A Few Good Men

[Neo]

Former Navy sailor arrested on terror charge


WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Navy sailor was arrested Wednesday for allegedly releasing classified information that ended up in the hands of a suspected terrorism financier.
Hassan Abujihaad, 31, of Phoenix, is accused in a case that began in Connecticut and followed a suspected terrorist network across the country and into Europe and the Middle East.

He was arrested in Phoenix on charges of supporting terrorism with an intent to kill U.S. citizens and transmitting classified information to unauthorized people.

Abujihaad, who is also known as Paul R. Hall, is charged in the same case as Babar Ahmad, a British computer specialist arrested in 2004 and accused of running websites to raise money for terrorism. Ahmad is scheduled to be extradited to the U.S. to face trial.

During a search of Ahmad's computers, investigators discovered files containing classified information about the positions of U.S. Navy ships and discussing their susceptibility to attack.

Abujihaad, a former enlisted man, exchanged e-mails with Ahmad while on active duty on the USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer, in 2000 and 2001, according to an affidavit released Wednesday. He allegedly purchased videos promoting violent jihad, or holy war.

In those e-mails, Abujihaad discussed naval military briefings and praised those who attacked the USS Cole in 2000, according to the affidavit by FBI Agent David Dillon.

The documents retrieved from Ahmad show drawings of Navy battle groups and discuss upcoming missions. They also say the battle group could be attacked using small weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades. The ships were never attacked.

Abujihaad had a secret security clearance that would have allowed him access to that material, according to the affidavit.

The investigation was run out of Connecticut because Ahmad allegedly used an Internet service provider there to host one of his fundraising websites.

Ahmad was arrested in 2004 but the case against Abujihaad apparently received a boost in December following the arrest of Derrick Shareef, 22, of Genoa, Ill., near Chicago, who was accused of planning to use hand grenades to attack holiday shoppers at a mall.

According to the affidavit, Shareef and Abujihaad lived together in 2004 when Ahmad was arrested. After reading news reports of the case, Abujihaad became upset and said, "I think this is about me," Shareef told investigators.

Authorities then taped a phone conversation between Abujihaad and an informant in which Abujihaad appeared nervous. Though Abujihaad didn't say outright that he was involved in the leak of classified information, the affidavit provided enough evidence for an arrest warrant.

Abujihaad received an honorable discharge from the Navy in 2002, according to the affidavit.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[prophageus]

Imagine that.

[Darren Dirt]

[sarcasm]C'mon people! It shouldn't come as a surprise, I mean just look at him! Look at his name, Abujihaad -- Abu + jihad [/sarcasm]

[Neo]

Mueller admits fault in FBI intrusions

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer 45 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The nation's top two law enforcement officials acknowledged Friday the
FBI broke the law to secretly pry out personal information about Americans. They apologized and vowed to prevent further illegal intrusions.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales left open the possibility of pursuing criminal charges against FBI agents or lawyers who improperly used the USA Patriot Act in pursuit of suspected terrorists and spies.

The FBI's transgressions were spelled out in a damning 126-page audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. He found that agents sometimes demanded personal data on people without official authorization, and in other cases improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances.

The audit also concluded that the FBI for three years underreported to Congress how often it used national security letters to ask businesses to turn over customer data. The letters are administrative subpoenas that do not require a judge's approval.

"People have to believe in what we say," Gonzales said. "And so I think this was very upsetting to me. And it's frustrating."

"We have some work to do to reassure members of Congress and the American people that we are serious about being responsible in the exercise of these authorities," he said.

Under the Patriot Act, the national security letters give the FBI authority to demand that telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses produce personal records about their customers or subscribers. About three-fourths of the letters issued between 2003 and 2005 involved counterterror cases, with the rest for espionage investigations, the audit reported.

Shoddy record-keeping and human error were to blame for the bulk of the problems, said Justice auditors, who were careful to note they found no indication of criminal misconduct.

Still, "we believe the improper or illegal uses we found involve serious misuses of national security letter authorities," the audit concluded.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said many of the problems were being fixed, including by building a better internal data collection system and training employees on the limits of their authority. The FBI has also scrapped the use of "exigent letters," which were used to gather information without the signed permission of an authorized official.

"But the question should and must be asked: How could this happen? Who is accountable?" Mueller said. "And the answer to that is, I am to be held accountable."

Mueller said he had not been asked to resign, nor had he discussed doing so with other officials. He said employees would probably face disciplinary actions, not criminal charges, following an internal investigation of how the violations occurred.

The audit incensed lawmakers in Congress already seething over the recent dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys. Democrats who lead House and Senate judiciary and intelligence oversight panels promised hearings on the findings. Several lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats alike — raised the possibility of scaling back the FBI's authority.

"It's up to Congress to end these abuses as soon as possible," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The Patriot Act was never intended to allow the Bush administration to violate fundamental constitutional rights."

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the audit shows "a major failure by Justice to uphold the law."

"If the Justice Department is going to enforce the law, it must follow it as well," said Hoekstra, of Michigan.

The
American Civil Liberties Union said the audit proves Congress must amend the Patriot Act to require judicial approval anytime the FBI wants access to sensitive personal information.

"The attorney general and the FBI are part of the problem, and they cannot be trusted to be part of the solution," said ACLU's executive director, Anthony D. Romero.

Both Gonzales and Mueller called the national security letters vital tools in pursuing terrorists and spies in the United States. "They are the bread and butter of our investigations," Mueller said.

