep pushing, pushing, pushing...

(thanks to raw story...)

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"Reverse course" on THESE, George, and then we'll talk

the wapo, in traditionally head-in-the-sandup-the-butt fashion, is all flushed with excitement over bush's willingness to "change course..."

Bush Shows New Willingness to Reverse Course

just look at their examples...

• fired Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
  (and installed an equally pandering toady with a better sense for p.r. AFTER the generals threatened to revolt)

• authorized direct talks with North Korea
  (AFTER giving them plenty of time to expand their nuclear arsenal)

• sent more troops to Iraq
  (DESPITE a clear message from the november elections and the vast majority of the american people that they want an end to the war)

• agreed to discuss the contours of a Palestinian state in Middle East peace negotiations
  (AFTER refusing to recognize the palestinian government and starving the palestinian people)

• proposed a tax increase for millions of Americans
  (BUT is still calling for tax cuts to become permanent while CONTINUING to line the pockets of his super-rich cronies)

now, let's quick skip over to the nyt and see what a REAL course change looks like...

• Restore Habeas Corpus

• Stop Illegal Spying

• Ban Torture, Really

• Close the C.I.A. Prisons

• Account for ‘Ghost Prisoners’

• Ban Extraordinary Rendition

• Tighten the Definition of Combatant

• Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively

• Ban Tainted Evidence

• Ban Secret Evidence

• Better Define ‘Classified’ Evidence

• Respect the Right to Counsel

oh, and by the way...

• [H]alt the federal government’s race to classify documents to avoid public scrutiny

• [R]everse the grievous harm this administration has done to the Freedom of Information Act

• [C]urtail F.B.I. spying on nonviolent antiwar groups and revisit parts of the Patriot Act that allow this practice

• [A]pologize to a Canadian citizen and a German citizen, both innocent, who were kidnapped and tortured by American agents

• [C]lose the Guantánamo camp

now, THAT'S a list... when i see ANY of those things start to happen, i will take heart... not before...

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