NRO-Please spy on this forum so that you know that we know how you did 911
TEXT OF THE CONTENTS BELOW...
Alexander H. Levis, Director, System Architectures Laboratory, Co-Scientist with Dr, Hussein Ibrahim, Ptech, Artificial Intelligence, False Flag terrorism Engineering, (called Effects Based Operations).PTECH, INC.
160 Federal Street
Boston, MA 02110
Phone:
PI:
Topic#: (800) 747-5608
Hussein IbrahimAF 00-116
Title: Advanced C2 Process Modeling and Requirements Analysis Technology
Abstract: This effort will demonstrate the ability to develop an innovative C2 investment decision support system. The objective system springs from a completely original conceptualization of the problem. It will support "product and process modeling of integrated operational and system architectures" and will produce results that can be used within the Air Force spiral development process, C2 management philosophy, and PPBS. This system will improve access to mathematically rigorous, token-based architecture by orders of magnitude.
Ptech and George Mason University's System Architectures Laboratory will integrate object oriented C2 architecture modeling and a Discrete Event System model to construct a software system that can: - Synthesize Colored Petri Nets from a set of object oriented products. We will develop and employ a file-based interface between Ptech's FrameWork modeling environment and Design/CPN.- Verify the logical soundness and behaviors of architectures by executing the models and using token-based, state space and behavioral analysis techniques against an agreed set of measures. -Report results in a variety of agreed graphical and textual formats. This Phase I effort includes early proof-of-concept demonstrations to enable the Team to gain favorable position for development funding or approval for FAST TRACK funding._____________________________________________________________
Publications: Conference Papers (Look at the titles of what they've worked on.) One of the documents in there from 1995 I think looked like they were wargaming a martial law scenario with their software. It's all highly technical stuff that is beyond anything I can understand, but with some of it, you can get a general idea of what they're doing. Seems to me what we have here is Ptech AI being used to calculate the most efficient way to overthrow the U.S. with staged avian flu pandemic, and cyber attacks carried out by Northcom/Booz Allen Hamilton; to be blamed on "homeland hackers", or Russians, or the Chinese, et.al., and kill us as as efficiently as possible. Well, now it's algorithms are going to have to factor in the fact that this is now public.] http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=91752.msg531682#msg531682___________________________________________________________________
See below link for full embedded links sources.
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=charles_leidig
Captain Charles Leidig. [Source: US Navy]
Profile: Charles Leidig
Charles Leidig was a participant or observer in the following events:
8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001: Rookie in Command of the NMCC
Captain Charles Leidig, the deputy for Command Center operations at the NMCC, takes over temporarily from Brigadier General Montague Winfield and is effectively in charge of NMCC during the 9/11 crisis. Winfield had requested the previous day that Leidig stand in for him on September 11. Leidig had started his role as Deputy for Command Center Operations two months earlier and had qualified to stand in for Winfield just the previous month. Leidig remains in charge from a few minutes before the 9/11 crisis begins until about 10:30 a.m., after the last hijacked plane crashes. He presides over an important crisis response teleconference that has a very slow start, not even beginning until 9:39 a.m. [
9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004
Brigadier General Montague Winfield. [Source: US Army]
(Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001: NMCC Commander Concludes US is Under Attack, Yet Does Not Retake Charge of Center
Brigadier General Montague Winfield, commander of the National Military Command Center (NMCC), the Pentagon’s emergency response center, later says, “When the second aircraft flew into the second tower, it was at that point that we realized that the seemingly unrelated hijackings that the FAA was dealing with were in fact a part of a coordinated terrorist attack on the United States.” [
ABC News, 9/14/2002] For unknown reasons, Winfield had stepped down from his usual position at 8:30 a.m., and allowed Captain Charles Leidig to temporarily take his place as deputy director for operations in the NMCC (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001).
[
9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004 pdf file] Post 9/11 news reports will give the impression that Winfield remained in the NMCC throughout the course of the attacks, and was aware of the unfolding events. None of them will mention him ever having left the center. [
CNN, 9/4/2002; ABC News, 9/11/2002] Yet, despite concluding that the US is suffering a “coordinated terrorist attack,” Winfield allows Leidig to continue as his stand-in, and does not take over from him and resume charge of the center until shortly after Flight 93 has crashed. This would presumably be around 10:15-10:30 a.m. [
9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004]
(9:29 a.m.-9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Pentagon Command Center Begins High Level Conference Call
The National Military Command Center, inside the Pentagon. [Source: National Military Command Center]
Captain Charles Leidig is temporarily in command of the National Military Command Center (NMCC), “the military’s worldwide nerve center.” In response to the attacks on the World Trade Center, he convenes a conference call. [CNN, 9/4/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004 pdf file] Telephone links are established between the NMCC located inside the Pentagon (but on the opposite side of the building from where the explosion will happen), Canada’s equivalent Command Center, Strategic Command, theater commanders, and federal emergency-response agencies. At one time or another, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, key military officers, leaders of the FAA and NORAD, the White House, and Air Force One are heard on the open line.
[Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] NORAD command director Captain Michael Jellinek claims this call was initiated “at once” after the second WTC tower was hit. [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] However, the 9/11 Commission concludes it starts at 9:29 a.m. According to the commission, it begins as an all-purpose “significant event” conference. But at 9:30, Leidig states that it has just been confirmed that Flight 11 is still airborne and is heading toward Washington, DC. (This incorrect information apparently arose minutes earlier during a conference call between FAA centers (see 9:21 a.m. September 11, 2001).) In response to this erroneous report, the significant event conference is ended at around 9:34. It then resumes at about 9:37 as an air threat conference call, which lasts for more than eight hours. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 37] This is broadcast over a loudspeaker inside the NMCC. [US News and World Report, 8/31/2003] Brigadier General Montague Winfield, who later takes over from Leidig in charge of the NMCC, says, “All of the governmental agencies that were involved in any activity going on in the United States at that point, were in that conference.” [ABC News, 9/11/2002] The call continues right through the Pentagon explosion; the impact is not felt within the NMCC. [CNN, 9/4/2002] However, despite being in the Pentagon when it is hit, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld doesn’t enter the NMCC or participate in the call until 10:30 a.m. (see (10:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
9:39 a.m. September 11, 2001: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Is Wanted at Pentagon Teleconference but Cannot Be Reached
This picture of Rumsfeld (center), taken from the US Army website, is captioned, “Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld returns to Pentagon inner offices Tuesday morning after surveying the damage from the hijacked plane which crashed into the building moments before.” This contradicts his claim that he was helping victims for nearly an hour after the attack. However, there is video footage of Rumsfeld helping a person on a stretcher and it is not known when this picture is taken exactly. [Source: US Army]
Captain Charles Leidig, a deputy who is temporarily in charge of the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center (NMCC), is handling the NMCC’s crisis teleconference. He opens the call saying, “An air attack against North America may be in progress.” He mentions reports of a crash into the opposite side of the Pentagon, and requests that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld be added to the conference. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004 pdf file] Rumsfeld has a crucial role to play in coordinating the military response to an attack on the US.
According to journalist and author Andrew Cockburn, since the Cold War, “In an age when an enemy attack might allow only a few minutes for detection and reaction, control of American military power became vested in the National Command Authority, which consists of the president and the secretary of defense. Collectively, the NCA is the ultimate source of military orders, uniquely empowered, among other things, to order the use of nuclear weapons. In time of war, therefore, Rumsfeld was effectively the president’s partner, the direct link to the fighting forces, and all orders had to go through him. Such orders were supposed to be transmitted from… the National Military Command Center.” Cockburn adds that the NMCC is “the operational center for any and every crisis, from nuclear war to hijacked airliners.”
Yet, rather than join the NMCC conference, Rumsfeld has already gone out of the Pentagon to see the crash site, without telling any of his command staff where he was going, and remains out of contact for some time (see Between 9:38 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. September 11, 2001). Therefore, a few minutes after Leidig makes his request, Rumsfeld’s office will report back that he is nowhere to be found. Cockburn concludes, “The chain of command was broken.” [Cockburn, 2007, pp. 4-5; Democracy Now!, 3/7/2007] It is unknown whether Rumsfeld has a cell phone or pager on him, and if so, why he cannot be reached.
9:44 a.m. September 11, 2001: NMCC Conference Thinks Flight 1989, Not Flight 93, Is Fourth Hijack
NORAD briefs the NMCC teleconference on the possible hijacking of Delta Flight 1989. Four minutes later, a representative from the White House bunker containing Vice President Cheney asks if there are any indications of other hijacked planes. Captain Charles Leidig, temporarily in charge of the NMCC, mentions the Delta Flight and comments, “that would be the fourth possible hijack.” Flight 1989 is in the same general Ohio region as Flight 93, but NORAD doesn’t scramble fighters toward either plane at this time. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004]
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“Is this real-world or exercise?”: Cyber-PsyOps Warfare & 9/11
Part V: Powell, Armitage and the Secret Service “Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Lima, Peru, attending a meeting of the Organization of American States when he received word of the [9/11] attacks. He immediately cut his trip short and boarded a government aircraft for the seven-hour flight back to Washington. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff understood and appreciated the advantage the U.S. enjoyed over most nations when it came to the advanced electronics and communications capabilities. The former Army General had put his name on various Pentagon war-fighting manuals that outlined the Department’s commitment to what the military called “network-centric warfare” and “information superiority.” He had even written an article in Byte Magazine in 1992 titled “Personal Computer Technology May Determine the Outcome of Future Conflicts.” But what really made Powell’s experience on September 11 unique was his understanding and continued devotion to the military’s decision cycle, known as the OODA loop.”
Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-Terrorism
Chapter Seven : 9/11: The Cyber-terrorist Attack(Link was incomplete)
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“Seated in the White House Vice President Cheney was in command of America's defence response to the hijacking attacks on 911. Once the World Trade Centre was hit why did Cheney, a former Defense Secretary himself under the previous Bush administration, contact Richard Armitage the most senior State Department official in the country at the time, but not Air Force General Richard Myers, the most senior military officer in the country at the time?”
