9/11 memories -- a small item from 7/26/01, CBS News

[Mike Niendorff]

Ashcroft Flying High -- CBS News, 7/26/01 (less than 7 weeks before the 9/11 attacks)

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In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.

"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it.

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ashcroft-flying-high/

[Bluethroughu]

1. I remember that, and thinking what a pompous jerk with

an excuse to spend our tax dollars on his lifestyle.
Nope, we know better now.

[UpInArms]

2. The NORC Florida recount was to be released on September 11, 2001, also

http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4623

The Florida Ballot Study is sponsored by a consortium of major news organizations that include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post Co., Tribune Publishing, CNN, Associated Press, St. Petersburg Times and The Palm Beach Post. The New York Times owns The Boston Globe, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and the Lakeland Ledger among others. Washington Post Co. owns The Washington Post and Newsweek. Tribune, based in Chicago, owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, among others.

To conduct the study, last January the Consortium retained the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago to develop "a comprehensive in-depth inventory of all uncounted votes in Florida's November 2000 Presidential race that would be immune from charges of political bias or methodological weakness."

Originally expected to take three months, the study dragged for nearly seven months due to logistical delays with some of the elections offices in Florida's 67 counties.

The plan has been for NORC to make the data available to the Consortium members, who would keep it embargoed for a week while they analyzed it and wrote the stories they would publish simultaneously. After that, the data would be publicly accessible on NORC's Web site.

On September 11, NORC was poised to release the data to the media Consortium within a few days. The Consortium members first planned to publish the results on September 17, but had rescheduled it for September 24.

NORC has stressed that the raw data in its ballot study "does not identify 'winners'. Its goal is to assess the reliability of the voting systems themselves, using the highest standards of scientific accuracy and reliability."

However, Consortium members were preparing to develop their own (competitive) analyses and stories about what NORC data reveal about the uncounted ballots.

The Consortium decides to place an "Indefinite Hold" on release of the data

As a result of the September 11 terrorist attack, the Consortium decided to place an "indefinite hold" on the release of the NORC study.

[2naSalit]

3. +1

Forgot about that.