Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Able Danger Hearings Begin Today
Standing by, and I can hardly wait.
Update:
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that DoD has pulled permission for Lt. Col. Shaffer and others under their command to testify today. In fact, Shaffer's til-now suspended clearance has been completely revoked. Never mind. This thing is going to move along anyway, albeit with an obviously obstructionist DoD blocking as much as it can. Chairman Specter will have to resort to subpoenas to override the DoD clampdown on the witnesses; I have no idea if he will.
One witness they cannot silence is Erik Kleinsmith, a former DoD analyst, who received the order to destroy the entire massive Able Danger database. The sheer enormity of this database cannot be overstated, and this man could fill in some interesting holes in this affair. Kleinsmith is now an independant contractor no longer beholden to DoD and is (at this point, anyway) therefore in the unique postion to be able to tell the committee what was in the database, who gave the order to destroy it, and why.
The Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on “Able Danger and Intelligence Information Sharing” began today, Wednesday September 21, 2005, at 9:30AM EDT. The hearings were broadcast live through the Committee website and C SPAN3, but I have not found archives for either 'cast. Testimony transcripts are available through these links:
TESTIMONY
THE HONORABLE CURT WELDON
MARK ZAID, ESQ.
ERIK KLEINSMITH
GARY BALD
WILLIAM DUGAN
MEMBER STATEMENTS
THE HONORABLE PATRICK LEAHY
Other links:
Michelle Malkin
Captain's Quarters
Andrew C. McCarthy
Red State
NY Times
QT Monster
Dr. Sanity
Just One Minute
The Strato-Sphere
Staying tuned...
Update:
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that DoD has pulled permission for Lt. Col. Shaffer and others under their command to testify today. In fact, Shaffer's til-now suspended clearance has been completely revoked. Never mind. This thing is going to move along anyway, albeit with an obviously obstructionist DoD blocking as much as it can. Chairman Specter will have to resort to subpoenas to override the DoD clampdown on the witnesses; I have no idea if he will.
One witness they cannot silence is Erik Kleinsmith, a former DoD analyst, who received the order to destroy the entire massive Able Danger database. The sheer enormity of this database cannot be overstated, and this man could fill in some interesting holes in this affair. Kleinsmith is now an independant contractor no longer beholden to DoD and is (at this point, anyway) therefore in the unique postion to be able to tell the committee what was in the database, who gave the order to destroy it, and why.
The Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on “Able Danger and Intelligence Information Sharing” began today, Wednesday September 21, 2005, at 9:30AM EDT. The hearings were broadcast live through the Committee website and C SPAN3, but I have not found archives for either 'cast. Testimony transcripts are available through these links:
TESTIMONY
THE HONORABLE CURT WELDON
MARK ZAID, ESQ.
ERIK KLEINSMITH
GARY BALD
WILLIAM DUGAN
MEMBER STATEMENTS
THE HONORABLE PATRICK LEAHY
Other links:
Michelle Malkin
Captain's Quarters
Andrew C. McCarthy
Red State
NY Times
QT Monster
Dr. Sanity
Just One Minute
The Strato-Sphere
Staying tuned...