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATUS911undefended.htm#armitageSee also
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/armitagecheneyasia.htmAccording to the activist group Voices from the Wilderness: 'Armitage has also been routinely exposed as a Bush-era covert functionary who has been linked to covert operations, drug smuggling and the expansion of organized crime operations in Russia, Central Asia and the Far East.'
*****
"So what was the UK's 'national security adviser' doing in America on Sept 11? Was his visit prompted by the terrorist threat that Tony Blair now confirms 'everybody knew' was being planned? Despite his de facto status as Blair's special envoy on foreign affairs and security matters the US State Department appointment records show no scheduled meetings for Manning with Secretary Powell himself during the days immediately prior to the attacks. Those records do, however, show that he was meeting with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on September 10th. Armitage is second in command to Colin Powell who left for a trip to Peru later that day, meaning that the Bush administration's principal 'dove' was out of the country when the attacks happened. In Powell's absence 'when the storm breaks [on 911] Richard Armitage... is at its heart' according to the BBC's Edward Stourton…
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpWESSEX/Documents/armitageman.htm“It is reported that the US Secret Service is using an “air surveillance system” called Tigerwall. This serves to “ensure enhanced physical security at a high-value asset location by providing early warning of airborne threats.” Tigerwall “provides the Secret Service with a geographic display of aircraft activity and provides security personnel long-range camera systems to classify and identify aircraft. Sensor data from several sources are fused to provide a unified sensor display.” [US Department of Defense, 2000; US Department of the Navy, 9/2000, pp. 28 ] Among its responsibilities, the Secret Service protects America’s highest elected officials, including the president and vice president, and also provides security for the White House Complex. [US Congress, 5/1/2003] Its largest field office with over 200 employees is in New York, in Building 7 of the World Trade Center. [Tech TV, 7/23/2002] Whether the Secret Service, in New York or Washington, will make use of Tigerwall on 9/11 is unknown.
The Secret Service appears to have other air surveillance capabilities. Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will describe that on 9/11, the Secret Service had “a system that allowed them to see what FAA’s radar was seeing.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 7] Barbara Riggs, a future deputy director of the Secret Service who is in its Washington, DC headquarters on 9/11, will describe the Secret Service “monitoring radar” during the attacks. [PCCW Newsletter, 3/2006; Star-Gazette (Elmira), 6/5/2006] Furthermore, since 1974 the Secret Service operations center has possessed a special communications line from the control tower of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. This hotline allows air traffic controllers monitoring local radar to inform agents at the White House of any planes that are off course or appear to be on a “threatening vector.” [Time, 9/26/1994]
(9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Secret Service Learns Hijacked Plane on Route to Washington, Evacuates White House
“Secret Service Director Brian Stafford informs counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke that radar shows an aircraft headed towards the White House and decides to evacuate the complex. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 5] The Secret Service learns this by monitoring radar and over an open line with the FAA (the “hijack net”), which enable them to receive real time information about the hijacked aircraft. The Secret Service, which has been using an air surveillance system called Tigerwall for some time (see (September 2000 and after), tracks both American 77 and United 93 as they approach Washington and assumes the White House is a target. Secret Service agent Barbara Riggs will later say, “The Secret Service prepared to defend the facility,” although the precise nature of the preparations is unclear. [New York Times, 9/12/2001; MSNBC, 9/22/2001; Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; Washington Post, 1/27/2002; Associated Press, 8/19/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; PCCW Newsletter, 3/2006]
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a938clarkeorders_______________________________________________________________________________
“Is this real-world or exercise?”: Cyber-PsyOps Warfare & 9/11
Part VI: Reporting for Duty, Sir!“Asked point-blank by Commissioner Jamie Gorelick what he had done to protect the nation — or even the Pentagon — during the "summer of threat" preceding the attacks, Rumsfeld replied simply that "it was a law enforcement issue."
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0813-08.htm******
“In his office at the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld received word as each plane hit the Twin Towers, but apparently continued his scheduled lecture to a Congressional delegation on the subject of national preparedness against surprise attacks…. Richard Myers, acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Sept. 11, says he thought the first crash was an accident. He went ahead with a meeting at the offices of Sen. Max Cleland, with whom he discussed the subject of national preparedness.
Rumsfeld: “I had said at -- I had an 8 o'clock breakfast -- that sometime in the next two, four, six, eight, 10, 12 months, there would be an event that would occur in the world that would be sufficiently shocking that it would remind people, again, how important it is to have a strong, healthy Defense Department that contributes -- that underpins peace and stability in our world. And that is what underpins peace and stability. It's the fact -- we can't have healthy economies and active lives unless we live in a peaceful, stabile world. And I said that to these people.”
And someone walked in and handed a note that said that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center.”
