National Security & Military Whistleblowers Expose Government Coverups & Lawbreaking Before & After 9/11

From: <www.commondreams.org>
Published on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 by the Sacramento Bee (California)
National Security Whistle-Blowers Allege Retaliation
by James Rosen

WASHINGTON - Military and intelligence officers told spellbound lawmakers
Tuesday that their careers had been ruined by superiors because they refused
to lie about Able Danger, Abu Ghraib and other national security
controversies.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, wearing a crisp olive Army uniform with the Bronze
Star and other awards, delivered his first public testimony about his
central role in Able Danger, a Pentagon computer data-mining program set up
long before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to infiltrate the al-Qaeda terrorist
network.

Shaffer told a House Government Reform subcommittee that he and other
intelligence officers and contractors working on the top-secret program
code-named "Able Danger" had identified Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the
Sept. 11 attacks, but were prevented from passing their findings to the FBI.
"I became a whistleblower not out of choice, but out of necessity," Shaffer
said. "Many of us have a personal commitment to ... going forward to expose
the truth and wrongdoing of government officials who - before and after the
9/11 attacks - failed to do their job."

Shaffer contradicted recent statements by Philip Zelikow, former executive
director of the Sept. 11 commission, who denied having met with Shaffer and
other Able Danger operatives in Afghanistan in October 2003.
"I did meet with him," Shaffer said. "I have the business card he gave me. I
find it hard to believe that he could not remember meeting me."

The commission set up by Congress to probe the Sept. 11 attacks didn't
mention the Able Danger project on al Qaeda in its final report in July
2004.

When former Able Danger operatives began to talk with reporters and
lawmakers about the program last year, the commission's chairman and vice
chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean and former Rep. Lee Hamilton,
released a statement saying the panel had looked into the work of Able
Danger and found it "historically insignificant."

Shafer was to testify today (Wednesday) at a separate House Armed Services
subcommittee hearing devoted to Able Danger.

Spc. Samuel Provance, also dressed in Army green, said he was demoted and
humiliated after telling a general investigating the Abu Ghraib scandal that
senior officers had covered up the full extent of abuse during
interrogations of detainees at the U.S. military prison in Iraq.

"Young soldiers were scapegoated while superiors misrepresented what had
happened and tried to misdirect attention away from what was really going
on," Provance said. "I considered all of this conduct to be dishonorable and
inconsistent with the traditions of the Army. I was ashamed and embarrassed
to be associated with it."

The Abu Ghraib interrogations caused an international uproar in 2004 after
the release of photographs of Iraqi prisoners in sexual and other degrading
positions.

Provance made a new allegation about the Abu Ghraib controversy, saying that
U.S. forces had captured the 16-year-old son of an Iraqi general under
Saddam Hussein, Hamid Zabar, to pressure the general into providing
information.

"I was extremely uncomfortable about the way General Zabar had been treated,
but particularly the fact that his son had been captured and used in this
way," Provance said. "It struck me as morally reprehensible, and I could not
understand why our command was doing it."

Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican and chairman of the
national security subcommittee that held the hearing, told Provance: "It
takes a tremendous amount of courage for someone of your rank to tell a
general what they may not want to hear."

Asked what his current military duties are, the former computer specialist
replied," The only thing I've been doing since being demoted is picking up
trash and pulling guard duty."

Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency analyst who was a New York
Times source for its reporting on domestic wiretapping, told of having been
classified as mentally ill and then fired in connection with an earlier
episode at the espionage agency.

Tice said he would have to testify in closed hearings about the details of
the eavesdropping program, which President Bush authorized soon after the
Sept. 11 attacks. But under questioning by lawmakers, Tice suggested that
other NSA programs also raised concerns for him.

"Some of the programs that I worked on I believe treaded on illegalities
and, I believe, unconstitutional activity," Tice said.

In one of the hearing's most dramatic moments, Tice read aloud the Fourth
Amendment of the Constitution, which protects Americans against
"unreasonable searches and seizures" without a court warrant. Tice also read
an NSA policy that limits the signals agency to monitoring foreign
communications.

"As intelligence officers, we take an oath and swear to protect the
Constitution," Tice said.

Michael German, a veteran FBI agent, said he was punished after reporting
his bosses in Tampa, Fla., for having altered documents in a
counter-terrorism investigation.

"They produced false documents and literally took Whiteout to change
official records," German said.

Richard Levernier said the Energy Department pulled his security clearance
after he complained that the agency was glossing over security problems at
nuclear weapons sites.

"These agencies are out of control," said Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania
Republican. "If we don't take action we're all in trouble."

Shays said he convened the hearing because military and intelligence
employees don't have the same whistleblower protections the government
affords other federal workers or even employees of private firms.

"Whistleblowers in critical national security positions are vulnerable to
unique forms of retaliation," Shays said. "There is nothing top secret about
gross waste or the abuse of power."

Rep. John Duncan, a Tennessee Republican, criticized Defense Department
officials for directing "trumped-up charges" against Shaffer. Duncan
ridiculed the Pentagon for having accused the decorated intelligence officer
of misusing small amounts of money while the government was wasting billions
of dollars on rebuilding Iraq.

"If they really wanted to go after me, I had millions of dollars of
equipment I was responsible for," Shaffer said.

After he began speaking out about Able Danger, Shaffer said, the Pentagon
leaked personal information about him, including allegedly inflated expense
reports for $67 in extra phone charges. Shaffer said the charges were to
cover calls transferred from his work phone to his cell phone on weekends,
so that he could be available at all times.

As the overflow hearing room grew silent, Weldon asked Shaffer to respond to
separate Pentagon allegations that the colonel had been romantically
involved with one of his aides.

"Have you ever had an affair with anyone on my staff, male or female?"
Weldon asked.

"No, sir, but that was what DIA (the Defense Intelligence Agency) put out,"
Shaffer replied.

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