Reporter In Trouble Over Anthrax Inside Job Story

[compared2what?]

Moot point, as he already lost the case. I read the appellate court opinions a while ago, but don't know if there was further action before he went to trial. Anyway. From Cooperative Research:

December 3-14, 2001: Bush Administration Officials Tip Off Reporters About Raids on Suspect Charities
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On December 3, 2001, New York Times reporter Judith Miller telephones officials with the Holy Land Foundation charity in Texas and asks them to comment about what she says is a government raid on the charity planned for the next day. Then in a December 4, 2001, New York Times article, Miller writes that President Bush is about to announce that the US is freezing the assets of Holy Land and two other financial groups, all for supporting Hamas. US officials will later argue that Miller’s phone call and article “increased the likelihood that the foundation destroyed or hid records before a hastily organized raid by agents that day.” Later in the month, a similar incident occurs. On December 13, New York Times reporter Philip Shenon telephones officials at the Global Relief Foundation in Illinois and asks them to comment about an imminent government crackdown on that charity. The FBI learns that some Global Relief employees may be destroying documents. US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald had been investigating the charities. He had been wiretapping Global Relief and another charity in hopes of learning evidence of criminal activity, but after the leak he changes plans and carries out a hastily arranged raid on the charity the next day (see December 14, 2001). Fitzgerald later seeks records from the New York Times to find out who in the Bush administration leaked information about the upcoming raids to Miller and Shenon. However, in 2005 Fitzgerald will lose the case. It is still not known who leaked the information to the New York Times nor what their motives were. Ironically, Fitzgerald will succeed in forcing Miller to reveal information about her sources in another extremely similar legal case in 2005 involving the leaking of the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame. [New York Times, 12/4/2001; New York Times, 12/15/2001; Washington Post, 9/10/2004; Washington Post, 2/25/2005] The 9/11 Commission will later conclude that in addition to the above cases, “press leaks plagued almost every [raid on Muslim charities] that took place in the United States” after 9/11. [Washington Post, 9/10/2004]

Entity Tags: Philip Shenon, Patrick Fitzgerald, Judith Miller, Hamas, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, Federal Bureau of Investigation, George W. Bush, Global Relief Foundation, Bush administration

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

[compared2what?]

And while I'm certainly no advocate for Judy Miller, given what is now known about the missing e-mails in the period pertinent to the Plame investigation, wouldn't everyone here have preferred that Fitzgerald put his resources into thoroughly beating the bushes (as it were) for evidence of THAT potential obstruction of justice than into compelling Judy Miller's testimony?

It's pretty uncommon that the only legal way to get the real evidence of the real bad act means that a reporter MUST reveal his or her confidential sources. And in a way, the whole thing is a charade, because unless both the reporter and the source was using very advanced tradecraft, there is likely to be a digital record of the contact available, and until very recently, available without a warrant.

[8bitagent]

Do you guys realize the big convergence point of 9/11 and the anthrax?

the FIRST victim of the anthrax was the Sun Times, whose hosted 9 of the 19 "hijackers" in florida just months before. IN FACT, the man who was killed at the Sun Times and the owner was at the same flight school in Florida when Atta and company was there

http://www.sptimes.com/News/101501/Worl ... to_t.shtml

[8bitagent]

No wonder no journalist dares research or write investigative journalism on 9/11 like they used to in 2001/2002.

I think this is more the impact of the success in tin-foilizing and trivializing the 9/11 movement (the pincer motion of no-planers/total MIHOPers and bedunkers/shills) and making the whole issue toxic to careers.

Well my point is that I can show you guys hundreds of mainstream news articles questioning what "really happened" on 9/11, stuff many would consider conspiracy mongering. (well mainstream people)

ie: the press was doing their job. I have Time magazine asking "was 9/11 an inside job?" MSNBC: "Whats the real truth of the hijackers?" Others asking if we were told the truth about Flight 93. Hell Fox Neocon Michelle Malkin had a whole article questioning the truth of 9/11 in 2002.

So as the mainstream public didnt dare even think to question 9/11, the media sure was.

But as of 2006, when 9/11 Truth went super nova mainstream(on the cover of Time no less), the media was already silent.

Hopefully there will be a sea-change, not these once in awhile buried nuggets

[JackRiddler]

I have Time magazine asking "was 9/11 an inside job?"

I think I remember that. They meant it as follows: did hijackers have help from friends at airport? They certainly didn't mean a government covert op! And no one in the corporate media even intimated that the idea was conceivable in the first months.