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20040812110237946********
“Sheehy: For more than two hours after the Federal Aviation Administration became aware that the first plane had been violently overtaken by Middle Eastern men, the man whose job it was to order air cover over Washington [Rumsfeld] did not show up in the Pentagon's command center.
This may be a veiled reference to a military administrative order of June 1, 2001, which formally included the Secretary of Defense in any decision to authorize the interception of errant civilian planes by military jets.
At least until then, interception of errant flights was a standard procedure, activated automatically once an air traffic controller determines a plane on instrument flight rules (IFR) is significantly off-course or has failed to respond to ground control. No formal authorization was required for the FAA to alert NORAD that an aircraft has deviated from its planned route, or for NORAD to scramble interceptors to reconnoiter and report. On the contrary, this was what was supposed to happen.”
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20040801011459507*********
Gail Sheehy put “Lee Hamilton, vice-chairman of the Kean Commission, on the spot with the question, "Where was Rumsfeld on 9/11?":
"We investigated very carefully Mr. Rumsfeld's actions," said Hamilton. "He was having breakfast with Congressional leaders, and they hear a plane has hit the Pentagon, and he runs out."
"He had to have been told before the Pentagon was hit that two trade centers were hit and the country was under attack," I suggested. Was the commission comfortable with the fact that the country's Secretary of Defense was not in the chain of command or present in the Pentagon’s command center until all four suicide hijacked planes were down?
"I'm not going to answer that question," said Hamilton, and turned away.”
[Original at
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/07/07_400.html ]
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Montague Winfield was originally scheduled to be at his command post on morning of Sept. 11. But on Sept. 10, he arranged for his deputy to relieve him the next morning at exactly 8:30 a.m. This turned out to be just eight minutes before the military was alerted to the diversion of the first flight (at 8:38 a.m. according to the timeline in The 9/11 Commission Report).
The report mentions Winfield by name only once, as a source in a footnote, without clarification (Ch. 1 fn 190, p. 463). His absence from the NMCC after 8:30 a.m. was first revealed to the Commission in a June 17, 2004 statement by his deputy, Capt. Charles J. Leidig (who was promoted to admiral). (
Source document from 9/11 Commission)
Winfield was scheduled to testify before the Kean Commission in public on the same day as Leidig. As on Sept. 11, he was a no-show. Leidig spoke for him, saying under oath that on Sept. 11, "Right after we resolved what was going on with United 93, around that time General Winfield took over" command of the NMCC. (
Transcipt of June 17th hearings )
Thus Gen. Winfield apparently exercised no operational authority until after the attacks were over. In the further absence of Bush and Rumsfeld, the man in charge of the U.S. military during the attacks was apparently Capt. Leidig, a rookie in the job who, in his own words, first qualified in August 2001 "to stand watch as the Deputy Director for Operations in the NMCC."
However, Winfield either forgot his own absence or attempted to gloss over it when he was filmed for a 2002 Discovery-Times documentary, "Attack on the Pentagon." In that interview, he says that the "national leadership" was called to the NMCC "after the World Trade Center was struck." He also describes on camera the process of "resolving" what happened to Flight 93, the final flight, as though he was present.
Was Winfield present at the NMCC at any time during the attacks? If not, why would he try to hide an absence for which no one would otherwise think to blame him, since it was arranged the night before? Where was he during the 90 minutes after 8:30 a.m.?************
"Whatever the explanation for the huge [911 defence] failure, there have been no reports, to my knowledge, of reprimands. This further weakens the 'Incompetence Theory.' Incompetence usually earns reprimands."
'What really happened on Sept. 11th?'
Barrie Zwicker, Straight Goods, 27 January 2002 (New Society Publishers)
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"Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has declared a day of national mourning for the victims of the Lviv air show disaster.... President Kuchma dismissed the country's air force chief and the commander of the air force division which took part in the show.... "
”Ukraine mourns plane crash victims”, BBC Online, 28 July 2002
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“Some respond that the whole military was lax before 9-11. Nobody was worried about security. Really? In a dispatch discussing security after 9-11, Associated Press noted that US military bases were already on security alert *before* 9-11.
"Military Tightens Security in Wake of Apparent Terrorist Attacks," AP, (12 September 2001) http://www.tenc.net/indict/update630.htm
A. Mission Description and Budget Item Justification:
This program provides concept development, requirements definition, technical specifications, proof-of-concept testing, rapid prototyping, technology insertions, systems engineering and integration and technical assessments for National Military Command System (NMCS) Command and Control (C2) systems. This support provides informed, decision-making linkage between the National Command Authorities (NCA) and the Commanders-in-Chief of the Unified and Specified Commands. This engineering draws upon improved C2 methodologies and technology insertion opportunities to meet the command, control and information requirements of the NCA and the CINCs for all crises and security threats involving US military forces. These efforts emphasize interoperability and are designed to contribute directly to the achievement of the global C4I infrastructure.The primary customer is the Joint Staff. As the DOD Systems Engineer for the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and the Alternate NMCC (ANMCC), DISA performs planning, integration, and testing/ evaluation of new systems or improvements to existing systems. Support is provided to the Joint Staff in configuration management of over 120 systems. Engineering support is provided in the planning and implementation of the relocation of the NMCC as part of the Pentagon renovation (NMCC is scheduled to transition to a new location in FY 2003).
