Why is the media burying new revelations about 9/11?

[IndianaGreen]

Why is the media burying new revelations about 9/11?

By Joseph Kay and Barry Grey
11 August 2005

The revelation that a military intelligence unit had identified four September 11 hijackers as Al Qaeda operatives working in the US a year before the 9/11 attacks has sparked a flurry of disclaimers and denials from official sources, while most media outlets have ignored the story altogether.

The fact that the government had long been tracking some of the hijackers, including the putative leader, Mohammad Atta, was revealed in a front page article in the New York Times on Tuesday. Citing Republican Congressman Curt Weldon and an unidentified former military intelligence officer, the article reported that a Pentagon unit known as Able Danger had by the middle of 2000 identified Atta and three of the other September 11 hijackers as members of an Al Qaeda cell operating in the US.

The former intelligence officer said that Able Danger was prevented by the military’s Special Operations Command from passing on the information to the FBI.

The former intelligence officer also said that he was in a group that briefed members of the staff of the 9/11 commission on this information in October of 2003. The 9/11 commission made no mention of Able Danger in its final report, nor did it reveal that any government agency had identified Atta as an Al Qaeda operative prior to the hijack bombings of the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/atta-a11.shtml

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. It's too complicated for them and there is no visual.

It's the problem with any of these investigative historical things, too hard to make it entertaining.

[DIKB]

2. Sadly

this is the correct answer. The media can't sensationalize it for the people. They don't report news so much as they try and get your attention.

[Igel]

3. Because it's vaguely embarrassing.

(1) Data mining is evil. We've tried to kill data mining projects; we've succeeded.

They IDed Atta using data mining.

(2) We like civil liberties. We like not having military intelligence agencies work on US soil.

Long-standing policies kept us from having overseas spy agencies (including military intelligence) inform on those in the US. Specifically citizens, but also others. Gorelick admitted this; many people have said this. It's not news, since at least early 2004.

And the lawyers nixed the transfer of the information. It would look bad or set bad precedent. And I have this sneaking suspicion that such information can now be shared ... courtesy of the Act-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

And it doesn't help that only *part* of the information later turned out to be reliable, IIRC. Most folk say Atta entered the country in June 2000, I guess it was. But the Able Danger folk say January 2000; they're outliers, and that part of their report was dismissed as goofy. If that was goofy, why should they have accepted the rest of the report?

So: We like the idea that it embarrasses * because ... why? Because Clinton policies that * didn't change immediately got in the way of providing the federal law enforcement folks with partially incorrect information obtained using a method we seriously disapprove of 5+ months before * was sworn in?

It's damned irritating that the 9/11 commission heard the info and said they did. You know, that august body that didn't disband and was just making a ruckus last week because a year after they decided to continue to functioning unofficially they weren't getting access to official documents? But I thought we mostly liked the 9/11 commission and its current incarnation.

[LoKnLoD]

4. Mohammad Atta

Isn't a blonde, or didn't run away from a wedding.

[wli]

5. because it's slowly pointing to Bushler, Cheney, Rummy, et al as culprits