The dance continues to the wee hours of the morning

Mueller continues the fine tradition of FBI leadership back to and specifically including our cross dressing friend J Edgar (not dissing other cross dressers)in flaying our civil liberties. The FBI continues the fine tradition of being a day late and a dollar short in serving our Republic and instead of just circling the toilet bowl, needs once and for all to be completely flushed.

Meanwhile LAT reports that the FBI “saw the mortgage crisis coming in 2004″ but failed to act on the warning of a senior agent.

An FBI official recognized the gathering mortgage crisis as far back as 2004, and predicted confidently that the FBI could prevent the problem from growing as costly as the S&L crisis, the Los Angeles Times reports Monday.

From The Times: “Long before the mortgage crisis began rocking Main Street and Wall Street, a top FBI official made a chilling, if little-noticed, prediction: The booming mortgage business, fueled by low interest rates and soaring home values, was starting to attract shady operators and billions in losses were possible.

More: “‘It has the potential to be an epidemic,’ Chris Swecker, the FBI official in charge of criminal investigations, told reporters in September 2004. But, he added reassuringly, the FBI was on the case. ‘We think we can prevent a problem that could have as much impact as the S&L crisis,’ he said.

The Times report, by Richard B. Schmitt, calls the FBI’s response to the mortgage crisis “tepid,” pointing out that roughly half of the FBI’s mortgage fraud investigations involve losses of less than $1 million. Schmitt also reports that in 2007, when the mortgage implosion was front-page news, the number of FBI agents assigned to investigating mortgage fraud “shrank to around 100. By comparison, the FBI had about 1,000 agents deployed on banking fraud during the S&L bust of the 1980s and ’90s, said Anthony Adamski, who oversaw financial crime investigations for the FBI at the time.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.co…..i-saw.html

Muller’s tenure seems to have been one of utter passivity, on so many fronts.

Conspiracy or incompetence?

Of course he didn’t act alone. Karl Rove was the mastermind.

The *Hannibal Lecter’s contempt-filled enunciation* FBI is a disgrace. May have been an overrated, but competent, agency to begin with but now is a laughing stock.

Reminds me I’ve got to pay my dues. Thanks.

Mueller has tried to portray the FBI as professional and above the fray, as with the refusal to get involved in Bush’s torture policies. Even there though there were some agents who did want to “get tough” with detainees and the FBI spectacularly did not follow up on what it knew to be criminal activity with regard to torture. It has also had big time scandals with its abuse of National Security Letters (NSLs). It got threatened by telecoms with having its telephone taps cut off because it wasn’t paying its bills. And it is deeply involved in the fusion centers, i.e. the construction of a police/surveillance state, which is supposed to be one of the prime topics of the September hearings. And the workarounds of existing law which are needed for them, Mukasey has already told Leahy he intends to put in force October 1 no matter what.

He said SJC will do a hearing with Mueller in mid-September. Leahy expects some hard questions from both Democrats and Republicans.

There was what I think is a misleading report this weekend that Mukasey had agreed to postpone implementation of the new FBI guidelines (whee! we get to do sexy intel!) in response to a letter from Feingold, Kennedy, Durbin, and Whitehouse, at least until after Mueller’s appearance before the SJC on 17 September.

But if you click through to read the letter that Mukasey’s spokesguy, Keith Nelson, sent to Leahy, you discover that there’s really no postponing going on at all — maybe there’s a diplomatic courtesy in that Mukasey won’t sign the guidelines until after Mueller’s appearance, but implementation was always set for 1 October anyway.

Even though I don’t expect Mukasey to be moved an inch by anything that happens, I’m a bit surprised by people’s sarcasm about the SJC above, especially if Mueller is going to be the witness. As I’ve watched him, Mueller is not impervious and not good at stonewalling, and the Dem senators on that committee should be able to raise some serious questions about Mukasey’s plan to “fix” the FBI in precisely the spots where it ain’t broke, which is my reading of the guidelines, informed by the IG’s report earlier this year.