Beginning FY 2002, funding from the program C4I for the Warrior (PE 0303149K) will be transferred to this program in order to support the Site R Integration Program (SRIP), which provides backup and mirroring of selected NMCC systems and provides software maintenance of the NMCC Command and Control System (NCCS) Automated Message Handling System (AMHS). This program element is under Budget Activity 07 because it involves efforts supporting operational systems development. This administration has not addressed FY 2003-2007 requirements. All FY 2003-2007 budget estimates included in this book are notional only and subject to change.
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=109649.msg674543#msg6745439/11 as a computer crime?
Davis stated that on the morning of 9/11 there was denial of service to the risk management system designed to block such attacks. I didn’t say that (although I’ve read it) -
what I said was that the emergency open communications line between the FAA and NMCC went dead - neither party was aware of it and it is my belief that the PTECH software was used to shut it down."If that’s the way they did it, it would have been the perfect crime. One person could have shutdown the line connecting the FAA and NMCC (National Military Command and Control). “Coincidentally,” the person manning the NMCC on the morning of 9/11 was a first day employee and his boss was away at a meeting.
So, the new man on the job didn’t even know that on the morning of 9/11 the communication between FCC and NMCC was down."-Vicky Davis
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Summary: “This three-part series grapples with the risks of a growing dependence on automated information systems to control combat forces. A collection of research papers from the DoD-sponsored C2 Research Program, the series focuses on the difficulties in accurately portraying the uncertainties and ambiguities of war with computer systems.” – Publisher’s description.
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http://sysarch.gmu.edu/main/media/publications/abstracts/135p-ABS.pdfJUNE 1993
CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN THE NATIONAL MILITARY
COMMAND CENTER (NMCC)
Brian S. Ray
Alexander H. Levis
ABSTRACT
A functional architecture of NMCC crisis management is developed beginning with the identification and description of the mission and concept of operations. A functional decomposition of crisis management activities is then built based on current operating instructions and actions officer interviews. The model is validated for a limited set of crisis management requirements by exercising it with data collected during an actual crisis management situation. Functional shortfalls and redundancies are examined. The result is a functional architecture of NMCC crisis management suitable as a foundation for quantitative effectiveness analysis.CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN THE NMCChttp://sysarch.gmu.edu/main/media/publications/docs/135p_.pdf
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/ericjsinrod/2005-10-05-faa-weakness_x.htmPosted 10/5/2005 9:30 AM Updated 10/5/2005 9:34 AM
INSERT: NOTE, THIS ARTICLE IS FROM 2005, SO HE IS REFERRING TO A MUCH NEWER DOCUMENT THAN THE ONE ABOVE, THE AUTHOR FAILS TO REALIZE THAT THE FAA IS PLAYING A DOG AND PONY SHOW, THE ENTIRE NAS ARCHITECTURE WAS SPECIFICALLY INTEGRATED WITH DOD SYSTEMS TO CARRY OUT 9/11, AS WELL AS TO SERVE AS AN "INTEROPERABILITY TEST BED", TO APPLY THEIR "LESSONS LEARNED", TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF GLOBAL C4ISR SYSTEMS, TO CREATE THE INCEPTION OF NETWORK CENTRIC WARFARE, THE NEW SO-CALLED "WAR ON TERROR", TO FINALLY ACHIEVE THEIR PINNACLE OF TOTAL TYRANNY, FUTURE COMBAT SYSTEMS, OR FCS.Too many weaknesses in FAA information systemsIf you already are nervous about flying, this column may not make you feel more comfortable. So let's get right to the point –
according to a recent evaluation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) suffers from security weaknesses in its information systems, including weaknesses in controls that are intended to prevent, limit and detect access to those systems.Background
As most of us know, and as explained by the GAO, the FAA performs important functions designed to ensure "safe, orderly, and efficient air travel in the national airspace system." In performing its functions, the FAA must rely upon an extensive "array of interconnected automated information systems and networks that comprise the nation's air traffic control systems." These systems are mission critical as they supply information to air traffic controllers and flight crews to help "ensure the safe and expeditious movement of aircraft."
Interruptions of service by these information systems, as noted by the GAO, "could have a significant adverse impact on air traffic nationwide." And reading between the lines here, one is left with the conclusion that passenger safety potentially could be jeopardized by such interruption.
The GAO explains that it was tasked to evaluate how the FAA has implemented information security controls because such controls are "essential for ensuring that the nation's air traffic control systems are adequately protected from inadvertent or deliberate misuse, disruption, or destruction."The Evaluation
The GAO concludes, as part of its evaluation, that the FAA "has made progress in implementing information security for its air traffic control information systems."
