Does it appear spying on Americans could have prevented 9/11?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/speech041902.htm

Robert S. Mueller, III, Director, FBI
Commonwealth Club of California
San Francisco, CA
April 19, 2002

<snip>The plans were hatched and financed overseas, beginning at least five years ago, but perhaps going back even further. Each of the hijackers came from abroad: 15 from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, and one each from Lebanon and Egypt. All 19 entered our country legally, and only three had overstayed the legal limits of their visas on the day of the attacks.

While here, the hijackers did all they could to stay below our radar. They contacted no known terrorist sympathizers. They committed no egregious crimes. They blended into the woodwork.

The hijackers also apparently left no paper trail. In our investigation, we have not yet uncovered a single piece of paper –– either here in the U.S. or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere –– that mentioned any aspect of the September 11th plot. As best we can determine, the actual hijackers had no computers, no laptops, no storage media of any kind. They used hundreds of different pay phones and cell phones, often with prepaid calling cards that are extremely difficult to trace. And they made sure that all the money sent to them to fund their attacks was wired in small amounts to avoid detection.

In short, the terrorists managed to exploit loopholes and vulnerabilities in our systems, to stay out of sight, and to not let anyone know what they were up to beyond a very closed circle. The patient, skilled and exploitive approach used by the hijackers means our prevention efforts must be massive, globally collaborative and supported by ample technology and analytical capacity. It means that the information possessed by every agency - - both here and abroad, both federal and local - - must go into the multi-agency prevention mix and be acted upon.

[NVMojo]

1. bullshit, what about the fact that they were already spying on us and

had some excerpts the day before 9/11 and did nothing?? Liars.

[McCamy Taylor]

2. No, because retards in the Bush administration read the info spies get.

All the evidence that was needed was already there, obtained by routine spying techniques. If our country was not being run my morons at the time, if someone like Clinton or Gore had been in charge, 9-11 probably would not have happened. Gore was going to fix the airport security problems that put us at risk. Clinton has already stopped other attacks.

Bush Co. have been covering their own asses on this all along AND using their incompetence as an excuse in a mad power grab. As soon as Dems take over the WH, all this executive power will be stripped away, because no one will tolerate anyone with an ounce of sense having that kind of power. They only let Dumbya get away with it, because they figure he needs a head start, since he is not the brightest bulb.

[Jim Sagle]

3. No, but electing a President instead of appointing a Resident WOULD have

prevented it.

[magellan]

4. Bush** had plenty of warning 9-11 was going to happen

He and his administration chose to ignore it. All their subsequent snooping into the lives of private American citizens won't change that.

In my mind the Bush** administration are and will forever be criminals for letting 9-11 happen, and for mangling the Constitution to cover up their failure.

[leftofthedial]

5. no, but the coverup could have gone better

if they'd been allowed to spy on us

[dailykoff]

6. And that's what it's all about.

Guantanamo and the secret prisons, too. One big out-of-control coverup.

[charlie]

7. Mueller. Shithead

If he didn't continually blow off his Minnesota field office, one of whose officers actually said that he wanted to make sure Moussaoui could "not take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center", 911 could have been averted.

So, we had the country's top investigative agency in possession of one of the players and the director of the top intelligence agency running around with his "hair on fire" trying to get Dubya to pay attention. Seems to me that what was supposed to work, worked, until the slacker morons at the very top squelched action.

But of course, peering up the assholes of every American is the gua-ran-teed fix. Of course.

[sweetheart]

8. Of COURSE it would have prevented 9/11

Just consider how safe we all would feel during air travel to have our own
secret agent personally assigned to every single person in america, stalking us,
monitoring us from close-on... and certainly, this would have changed the
victem profile of 9/11's flights to 50% secret agents, and that would have
swapped some lives of people who died, from citizens to republicanazis.

What a trivial minor cost to turn 50% of america in to to the baby sitters of
the other 50%, it'll provide full employment and never a dull moment!

[killbotfactory]

9. An administration that gave a shit about terrorism could have helped

[0rganism]

10. Colleen Rowley + Phoenix memo = Mueller is a lying sack of shit

Agent Colleen Rowley tried to get a FISA warrant, to pursue Moussaoui who had incriminating evidence of the attacks beforehand. She was stonewalled by her superiors, whether through incompetence or something even less appealling, including Mueller.
http://www.apfn.org/APFN/WTC_whistleblower1.htm

Even the repulsive Sen. Grassley was pissed at Mueller:
http://www.senate.gov/~grassley/releases/2002/p02r5-24a.htm

[abester]

11. Obviously

9/11 Could have been prevented had the FBI just done their job, instead of just removing key people from key investigations, had the CIA paid any attention to the wave of forgeign intelligence warnings (like Tennet said, the system was blinking red)