I am not finding this letter to the LA Times by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg as either being from a crackpot or full of rumors. As a matter of fact, she seems right on.

Archive for Sunday, September 22, 2002
Anthrax Attacks Pushed Open an Ominous Door

By Barbara Hatch Rosenberg
September 22, 2002 in print edition M-1

On this first anniversary of the anthrax attacks, a number of conclusions can be drawn even without an arrest by the FBI. First, the strain and properties of the weaponized anthrax found in the letters show that it originated within the U.S. biodefense program, where the necessary expertise and access are found. Government officials recognized that the anthrax source was domestic less than two weeks after they learned of the letters, and nothing in their investigation has led them to say otherwise since.

One can also conclude that, given the origin of the anthrax and the warnings contained in the letters, the perpetrator’s motive was not to kill but rather to raise public fear and thereby spur Congress to increase spending on biodefense. In this, the attacks have been phenomenally successful.

Paradoxically, however, by breaking the taboo on using biological weapons, the attacks have engendered a threat that could dwarf Sept. 11. Modes of successful attack and public responses have now been demonstrated for the instruction of future terrorists. What’s more, it seems to have been easy to hide incriminating evidence, and, after a whole year of FBI bumbling, it looks likely that the attacker will get away with the crime. Although the death toll was relatively low, the strikes crippled business, government and postal services. Contamination in buildings has proved difficult, costly and time-consuming to remove, with some facilities still not restored; the public health system was strained beyond capacity.

Although biodefense has gotten a shot in the arm, it is important to understand that the goal of defending against bioweapons is not primarily public protection–which is largely impossible, as last year’s attacks demonstrated. It is rather “to allow the military forces of the United States to survive and successfully complete their operational missions

Biological weapons are preeminently anti-population weapons. But it would be impossible to provide the entire country with protective suits, masks, detectors, shelters, training and vaccinations against the large and growing array of potential agents. In any event, vaccinations can have serious side effects and can be overcome if the dose of the pathogenic agent is large or if the agent has been engineered to evade the vaccine.

Instead of protection, the civil defense response is entirely concerned with limiting the damage should an attack occur. There are also paradoxes here. Because of the rush to “do something,” large amounts of government money are being thrown, without sufficient forethought, at research involving potential biological weapons agents. Scientists go where the money is, and we’re now seeing a crowd of biologists lacking in relevant experience trooping to the trough.

The number of research laboratories and personnel handling dangerous pathogens is about to mushroom, making oversight and adequate safety and security control much more difficult to impose–particularly with the increased emphasis on secrecy. Ultimately, the very problem that made the anthrax attacks possible will be magnified.

One can confidently expect the U.S. to squander resources that could far better be used to extend the modest improvements being made in the public health system. Natural outbreaks of disease, including rapidly emerging new diseases for which we are unprepared, are a far more likely hazard for most people. Improving the public health system’s ability to respond would help combat these diseases as well as biological attacks.

The anthrax probe has disclosed an astounding degree of irresponsibility and lack of security at Ft. Detrick, Md., home to the nation’s premier existing biodefense laboratory. The problems stretch back for decades and extend beyond the anthrax attacks. In spite of a security crackdown there following the attacks, two incidents have occurred this year at Ft. Detrick in which spores escaped from a high-containment laboratory and were found in hallways, offices and locker rooms. One case was recognized only when an unauthorized employee took swabs outside the laboratory to check for anthrax contamination–something no one had thought of doing there before.

The anthrax investigation has raised questions about the nature and value of the work at Ft. Detrick and has brought to light the granting of security clearance and free access to highly dangerous biological agents to someone with falsified credentials–very disturbing whether or not he turns out to be the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks.