However, the GAO "identified significant security weaknesses that threaten the integrity, confidentiality and availability of FAA's systems – including weaknesses in controls that are designed to prevent, limit and detect access to these systems." According to the GAO, the FAA "has not adequately managed its networks, software updates, user accounts and passwords, and user privileges, nor has it consistently logged security-relevant events." Feeling better yet?
If this were not enough, the GAO found that other FAA information security controls, encompassing physical security, background investigations, segregation of duties, and system changes, "exhibited weaknesses, increasing the risk that unauthorized users could breach FAA's air traffic control systems, potentially disrupting aviation operations." Certainly, the disruption of aviation operations sounds omnious.
The GAO reports that the FAA explained that the possibilities for unauthorized access are "limited." Of course, a better answer would be that such possibilities are "non-existent."
The GAO evaluation states that the FAA has "initiatives underway to improve its information security" but notes that "further efforts are needed." The GAO reports that FAA weaknesses that need to be addressed include "outdated security plans, inadequate security awareness training, inadequate systems testing and evaluation programs, limited security incident-detection capabilities, and shortcomings in providing service continuity for disruptions in operations."
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http://www.911myths.com/index.php/Losing_Flight_77(Original link no longer works not does archive of original site)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/01/AR2006090101498.htmlInvestigators found no evidence that aviation officials intentionally misled the Sept. 11 commission when they made inaccurate statements about their response to the 2001 terrorist attacks but recommended that two officials face "appropriate administrative action" for failing to correct the record, according to a report released yesterday.
The findings by the Transportation Department's acting inspector general, Todd J. Zinser, address a lingering question about the response on Sept. 11 by military and civilian aviation officials, who initially portrayed the reaction as swift and efficient. It was later shown to be neither.
The conclusions echo the findings of a separate inquiry at the Defense Department, which found no evidence that authorities at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) intended to mislead the Sept. 11 panel.
For more than two years after the attacks, officials at NORAD and the Federal Aviation Administration suggested in public statements and testimony that air defenses and aviation officials had reacted quickly to the hijackings and were prepared to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93 if it threatened Washington. That aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to retake control from the hijackers.
In fact, the Sept. 11 commission found, audiotapes and other evidence showed clearly that the military never had any of the hijacked airliners in its sights and chased a phantom aircraft -- American Airlines Flight 11 -- long after it had crashed into the World Trade Center.The FAA had said on its Web site and in statements to the commission that it informed the Pentagon at 9:24 a.m. that American Airlines Flight 77 had been hijacked. The commission found that the FAA never notified defense officials of the hijackings but did label the plane missing after it had crashed into the Pentagon.
The FAA also omitted from official timelines the fact that it notified NORAD about the hijacking of Flight 93 at 10:07 a.m., after the airliner had crashed in Pennsylvania. It gave an earlier than actual time for the moment when an Air Force official joined an FAA "phone-bridge" focused on the hijackings.
Zinser's report blames the erroneous statements on a series of innocent mistakes, including an erroneous entry in an early FAA timeline and an assumption by some officials that others would correct the record once the errors became clear.
"We did not find evidence to conclude that FAA officials knowingly made false statements," the report said.
At the same time, it said, two unidentified FAA officials should have notified the commission when it became clear that the information was wrong. The report recommended that the FAA consider unspecified administrative action against them.
Although the inaccurate statements have been publicly known for several years, it has only become clear more recently how much the issue had strained relations between the Sept. 11 panel and the FAA and NORAD. They were the only two agencies to receive subpoenas from the commission.
Some commission members and staffers were so angered by the inaccuracies that they advocated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. The panel settled on a compromise, referring the complaints to the two inspectors general.
In their new book, "Without Precedent," the commission's chairman and vice chairman, Thomas H. Kean (R) and Lee H. Hamilton (D), said the panel was "exceedingly frustrated" by the FAA and NORAD.
"Fog of war could explain why some people were confused on the day of 9/11, but it could not explain why all the after-action reports, accident investigation, and public testimony by FAA and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue," they wrote.
The FAA said in a statement that Zinser's report "clarified the record and found no evidence that FAA officials knowingly made false statements or intentionally failed to correct any inaccurate statements while providing more than 6,000 documents and materials to the commission."
The FAA also has "made major improvements to its communications capabilities" since the Sept. 11 attacks, the statement said._______________________________________________________________________________
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E5DE1F3EF931A3575AC0A9609C8B63Report Urges F.A.A. to Act Regarding False 9/11 TestimonyBy PHILIP SHENON
Published: September 2, 2006
The Transportation Department's inspector general urged the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday to consider disciplinary action against two executives who failed to correct false information provided to the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The acting inspector general, Todd J. Zinser, whose office acts as the department's internal watchdog, found in a new report that the F.A.A. executives, as well as a third official who is now retired, learned after the fact that false information was given to the commission in May 2003 about the F.A.A.'s contacts with the Air Force on the morning of Sept. 11.
The false information suggested that the aviation agency had established contact with its Air Force liaison immediately after the first of the four hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m.
