Conspiracy anyone? Inside the NSA’s 9/11 cover-up

[eridani]

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/conspiracy-anyone-inside-the-nsas-911-cover-up/

In a recent piece published by Foreign Policy Bamford examines a phone call to a clandestine operations center run by Osama bin Laden in Yemen during March of 2000. The phone call was dialed by one of the 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar, from his apartment in San Diego. In fact, there were a number of such phone calls made by 9/11 hijackers living in San Diego. Why didn’t our security services immediately launch investigations?

According to then director of the NSA, Michael Hayden, the NSA was unable to determine the geographic origin of these calls despite the fact that the phone line in Yemen (967-1-200-578) was under intense scrutiny by NSA. The Yemen number was tracked using a form of surveillance known as “cast-iron” coverage where dedicated resources were allocated to continuously monitor the line 24/7.

Years later, in 2014, Hayden claimed that technical difficulties prevented exact geolocation. By the way, this is the same justification that he relied on post-9/11 to help institute the bulk collection program for phone metadata. Hayden told interviewers from Frontline: “Two guys, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, living in San Diego… come to the United States, call home, call Yemen, call a safe house in Yemen seven times. We intercepted every one of the calls, right?

Nothing in the physics of the intercept, nothing in the content of the call told us they were in San Diego. If we’d have had the metadata program, OK, if we’d have had that basket of stuff and that phone number of that safe house in Yemen, which we knew, and we would have walked up to that metadata and said, “Hey, any of you guys talked to this number in Yemen?” those numbers in San Diego would have popped up.”

James Bamford, himself a former NSA whistleblower, digs into Hayden’s assertions. Leveraging the technical expertise of former NSA insiders he unearths an unsettling find. The narrative spun by Hayden is “an absolute lie.” The NSA knew damn well that these calls were coming from San Diego. According to former NSA senior executive Thomas Drake: “Every number that comes into that switchboard, if you’re cast-iron coverage on that switchboard, you know exactly what that number is and where it comes from.… You know exactly—otherwise it can’t get there.”

[William Seger]

1. So, what Bamford and Drake are claiming...

... is that NSA did have access to the metadata -- i.e. the call data records which have the source number -- whereas Heyden says they didn't. Since it isn't clear from the article that Bamford and Drake understand that the source number they're talking about is a piece of the metadata, I'm afraid I'd need to know more about this "technical expertise of (anonymous) former NSA insiders" and the actual reasons they make the claim. The article doesn't really give any reason to believe they know what they're talking about, but apparently doesn't see any reason to verify it before jumping to conclusions and making incendiary accusations.

[dougolat]

2. Try Thomas Drake interview on Real TV

"From 9/11 to Mass Surveillance.
The Man Who Knew Too Much -
Thomas Drake on R.A.I."

on You-Tube and TRNN.com

It's new, and lengthy; in 5 parts on You-Tube

[William Seger]

3. 5 parts? No thanks

If there's a part that answers my question -- why should we believe the NSA had access to call source numbers? -- please point me to it or give me a summary. I know enough about how telephone switching works to know that the receiving switchboard does not receive metadata -- it does not need to know the calling numbers as Bamford claims -- and that the only way the NSA could get that data is from one of the telco switches involved in routing the call. If he can't supply the technical details of how that was done, then it just smells like bullshit.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

5. The NSA apparently cannot cover up anything. It is against the law