Even more serious concerns have been raised by the discovery of secret biodefense projects that push against the limits of international prohibitions. It was recently revealed that an Army laboratory in Utah has been secretly making weaponized anthrax for some years. Another secret project involved the construction of bomblets designed for dispersion of biological agents, although the Biological Weapons Convention explicitly prohibits developing, producing or possessing “means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes.” Such projects have raised suspicions abroad that the U.S. continues to develop biological weapons–suspicions that, even if not true, are likely to spur a new biological arms race.

Experts agree that a significant bioterror attack today would require the support of a national program to succeed. But for two years now, the U.S. has opposed every international effort to monitor the ban on the development and possession of biological weapons by states or to strengthen the toothless Biological Weapons Convention in any way.

The anthrax attacks have not altered that stance. Two weeks ago, I attended an informal meeting in Geneva where diplomats from six continents struggled in the face of U.S. intransigence to map out a joint strategy for combating the global biological threat. The United States had demanded that a formal Biological Weapons Convention conference, scheduled to take place during two weeks in November, should instead disband in one day with only an agreement not to meet again until 2006. To make sure that the American resolve prevails in this setting where international consensus is de rigueur, the U.S. demand was accompanied by an overt threat to disrupt any further proceedings with accusations that would make productive international action impossible.

At that Geneva meeting, the assembled diplomats, representing the political spectrum from our closest allies to declared enemies, were uniformly frustrated. They find it hard to comprehend why a country that has just been the victim of bioterrorism should stand in the way of peaceful efforts supported by all its allies to deter bioterrorism.

It is surprising how quickly public terror in response to the anthrax attacks turned to public indifference. But the story isn’t over. The likelihood of bioterrorism is increasing, and the American public is still the preferred target. Government decisions will be critical in determining the sequel. The preservation of public health and safety, like freedom, will now require public vigilance.

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More articles by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg
More articles from the Opinion section

In this August 1, 2002 Salon article by Byron York entitled
Bio-sleuth or Crackpot

But Rosenberg tells Salon she was always very careful never to name Hatfill, despite requests from everyone from the FBI to the media to the U.S. Senate. “If there isn’t a good reason for what they’re doing, I think it’s really disgusting that the FBI’s done this,” Rosenberg says, joining Hatfill’s critique of the bureau. “No question, it was the FBI who outed him. They informed the media before they searched his apartment [in June] so that the media would be there in their helicopters, etc. The FBI clearly did this on purpose.”

snip

Read the whole thing

http://dir.salon.com/story/new…..rosenberg/

Government confirms the anthrax used in the attacks came from within our own government.

Government confirms that the planning for the attack had to have begun prior to 9/11.

Government fails to mention that the most logical inference that can be drawn is that the anthrax attack was designed to be part of the 09/11 attack.

Foreknowledge has to be presumed, at the very least (unless of course, you are a coincidence theorist).

Anthrax attacks are confirmed by the Government to be an Inside Job.

Just turn off the rest of your logical mind and don’t make any logical inferences about the other half of the joint operation.

Let’s pretend 9/11 never happened, right? As long as the government has confirmed that the anthrax attacks were an inside job, life is good.

If Dear Leader wanted us to put two and two together, he would instruct us to think on it.

Bmaz,

Why did I return to rural Iowa from the fast pace of Phoenix? I step from the net to a lively discussion of politics locally. My insurance man and best friend is a die-hard Rethug. We shout past each other and he remains my insurance man(Vile as they are)

“Did you see the speech last night has been mentioned to me four times in four hours? At least a 15 minute discussion ensued with each person. Anyone that thinks we rural folk are ignorant is ill-informed. We are just tired of being lied to all the time.

Sorry for the generalizations but this election is a special time like 1932 where we may progressives need only to convince Obama to go where 70% of Americans dare to dream we can go.

From TPM Muck; A district court judge denied Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten’s request for a stay on their Congressional testimony pending the appeal of the recent decision in HJC v. Harriet Miers et al. The decision means that Miers will have to appear in response to the House Judiciary Committee’s subpoena for testimony.