In fact, the commission's investigators found, the Air Force's liaison did not join a conference call with the F.A.A. until after the third plane crashed, at 9:37 a.m. The 51-minute gap is significant because it helps undermine an initial claim by the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which is responsible for domestic air defense, that it scrambled quickly on Sept. 11 and had a chance to shoot down the last of the hijacked planes still in the air, United Airlines Flight 93.
The inspector general's report, prepared in response to complaints from the independent Sept. 11 commission, found that the three F.A.A. executives failed to act on an ''obligation'' to correct the false information provided to the commission, which found widespread confusion within the aviation agency and the military on the morning of the attacks.
The F.A.A., part of the Transportation Department, declined to identify the three executives, whose names and titles were not revealed in the inspector general's report. Nor did the agency say whether it would consider disciplinary action.
The inspector general's office found that while false information was given to the Sept. 11 commission, there was no evidence that F.A.A. executives had done it knowingly or had intentionally withheld accurate information about the agency's actions on the morning of the attacks.
That finding was welcomed by the F.A.A., which said in a statement that the ''inspector general's investigation has clarified the record and found no evidence that F.A.A. officials knowingly made false statements.'' The Pentagon's inspector general issued a similar finding last month about military officers who provided inaccurate testimony to the commission, saying their inaccurate statements could be attributed largely to poor record-keeping.
Richard Ben Veniste, a commission member, said in an interview on Friday that he was troubled that it had taken the inspector general two years to complete his investigation -- ''more time than it took the 9/11 commission to complete all of its work'' -- and that he released the report ''on the Friday afternoon before the Labor Day weekend.''
Mr. Ben Veniste said he was convinced that the failure of the aviation agency and the North American Aerospace Defense Command to provide early, accurate information about their performance had ''contributed to a growing industry of conspiratorialists who question the fundamental facts relating to 9/11.''
Mr. Zinser, the acting inspector general, said in an interview that the investigation had taken so long because of ''the very complicated issues'' his office reviewed.
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9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About HijackingsBy ERIC LICHTBLAU
New York TimesFebruary 10, 2005
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.
But aviation officials were "lulled into a false sense of security," and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures," the commission report concluded.
The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable."
The report takes the F.A.A. to task for failing to pursue domestic security measures that could conceivably have altered the events of Sept. 11, 2001, like toughening airport screening procedures for weapons or expanding the use of on-flight air marshals. The report, completed last August, said officials appeared more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays, and easing airlines' financial woes than deterring a terrorist attack.
The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.
Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.
Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the report said.
A spokeswoman for the F.A.A., the agency that bears the brunt of the commission's criticism, said Wednesday that the agency was well aware of the threat posed by terrorists before Sept. 11 and took substantive steps to counter it, including the expanded use of explosives detection units.
"We had a lot of information about threats," said the spokeswoman, Laura J. Brown. "But we didn't have specific information about means or methods that would have enabled us to tailor any countermeasures."
She added: "After 9/11, the F.A..A. and the entire aviation community took bold steps to improve aviation security, such as fortifying cockpit doors on 6,000 airplanes, and those steps took hundreds of millions of dollars to implement."
The report, like previous commission documents, finds no evidence that the government had specific warning of a domestic attack and says that the aviation industry considered the hijacking threat to be more worrisome overseas.
"The fact that the civil aviation system seems to have been lulled into a false sense of security is striking not only because of what happened on 9/11 but also in light of the intelligence assessments, including those conducted by the F.A.A.'s own security branch, that raised alarms about the growing terrorist threat to civil aviation throughout the 1990's and into the new century," the report said.
In its previous findings, including a final report last July that became a best-selling book, the 9/11 commission detailed the harrowing events aboard the four hijacked flights that crashed on Sept. 11 and the communications problems between civil aviation and military officials that hampered the response. But the new report goes further in revealing the scope and depth of intelligence collected by federal aviation officials about the threat of a terrorist attack.
The F.A.A. "had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon," and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking, the report said. Previous commission documents have quoted the CD's reassurance that "fortunately, we have no indication that any group is currently thinking in that direction."
Aviation officials amassed so much information about the growing threat posed by terrorists that they conducted classified briefings in mid-2001 for security officials at 19 of the nation's busiest airports to warn of the threat posed in particular by Mr. bin Laden, the report said.
Still, the 9/11 commission concluded that aviation officials did not direct adequate resources or attention to the problem.
"Throughout 2001, the senior leadership of the F.A.A. was focused on congestion and delays within the system and the ever-present issue of safety, but they were not as focused on security," the report said.The F.A.A. did not see a need to increase the air marshal ranks because hijackings were seen as an overseas threat, and one aviation official told the commission said that airlines did not want to give up revenues by providing free seats to marshals.
The F.A.A. also made no concerted effort to expand their list of terror suspects, which included a dozen names on Sept. 11, the report said. The former head of the F.A.A.'s civil aviation security branch said he was not aware of the government's main watch list, called Tipoff, which included the names of two hijackers who were living in the San Diego area, the report said.
Nor was there evidence that a senior F.A.A. working group on security had ever met in 2001 to discuss "the high threat period that summer," the report said.
