U.S. National Intel Chief: 9/11 Caused By Weak Domestic Wiretap Laws - Video Inside

US national intel chief: 9/11 caused by weak domestic wiretap laws

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Spy_Ch...weak_0116.html

(Gold9472: Really?)

David Edwards and Mike Sheehan
Published: Wednesday January 16, 2008

The US Director of National Intelligence asserts that the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, were caused by weak domestic wiretapping laws.

Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, former head of the National Security Agency who was appointed DNI in 2007 by President Bush, spoke today to a group of students in St. Mary's City, Missouri, about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a federal statute that outlines procedures for electronic surveillance by the US intelligence community.

Referencing alleged 9/11 conspirator Mohamed Atta, McConnell said Atta was trackable by US intel until he actually entered the United States. "He's now a US person," said McConnell, with all the rights and privileges of ordinary American citizens.

Inside the US, McConnell continued, Atta would be "invisible to your intelligence community. As long he doesn't break the law, law enforcement can't conduct surveillance, [because] they don't have probable cause."

Terror network al-Qaeda understood that, McConnell then said, "and that's why 9/11 happened, in my view."

Video At Source

A warrant for Atta's arrest was issued for driving without a licence:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/c...601attawarrant

He was then stopped for speeding, but the police didn't notice the arrest warrant:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/c...01attaspeeding

He was seen with a top Florida-based al-Qaead operative, but the 9/11 Commission buried this in an endnote to a subsidiary report (Terrorist Travel):
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/c...ttashukrijumah

The operative, Adnan el-Shukrijumah, was under investigation by the FBI for two plots at this time:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/c...ukrijumahagain
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/c...fbishukrijumah

Atta and his pals were also under big surveillance in Germany from a raft of intelligence agencies.

McConell's assertion is that Atta would be "invisible to your intelligence community. As long he doesn't break the law, law enforcement can't conduct surveillance, [because] they don't have probable cause."

That's completely ludicrous. The FBI could open a preliminary and then full-field counterintelligence investigation on anyone it suspected of being an agent of a foreign power, whether they had committed a crime or not. McConnell is making this up out of whole cloth.

He previously claimed the NSA did not detect the hijackers' calls from the US, when the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry says it drafted and disseminated reporting based on the calls. If the calls weren't detected, how did the NSA know to draft the reports:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/c...niesintercepts

Check the comments on Raw Story - the commentators seem unimpressed by McConnell.

Thanks Kevin. For those who don't know, Kevin is a contributor to www.cooperativeresearch.org the same as Paul Thompson.