The corporate press revealed a great many interesting facts out of context, then dropped most of them without a trace. They never forefronted suspicious facts. (Stuff like Cheney pressuring Daschle to delay investigation was given cursory backpage coverage, and only became widespread because of people linking it on the Web.) They never bothered to assemble these facts into an understanding, and I saw no indication that there was going to be real investigative journalism. What little we've had has come from the usual suspects, or should I say the heroes on the periphery like Palast and Trento. Or Frenchies.

By the way, the idea that the 9/11 truth movement ever went "supernova" is quite the exaggeration!

I don't understand what you wrote about the Delray apartment connection above.

I should have included that story in the data dump. It is this:

The wife of Bob Stevens' editor (who was also exposed to the anthrax at the Sun tabloid offices) was the landlady of a Delray Beach apartment rented in summer 2001 to alleged hijackers Alshehhi and Alghamdi, who were visited there by up to 7 of the other allegeds, according to FBI. Past the bare facts, the speculation by researchers is that someone at the Sun may have been looking into a story relating to this, for which they were punished. Maybe Stevens or the Irishes (the landlady-editor couple) knew something important that would blow apart the official story.

Then again, that's true of a lot of people, and when they don't get coverage, it doesn't matter: the key here is the self-censorship of the corporate media as a whole.

I think it's likelier that the idea of anthrax was to preventively scare the living fuck out of the media and the Democrats, according to "kill one at random to frighten the rest." The association of Stevens's proximity to the 9/11 hijackers was enough for that, he didn't need to actually know something important. (In fact, if he did know something and was thus a specific, rational target, that's a reason for other journalists not to worry. Terror is more effective in intimidating others if it has a random element, however.)

But of course we don't know.

The AMI building remained unoccupied for years and was later bought by a Giuliani-owned partnership that renovated it.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

.....
The wife of Bob Stevens' editor (who was also exposed to the anthrax at the Sun tabloid offices) was the landlady of a Delray Beach apartment rented in summer 2001 to alleged hijackers Alshehhi and Alghamdi, who were visited there by up to 7 of the other allegeds, according to FBI. Past the bare facts, the speculation by researchers is that someone at the Sun may have been looking into a story relating to this, for which they were punished. Maybe Stevens or the Irishes (the landlady-editor couple) knew something important that would blow apart the official story.

.....the key here is the self-censorship of the corporate media as a whole.

I think it's likelier that the idea of anthrax was to preventively scare the living fuck out of the media and the Democrats, according to "kill one at random to frighten the rest." The association of Stevens's proximity to the 9/11 hijackers was enough for that.....

Double value of targeting that tabloid with the little-known ties to the alleged hijackers-

Few know that tabloids like the Sun are CIA operations.
So the same time
1) the media-at-large got the Big Chill anthrax message
2) so did the covert intelligence community.

The Sun was no doubt a Florida front for spook work with double agents and patsies and got the most severe now-shut-up warning there is.
That entire state is just a huge military-intelligence base of operations.

Read the excellent 1997 insider expose by Jim Hogshire.
The National Enquirer's Generoso Pope Jr. was OSS and then CIA.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0922915423/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

The Operation Mockingbird media system is tiered so that psy-ops can be injected at any level of credibility and then passed up or down to target audiences.

Tabloids operate on the gutter level spewing Archie Bunker jingoist authoritarian values and confuse-a-tainment disinfo for regular readers.

True information can be discredited by covering it or false information can be made visible by covering it and allowing the next tier to refer to it with wrinkled nose.
Members of Congress like Gary Hart have been sandbagged with tabloid injects.

I bought the June 12, 2006 edition of The Sun off the supermarket stand because the top of the cover read-
"Bush Family Stole Geronimo's Skull!
- top university researcher's startling claim"

....which, of course, is probably true and related to the all-important Skull and Bones Yale fraternity's role in US history.
http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2006_05/notebook.html

But it was 'Sun-dipped' to discredit the topic for the masses.
This tabloidy treatment of Prescott Bush serves to inoculate readers who might stumble onto that 'unbelievable financing Hitler' story, too.

Classic CIA media tactics.

[Penguin]

Thanks people, now it all makes sense to me

[8bitagent]

The Sun was no doubt a Florida front for spook work with double agents and patsies and got the most severe now-shut-up warning there is.
That entire state is just a huge military-intelligence base of operations.