Gonzales asked the inspector general to issue a follow-up audit in July on whether the FBI had followed recommendations to fix the problems.

Fine's annual review is required by Congress, over the objections of the Bush administration. It concluded that the number of national security letters requested by the FBI skyrocketed in the years after the Patriot Act became law. Each letter issued may contain several requests.

In 2000, for example, the FBI issued an estimated 8,500 requests. That number peaked in 2004 with 56,000. Overall, the FBI reported issuing 143,074 requests in national security letters between 2003 and 2005.

But that did not include an additional 8,850 requests that were never recorded in the FBI's database, the audit found. A sample review of 77 case files at four FBI field offices showed that agents had underreported the number of national security letter requests by about 22 percent.

Additionally, the audit found, the FBI identified 26 possible violations in its use of the letters, including failing to get proper authorization, making improper requests under the law and unauthorized collection of telephone or Internet e-mail records.

The FBI also used exigent letters to quickly get information — sometimes in non-emergency situations — without going through proper channels. In at least 700 cases, these letters were sent to three telephone companies to get billing records and subscriber information, the audit found.

___

On the Net:

The report is at: www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/FBI/index.htm

Justice Department: www.usdoj.gov

FBI: www.fbi.gov

[Darren Dirt]

neo said:

Mueller admits fault in FBI intrusions


"People have to believe in what we say," Gonzales said. "And so I think this was very upsetting to me. And it's frustrating."

"We have some work to do to reassure members of Congress and the American people that we are serious about being responsible in the exercise of these authorities," he said.

Still, "we believe the improper or illegal uses we found involve serious misuses of national security letter authorities," the audit concluded.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said many of the problems were being fixed, including by building a better internal data collection system and training employees on the limits of their authority. The FBI has also scrapped the use of "exigent letters," which were used to gather information without the signed permission of an authorized official.

"But the question should and must be asked: How could this happen? Who is accountable?" Mueller said. "And the answer to that is, I am to be held accountable."

Mueller said he had not been asked to resign, nor had he discussed doing so with other officials. He said employees would probably face disciplinary actions, not criminal charges, following an internal investigation of how the violations occurred.

"It's up to Congress to end these abuses as soon as possible," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The Patriot Act was never intended to allow the Bush administration to violate fundamental constitutional rights."

Gonzales asked the inspector general to issue a follow-up audit in July on whether the FBI had followed recommendations to fix the problems.
___

On the Net:

The report is at: www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/FBI/index.htm

OH NOES! The gubmint is losing credibility in the eyes of the taxpaying sheeple! Can't have that, gotta sacrifice some patsies to keep up the appearance of legitimacy... (Either that, or just accelerate the timetable for letting the brute force violence be blatantly displayed to intimidate all into obedient submission...)

[creolefood]

"The FBI's transgressions were spelled out in a damning 126-page audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine."

I wonder which river Mr. Fine now resides at the bottom of?

[Darren Dirt]

Ironic, the title of this thread.

Since the Tom Cruise character in the film AFGM was based on a real-life guy who Gonzales recently fired (among a half-dozen others, apparently).

I must have missed a couple days of news, cuz I just heard of this now...

Gone-zuhluhs has finally crossed the line? Forget destroying liberty and making the rest of the world hate "us"... apparently it's only hell to pay when you fire the wrong people, or for the wrong reasons...


www.thedailybackground.com/2007/03/16/why-were-the-us-attorneys-really-fired-possible-reasons-trickle-out/

Ooo! It might even bring voter fraud issues to the mainstream!
www.thedailybackground.com/2007/03/16/voter-fraud-allegations-explained-in-the-context-of-the-us-attorney-firings/


...and of course, the fantastic news, A Good Guy (or Gal) will replace him* as the A.G. Yay!

- - -

*active membership in the Church of Fundamentalist Statists required, fear not.

[Darren Dirt]

Remember this, about the FBI?

neo said:

"People have to believe in what we say," Gonzales said. "And so I think this was very upsetting to me. And it's frustrating."

"We have some work to do to reassure members of Congress and the American people that we are serious about being responsible in the exercise of these authorities," he said.

Now compare that to recent "hearings" where Gunzealous was in the hotseat... and seemed to have a worse memory than Smirk (!)

www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070423/gonzales-prosecutors

Appearing with Gen. David Petraeus at the White House, the president told reporters, "This is an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence."

The president said that Gonzales' testimony before skeptical Judiciary Committee senators last week "increased my confidence" in his ability to lead the Justice Department. Separately, a White House spokeswoman said, "He's staying."

"As the hearings went forward, it was clear the attorney general broke no law, there's no wrongdoing," Bush said.

White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said that, "Now there are some people, granted, that don't support the attorney general. But he has the full confidence of the president. We reserve the right to respectfully disagree with friends of ours on Capitol Hill in this regard."

*cough*

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the committee, said Monday that keeping Gonzales as attorney general will be "harmful to the Justice Department because he has lost his credibility."

"When he said that he wasn't involved in discussions or deliberations, and then is contradicted by his three top aides and also by documentary evidence, ... his credibility has been substantially undermined," Specter said in Harrisburg, Pa. "And I think it does hurt the administration, and inevitably it hurts the (Republican) party."

Have no fear, The Decider "believes" [in] Aggro Gonzales, so he must be doing a heckuva job...

[damageinc]

Hmmmmmmm... L CIA DA and Naval intel working together? What? Did I say that out loud??? Damnit Jim! I'm just a sheeple I can't see....Say this!!