I think that John Podhoretz and Jim Geraghty over at NRO do fairly reasonable summary of the current state of the issue of "Able Danger" and the 9/11 Commission. While I'm still anything but a fan of the Commission and the product it produced for a whole host of reasons unrelated to this, I also think it's very important to make sure (and I apologize to any liberal readers I may offend in making this comparison) that this doesn't turn into the right-wing version of the Downing Street Memo. The accusations have been made, the Commission has responded, and the ball is now back in the accusers' court.
I also think that this comment by Geraghty pretty much encapsulates the situation:
Either Weldon and his sources have run around spreading lies and crazy stories (and managed to get them on the front page of the New York Times) or the 9/11 Commission completely dropped the ball on this, and is attempting to cover up a glaring omission.
Yep. Either way, somebody's in big trouble.
It looks like the 9/11 Commission got its act together as far as trying to discredit Rep Weldon and his Able Danger sources.
Please note the vampire to garlic reaction at the links provided by John Podhoretz and Jim Geraghty by policy makers and government 9/11 investigators to the whole concept of open source data mining by the Federal government's law enforcement and regulatory arms.
There is a story in that which needs consideration.
The ability of the Federal government to uncover schemes to defraud investors, the general public and the government will be magnified logarithmically if, say, the FTC, SEC, IRS and FDA were able to follow up data mining associations with federal investigations.
However, the people involved in these schemes are politically connected, well funded and have a mortal interest in keeping their money and staying out of jail. Crippling the Federal government's ability to data mine for law enforcement purposes, even at the price of national security, is their over riding interest.
The political types bend to their narrow innterest campaign contributors on such things absent huge public demand.
A demand that will not appear short of a domestic five figure WMD attack, IMO.
Empower the American people in the GWOT.
Dan and All,
Don't you think it's time we all collectively put our diverse and great talents to work to win this GWOT?
Roger L. Simon linked today to Captain V., a former denizen of the Intel Community, who has some insightful comments:
Taciturn Link
See my comment there
Comment Link
and my comment at Roger L. Simon's site:
Empower the American people in the GWOT.
RLS Link
Jamie Gorelick should never have been a member of the 9/11 Commission. Why would anyone attach any credibility to an investigation in which a principal had influence on the investigation? It's an obvious conflict of interest.
Two posts that are about Able Danger from Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly.
I'm not spending the time figuring this out unless it becomes a bigger deal, but MYOJ - Make Your Own Judgment.
this story reveals what I consider to be one of the dangers of blogging. it is easy to fall into the pattern of comparing various MSM outlets to look for differences of ommission, nuance, timing and so on.
but think about it. the particular names of units and project and places have been published. why is not anyone going to those units, projects, and places to get data from the primary sources? why aren't any of the "terrorism experts" running their group blogs producing something from deeper sources than the NYT?
dig deeper. there is much more to this story than has yet hit the presses.
No matter how this ends up (Weldon or 9/11 Commission with egg on face for misleading or dropping the ball), the underlying issues need to see the light of day, and further scrutiny.
Gorelick's inclusion on the Commission was a clear problem, which the Administration should have fought against, but didn't. We can't refight that battle, but need to look forward, and how to best protect this country. That means making sure that all areas of intel are able to share information with law enforcement when data comes in that suggests a threat.