Shelby(R-AL) a target of leak probe? (Fed Investigation re: 911

[liveoaktx]

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/1074853159123150.xml

WASHINGTON -- Several years ago, U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, mounted a campaign to crack down on the unauthorized disclosure of secret government information. Under his proposal, almost any leak of so-called "classified" material would have become a federal crime punishable by up to three years behind bars.

That campaign ultimately failed, but in what one observer described as a "deliciously ironical" twist, Shelby is now reportedly the focus of a federal probe of a leak of sensitive intelligence related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In a Thursday story citing unnamed congressional and law enforcement sources, the Washington Post reported that Shelby's former press secretary, Andrea Andrews, had testified before a grand jury. The investigation stems from a 2002 Cable News Network story that intelligence officials had intercepted two messages the day before the attacks signaling that something was to happen the next day, according to the Post. The Arabic messages were not translated until Sept. 12.

Shelby was a top member of the Senate intelligence committee when the CNN story broke in June 2002. Because senators can only serve on the committee for eight years, Shelby has since rotated off the panel and now heads the Senate banking committee

[fearnobush]

1. SO this is the Burger Pay Back.

Mr. Rove, we have much greater weapons at our disposal...

[KittyWampus]

2. This Has Me Giggling!

:)

[qanda]

3. There must be a mistake...

I don't see any flashing lights over at Drudge. :shrug:

[librechik]

4. wait, wasn't Shelby's leak an attack against BushCo?

should we be celebrating this or condemning it?

Is this just more of the Bushies pretending they can be tough on their own? (along the lines of Foxnews claiming they were the ones who broke the Bush DUI story)

I am glad Shelby told someone that there were warnings that the Bushies ignored. He was a patriot for doing that. Shrubcorp shouldn't profit politically from this.

This isn't revenge for Sandy Berger. It's another attack against someone who had the balls to expose the Shrubbies for the putzes they are!

Isn't it?

[0007]

12. I'd say so! But what do I know?

[lockdown]

13. It was, they wanted to polygraph senators over the leak

I can't remember, but I think senators in question refused to submit to polygraphs. It was obviously an embarrassing leak for the White House, but they rode it out, as they do. Well, as they did. The way the atmosphere has changed since, hopefully renewed exposure of the leak's contents will make more people sit up this time round.

9/11 Leak Probe Targets Lawmakers
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/08/30/politics/main520309.shtml

[newyawker99]

14. Hi lockdown!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[seemslikeadream]

5. focus of a federal probe

:cry::cry::cry::cry:

:cry::cry::cry::cry:

[MasonJar]

6. This is the same type of knowledge that Sibel Edmonds can

offer, but the evil ones will not allow her to tell the truth.

[KoKo]

7. Repugs on the attack day after day...relentless....(n/t)

[atreides1]

8. Don't Expect Much

My bet is that they don't make it a criminal case, but instead hand it over to the Senate Ethics committee for their review.

Seeing as to how Shelby is a Rethug, nothing is going to happen to him.

[struggle4progress]

9. Some related links

CNN SATURDAY EDITION
Bush Introduces Homeland Security Plans; Are We Safer Than Nine Months Ago?; How Will 9-11 Affect Campaign 2002?
Aired June 8, 2002 - 10:00 ET
<snip>
KARL: There's a report -- couple reports out now that the National Security Agency had intercepted communications from terrorists, or suspected terrorists, that named September 11 as the date for something big. Do you know about this?
SHELBY: I couldn't comment on it. I haven't seen that report. But nothing would surprise me, Jonathan, as events progress in our investigation.
<snip>
http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0206/08/tt.00.html


9/10 Message: 'Tomorrow Is Zero Hour'
WASHINGTON, June 20, 2002

(CBS) According to the congressional panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency intercepted two messages on Sept. 10 that may have made reference to the next day's attacks.

The NSA, which eavesdrops on communications worldwide, intercepted messages that said, "tomorrow is zero hour" and "the match begins tomorrow," sources said on condition of anonymity. The intercepted messages gave no details of the time, location or nature of the event that was to take place.
<snip>

The messages, which were in Arabic, were not translated until Sept. 12, and they have been brought to the attention of the House and Senate intelligence committees that are conducting a joint inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks.

Vice President Dick Cheney complained to lawmakers Thursday about what the administration is calling inappropriate leak of the intercepts to the press. At President Bush's direction, Cheney called Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, “to express the president's concerns about this inappropriate disclosure,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
<snip>

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/21/attack/main512988.shtml


August 2003: The Intelligence Wars
Wanted: Spies who speak Arabic
New agents hard to find, but Congress tired of hearing it
By Michael Moran

<snip>
Particularly damning for intelligence agencies after 9/11 were reports that only a handful of agents throughout CIA spoke fluent Arabic. Though never confirmed officially, sources familiar with the situation in 2001 say that outside the eavesdropping analysts at the National Security Agency, less than a dozen CIA field agents could speak the language spoken by the groups that were the consensus favorites to mount attacks on America.
At FBI, the situation was even worse, the source says: through most of the 1990s, only two translators at FBI headquarters spoke the language. As recently at last year, the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, found that the FBI, State Department and the Army all continued to have trouble finding language specialists. The report did not look at intelligence agencies.
<snip>

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3071401


BTW: Check out the date of the Mobile Register article.

[mefoolonhill]

10. shelby

Shelby is a former Democrat, as the Rethugs will surely remind us. They probably don't consider him a true loyalist to the Konservative cause.

[spotbird]

11. Bingo!

This is to deflect from the other investigations.