Decision ‘08

Able Danger Conference Call: Mark Zaid, Attorney for Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer

Mark Zaid is no stranger to intelligence controversies: to quote his website, he is “the Managing Partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Krieger & Zaid, PLLC and specializes in litigation and lobbying on matters relating to international transactions, torts and crimes, national security, foreign sovereign and diplomatic immunity, defamation (plaintiff) and the Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts (FOI/PA).” He’s also intimately involved with the James Madison Project, an organization that’s dedicated to blowing the lid off of government secrecy.

It’s little surprise, then, that he should be the attorney for Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the man who is Curt Weldon’s primary source for information on Able Danger, a Pentagon data-mining operation that Shaffer says ID’ed Mohammed Atta prominently, on several occasions, pre-9/11. For a background on all things Able Danger-related, AJ Strata is a valuable resource.

Shaffer claims his security clearance was revoked for whistleblowing; the Pentagon says it was for violations of policy. Rep. Curt Weldon, who has a book for sale involving some of these matters called “Countdown To Terror“, in the interest of fairly laying out motiviations, held a hearing this last week on the program, but ran into a brick wall of silence from the Pentagon, either because (a) there’s no ‘there’ there, (b) there’s a cover-up, or (c) the Pentagon has flubbed the record-keeping.

Also for the record, I have blown both hot and cold on this story - if the allegations of a cover-up are true, they’re very important and troubling; however, not being inclined to conspiracy theorizing, I maintain a pretty healthy dose of skepticism (surely not a bad way to approach most things) - though an exchange towards the end of the call put some of my skepticism to rest.

A final preliminary note: an inspector-general investigation into the revoking of Shaffer’s clearance is underway and expected to conclude in May.

I was invited to participate in a conference call with Mr. Zaid, along with many other bloggers, and my summation follows (I’m not going to attempt to provide a transcript from memory, as the call was pretty free-ranging, but rather just hit some of the high points)…

Zaid opened with a summation of a Tuesday hearing, which he stated was a rescheduled hearing that was related to whistleblower retaliation. Wednesday was the House hearing that most people are (dimly) aware of; there was both an open and a closed session, but Zaid says he was blocked from the closed (classified) session (as was J.D. Smith, a defense contractor who has backed up Shaffer’s claims).

Zaid found the open session ‘quite disappointing’, particularly the poor turnout…Zaid also stated that the complexity of the case seems to have left most of the attendees behind, and he decried the superficial level of knowledge (only three attendees were in the closed session, as well, according to Zaid’s undisclosed sources).

Zaid said the feeling was that the hearing was a farce that appeared to be intended to placate Weldon. Zaid also said he was puzzled by the behavior of the FBI, who were formerly cooperative about acknowledging and following up on meetings that were attempted with several principals and seem to have gone through a sudden chill. Mike Kasper of the Able Danger blog asked if any FBI people attended either session; the answer was apparently not.

Pierre Legrand of the Pink Flamingo Bar & Grill asked why there is so much resistence to the story; Zaid said that he was been involved with many different conspiracy tales due to his work, and he usually can find a good reason for why official Washington wants to clamp down, but he can’t quite put his finger on this one, though he feels that embarrassment plays a major role (more on that in my conclusion).

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to cut the Q & A portion short, as I began to have problems with my connection and had to redial in several times (though I will link later to other summaries).Captain Ed and the Dread Pundit Bluto were also participating, however, as was another blogger whose name I hope to update later.

I want to conclude, however, with my own question, and an explanation of why the answer helped to quiet some of my skepticism. I asked, roughly, what the ideal outcome for Zaid would be, aside from obviously serving the interests of his clients.

Zaid responded that, of course, one desired outcome is to get Shaffer’s security clearance back and clear his name on the personnel matter, but the other outcome is that Able Danger be reconstituted. I find that very illuminating. These are not whistleblowers in the conventional sense, who have discovered wrongdoing and seek to stop it. Rather, these are people who are convinced that they were involved in something very worthwhile, something that may have, conceivably, prevented 9/11 in a perfect world, but more importantly, something that could prevent future attacks of a similar nature, that they feel was wrongly shut down by the higher-ups.