You got it. The Sun Times acted as the "baby sitter" much like Oswald was "baby sat" leading to 11/22, and no surprise the Sun Times got 'thraxed.

I think I remember that. They meant it as follows: did hijackers have help from friends at airport? They certainly didn't mean a government covert op! And no one in the corporate media even intimated that the idea was conceivable in the first months.

Which the "hijackers" certainly did:

Security camera footage obtained by the FBI after 9/11 indicated that Khalid Almihdhar and possibly Salem Alhazmi cased Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., the evening before 9/11. This fits the account of a security guard , related in Unsafe at Any Altitude by Joe and Susan Trento, who independently claimed to have seen two hijackers, Salem’s brother Nawaf and Marwan Alshehhi, casing Dulles Airport the night before 9/11. This guard claims the two hijackers were part of a group of five men, three of whom were dressed in United Airlines ramp worker uniforms, that behaved suspiciously. Despite a lawsuit by 9/11 victims’ relatives against United Airlines and others for negligence, the US government has never revealed the existence of this video footage which might support claims that the hijackers had inside help.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/news ... 393703-423

or...

Weapons were preplanted on the doomed flights
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article ... 53,00.html

or...

guns and bombs were snuck on board the planes
http://www.slate.com/id/2088092/

I've done exhaustive research on 9/11. We're told that the 19 hijackers had NO accomplices in their time in America, but I've been able to find hard evidence that they had a large infrastructure of help in the US from all sorts of FBI informants, CIA linked drug runners, misc middle eastern men, Europeans, Saudi officials, and other mystery folks

Hell Mohamed Atta and Omari were said to have met with "non Arabs" at a Good Comfort Inn in Portland Maine the day before 9/11.

The corporate press revealed a great many interesting facts out of context, then dropped most of them without a trace. They never forefronted suspicious facts. (Stuff like Cheney pressuring Daschle to delay investigation was given cursory backpage coverage, and only became widespread because of people linking it on the Web.) They never bothered to assemble these facts into an understanding, and I saw no indication that there was going to be real investigative journalism. What little we've had has come from the usual suspects, or should I say the heroes on the periphery like Palast and Trento. Or Frenchies.

Well, I dont buy the "hijackers trained at US bases" or the "hijackers are still alive" red herrings posited by the mainstream media, a lot of
my research in exposing 9/11's true story comes from cooaberated buried nuggets of info from articles in the msm that are long forgotten.

Like were told Atta was asking to rent cropdusters in early 2000 from an agriculture woman, making all kinds of threats...but that doesnt check out at all with the other cross checked information. So its tough, but ya gotta look past all the red herrings and misinfo.

By the way, the idea that the 9/11 truth movement ever went "supernova" is quite the exaggeration!

9/11 "conspiracy theories" and questioning the official story
was the topic of every water cooler, tv news channel, and high school
lunch session all through 2006. It was even on the cover of Time Magazine, Vanity Fair, etc.

The wife of Bob Stevens' editor (who was also exposed to the anthrax at the Sun tabloid offices) was the landlady of a Delray Beach apartment rented in summer 2001 to alleged hijackers Alshehhi and Alghamdi, who were visited there by up to 7 of the other allegeds, according to FBI. Past the bare facts, the speculation by researchers is that someone at the Sun may have been looking into a story relating to this, for which they were punished. Maybe Stevens or the Irishes (the landlady-editor couple) knew something important that would blow apart the official story.

Mike Irish, who, records show, is a licensed airplane pilot, several years ago was a member of the Civil Air Patrol based at a small-plane airport in Lantana, just north of Delray Beach, an official there told the Washington Post. One of the hijackers, Atta, reportedly rented a plane at that airport to practice flying for three days in August. Stevens, the Sun photo editor who died of anthrax Oct. 5, also lives in Lantana. But there is no indication whether Irish or Stevens ever crossed paths with Atta.

http://www.sptimes.com/News/101501/Worl ... to_t.shtml

Now, maybe thats a coincidence. But do you ever wonder,
WHO sent the hijackers to the places they lived and to the very specific
flight schools they trained at? I have, and through my research I've found
that it was no accident the hijackers ended up at FBI informants houses, Saudi diplomat houses, paid for credit cards and hotels, protected Saudi terror charities, Florida flight schools or places like the Irish's condo.

Google "Norman Oklahoma 9/11" to see what I mean.

As far as the anthrax, the scenario you laid out of the "why" the anthrax happened the way it did makes sense.

