NSA Got Messages Sept 10th

Seems that the NSA got warnings intercepted on Sept 10th about "the match starting tomorrow," etc. They didn't translate the messages until Sept 12th though.

However, even if they did translate on the 10th, the warnings were pretty vague, and they usually get lots of bogus data flowing through their systems.

Oh well, too bad they couldn't have stopped it.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/...ing/index.html

I've always been under the undrestanding that the NSA is primarily cryptologic and communication security (they design and account for military and government agency cryptographic equipment and systems) and are not intelligence analysts. I believe that the CIA is reponsible for foreign intelligence while the FBI is reponsible for domestic intelligence.

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“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.”

- St. Augustine

THis is a good quote and something I've been trying to explain for weeks to people.

Nobody intentionally let this happen, the budget for the Agencies responsible for National security was severely cut by the Clinton administration.

By the way, I looked up the NSA's mission statement, I was only partially right. There job is also to translate, however, the analysis is the repsonsibility of the FBI and CIA who have way too many irons in the fire to reach their optimum level of effectiveness.

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“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.”

- St. Augustine

Yes. I'm certain it didn't help when the Justice department was considering counterterror operations a low priority.

Until 9/11, Ashcroft's plan for the justice department was to focus on the "War on Drugs". A distinct change from the Clinton administration, which was heavily focused on terror groups.

Both issues could have been handled better had the budjet not been cut so drastically in the two previous terms.

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“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.”

- St. Augustine

You mean had the budget not been balanced? Possibly, although counterterrorism spending rose under Clinton, and was the focus of his Justice department.

The focus was shifted from terrorism to drugs when Ashcroft took charge.

Facts are facts: Terrorism was barely on the Bush administration radar in September.

On September 10th I saw a sign tacked up on a door in sort-of-downtown Montreal saying "Tomorrow the United States will see that they are not so strong after all".

There were warnings all over the place, but there was no way for anyone to prevent this.

Darn, Mallory. We find out it was YOU that "dropped the ball"?

That's not a fact. I know for a fact that that is not a fact.

Terrorism has always been a huge concern of the American military for one thing. The USS Cole incident struck a chord and the US was really looking into the possibility of domestic terrorism almost imediately following due to evidence and intelligence gathered after the incident. Before then, the US consider it's biggest domestic terrorism threats to be people like T. McVeigh.

Honestly, if you aren't in intelligence, or don't have some type of clearance to have access to that information, you cannot pass judgement or state matter of factly what is and is not of interest or what's on the perverbial radar. The press is not as privvy as they would like you to believe on this issue.

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“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.”

- St. Augustine