Why would this information be covered up, you may ask? Well, briefly, the prevailing schools of thought are that (a) the work of the 9/11 Commission was sloppy on the Atta issue, and some aspects of the Able Danger story don’t gel well with their conclusions, (b) the whole ‘you mean we could have prevented 9/11′ angle isn’t a real winner with government officials, and (c) there was an alleged discovery related to China and a high government official (supposedly Rice) that caused the plug to be pulled on data-mining operations of this sort.

There were other aspects to the call that I had best leave to those who are more familiar with the nitty gritty details, such as the interesting discussion over the legwork that was involved with the data-mining, and discussions of ‘Able Providence’…but here’s a couple of links to keep you satisfied until I can link to the work of other participants.

Rory O’Connor, who also participated on the call, has a very good ‘20 Questions’ on the program here, if you still don’t know what the heck I’m talking about…and Mr. Zaid, who has been handling the case virtually for free, would love for you to call your congressmen, the editors of your local paper, and basically do whatever you can to give the effort more visibility…and he needs funds, if you’re so inclined, as he has basically been working for free, since Shaffer, Smith, et al, are having employment problems related to the program’s shutdowns. Donations will be gladly received at:

Mark S. Zaid, Esq.
Krieger & Zaid, PLLC
1920 N Street, N.W.
Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036

Finally, Jack Kelly has a recent column on the program up that is worth your time and attention…

UPDATE 8:04 p.m.: The other blogger was QT Monster, as I found out from AJ’s summation. AJ made clear in the call and his post that he feels that momentum is slipping away from the story, and that opportunities are being missed to unfold the story in areas that he highlights…

UPDATE 10:38 p.m.: The Dread Pundit Bluto weighs in:

The biggest question I have is this: why isn’t the mainstream media all over this story? It stinks to high heaven of coverup. NBC can provide nightly coverage of the Katrina aftermath for five months, but a story that has profound implications for national security doesn’t rate thirty seconds?

…as does Captain Ed:

[T]he only thing that Republicans and Democrats have in common these days is a desire to push Able Danger out of sight. The FBI also appears to have gotten the same disease as the two parties. The FBI, which once acknowledged that several attempts occurred to have meetings between its agents and the Able Danger team now denies that any such contacts occurred.

UPDATE 02/21/06 8:34 a.m.: The Pink Flamingo Bar & Grill reports on the call here; QT Monster’s take can be found here…

4 Responses to “Able Danger Conference Call: Mark Zaid, Attorney for Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer”

1 The Strata-Sphere » Blog Archive » Able Danger Conference Call Says:
February 20th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
[…] Captain Ed Mark Coffey of Decision ‘08 Mike of Able Danger Blog QT Monster Rory O’Connor Pierre from Pink Flamingo Bar & Grill Bluto from Jawa Report and Bluto’s Blog […]
2 The Dread Pundit Bluto Says:
February 20th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Conference Call on the Able Danger Hearings With A

The biggest question I have is this: why isn’t the mainstream media all over this story? It stinks to high heaven of coverup. NBC can provide nightly coverage of the Katrina aftermath for five months, but a story that has profound implications for na…
3 Flopping Aces » Blog Archive » The Able Danger Conference Call Says:
February 21st, 2006 at 2:07 am
[…] Decison ‘08: […]
4 The Pink Flamingo Bar Grill Says:
February 21st, 2006 at 2:24 am
ABLE DANGER, CIA, DIA, Conspiracy, CYA quick!

First of all if you have not been following the Able Danger saga please go right now and read Lt Col Tony Shaffer’s testimony to the House Armed Services Committee. In that document you will find a clear and concise explanation of just exactly ho ……