Btw that was a trip, that article claiming a child was used to write the letters, heh

[JackRiddler]

Anthrax case follow-up story in USA Today - note that the judge, Walton, is the same one who upheld the Sibel Edmonds gag orders! This may indicate something!

Now this is the coverage by the institution of the reporter, yes. I think they're persuasive in turning this into a genuine free-speech case. How do we know the source wasn't honest and Hatfill isn't involved?

(See "Edmonds Moves to Dismiss Judge Walton" at Mar 30, 2006:
http://www.911truth.org/article_for_pri ... 0010513521)


http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... locy_N.htm

Reporter's lawyers seek to delay fines

By Leslie Smith Jr., USA TODAY

By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Attorneys for a former USA TODAY reporter plan to ask a federal appeals court today to suspend the payment of thousands of dollars in fines imposed for failing to identify sources who named former Army scientist Steven Hatfill as a possible suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

The emergency request to the U.S. Court of Appeals comes after a federal judge late Friday night ordered Toni Locy to begin paying fines of up to $5,000 per day out of her own pocket so long as she refuses to identify her sources.

One of the lawyers representing Locy, now a West Virginia University journalism professor, called the fines "unprecedented." Les Machado said the defense will ask the appeals court to postpone the payments pending appeal of the contempt order by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton.

Walton ordered Locy to pay the fine, not her former employer or others. "Her mother can't even help," said Machado.

Locy said she cannot afford the escalating payments, the first of which is due midnight Tuesday. Walton has ordered her to pay $500 a day for the first week, $1,000 a day for the second week and $5,000 a day for a third week. He has scheduled a hearing for April 3 to consider additional action to gain Locy's compliance.

"I don't have $46,000 lying around," Locy said Sunday. "…Can he freeze my bank accounts? Can he take my house?"

Machado said it was unclear what Walton might do if his client cannot pay the fines, though one option could be to order Locy to prison. "This whole thing is unprecedented," he said.

Locy is one of six reporters Hatfill subpoenaed to disclose government sources who named him as a possible suspect in the anthrax attacks. The poison was mailed to several East Coast locations, killing five people.

Lawyers for the former scientist say they need the sources to pursue his lawsuit against the government. Four of the reporters obtained waivers from their sources, allowing them to identify the officials. Walton is considering a contempt order against a fifth reporter.

Locy says that as a USA TODAY reporter she spoke to a number of officials regarding the anthrax case on the condition that she would not name them, but cannot remember which sources linked Hatfill to the government's inquiry.

Hatfill, who was publicly identified in 2002 by then-attorney general John Ashcroft as a "person of interest" in the attacks, has never been charged. His lawsuit claims irreparable damage to his reputation.

In his ruling, Walton said he "appreciates the importance of the media's ability to freely report the news in a democratic society like the United States. But just as the First Amendment is a fundamental component of the American system, so too is the rule of law."

USA TODAY Editor Ken Paulson called Walton's decision "deeply disappointing."

"By all accounts, Toni Locy reported accurately what government officials told her about one of the most important criminal investigations in modern history, yet she faces the real prospect of financial ruin," Paulson said. "Surely, the First Amendment guarantee of a free press means that reporters shouldn't have to choose between principle and poverty."

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said Sunday that the advocacy group would file court documents supporting Locy's appeal. "This is crazy," she said. "The judge is trying to force Gannett (the parent of USA TODAY) into participating in some kind of settlement. It's all about money. If that is what's going on here, then we are truly in a frightening place."

Last Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee's chairman and ranking Republican cited the Locy case in a letter urging Senate leaders to consider legislation shielding reporters from being forced to identify confidential sources.

"Scores of reporters have been questioned by federal prosecutors about their sources, notes and reports in recent years, and there is definitely a chilling effect as a result," Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said.

[IanEye]

my question has always been, if Jim Jeffords had remained a Republican in 2001, instead of switching to an Independent, would the anthrax attacks have happened at all?

[JackRiddler]

.
Would Wellstone be alive?

[IanEye]

.
Would Wellstone be alive?

No.

[JackRiddler]

Agreed. Guess that's true of either hypothesis for his death (accident, assassination).

[Penguin]

Small planes are very unsafe, and also people often fall out of open windows.

[JackRiddler]

Oi. Start a new thread and I'll dig up my Wellstone data dump, okay?

Assassinations by plane sabotage are also surprisingly common, at least among politicians.