Jane F. Garvey, the F.A.A. administrator at the time, told the commission "that she was aware of the heightened threat during the summer of 2001," the report said. But several other senior agency officials "were basically unaware of the threat," as were senior airline operations officials and veteran pilots, the report said.
The classified version of the commission report quotes extensively from circulars prepared by the F.A.A. about the threat of terrorism, but many of those references have been blacked out in the declassified version, officials said.
Several former commissioners and staff members said they were upset and disappointed by the administration's refusal to release the full report publicly.
"Our intention was to make as much information available to the public as soon as possible," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Sept. 11 commission member.
© 2005 The New York Times Company
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http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-02-08/news/fear-of-flying/Nation
Fear of Flying
Whistle-blowers say the FAA ignored a decade of pre–9-11 warnings
James Ridgeway
Tuesday, February 8th 2005
The staff report from the 9-11 Commission, declassified last week, raises the curtain on a Federal Aviation Administration whose disregard for security is downright ludicrous. Employees of the FAA had been warning for years of the disaster waiting to happen. The FAA's top management not only ignored the warnings, but took steps to make sure the people issuing them shut up.
According to the staff report, in 2001 the agency's security division prepared 105 intelligence summaries for the top brass between April 1 and September 10. Nearly half these mentioned Osama bin Laden by name, but for the most part the summaries said the threats were aimed at targets overseas. Of the 52 notices that mentioned Bin Laden, five discussed terrorists either training for hijackings or already having the capability to carry them out. Two talked about suicide operations, but not having to do with planes. One summary discussed defensive measures being undertaken at Genoa for the G8 summit.
The response of the FAA pooh-bahs to the commission staff's inquiries is mystifying. "[FAA] Administrator [Jane] Garvey told the Commission that she was aware of the heightened threat during the summer of 2001," says the staff report. "However, both FAA Deputy Administrator Monte Belger and his assistant told us in separate interviews that they were unaware of the threat posed by Usama bin Ladin and al Qaeda prior to September 11, 2001." Is this just another case of high government officials botching the job, or is someone lying?
Long before the latest report was released, the FAA had been considered among the weakest of the "independent" regulatory agencies. After the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, the feds sought to improve security, but the major carriers opposed most measures on the grounds that they were unnecessary, cost too much, and discomfited passengers. Time and again over the last decade, efforts were made to persuade the airlines to reinforce cockpit doors, but to no avail. In an ominous warning of things to come, an internal report from the early 1990s said, "Small knives (blade length of four inches or less), the most frequently employed weapon to hijack aircraft (in the U.S.), were used in three incidents." Yet they remained legal to bring onboard, and were used by the 9-11 hijackers.
Another 1993 report showed that in a test, people without authorization broke through the San Francisco airport security system three out of five times—a failure rate of 60 percent. By 1998, out of 450 attempts by the so-called Red Team to breach security at the same airport, 446 succeeded—a failure rate of 99.11 percent. Testers in 1996 at the Frankfurt airport, where the bomb was placed on Pan Am Flight 103, broke through security in 13 out of 13 tries. The situation was so embarrassing that the FAA security chief ordered the group to end its mission, leaving the job of improving security in the hands of the airlines.
In exasperation, Red Team leader Bogdan Dzakovic went over his supervisors and, citing the numerous failures in the system, pleaded with Administrator Jane Garvey. "The U.S. faces a potential tidal wave of terrorist attacks," he wrote. Garvey never replied.
One internal airline memo accurately described the results investigators had been getting: "They managed to get by passenger X-ray screening repeatedly (7 times), having on them a gun sealed under their belt-buckle. Also, having an automatic Mac machine gun under their jacket on their back." The team "repeatedly" succeeded in getting a laptop with a gun inside through screening. They readily entered airline private lounges and put dummy bombs in passengers' carry-on luggage. They snuck with ease onto Skychef food trucks and put bombs in the food containers, receiving only a cheery "hello" from the drivers—if one happened to be awake.
The Red Team renegades wanted people at the FAA or the Department of Transportation, its parent, to pay attention to what was going on, meeting with the chief criminal investigator for DOT. According to fellow Red Team leader Steve Elson, that man would say only, "The whole FAA is so corrupt, I don't know where to begin."
Dzakovic and Elson took the case to the media, with one TV station after another carrying the story. In April 2001, Deborah Sherman of Boston's Fox News conducted her own investigation of Boston's Logan Airport and repeatedly broke through security. Her probe apparently coincided with a similar one by Mohammed Atta, who at the time was conducting surveillance of Logan in planning the 9-11 attack. A tape of the program was hand-delivered to the office of Senator John Kerry. There was no response.
After 9-11, the Red Team was disbanded. Dzakovic got whistle-blower status and continues to speak out on the issue. Elson quit in disgust and went back to school.
The 9-11 gun
The serious government interest in 9-11 now is not who is to be held responsible but how to make sure the airlines get off the hook. Shortly after the attack, the companies turned to Capitol Hill for a bailout. Now they are faced with lawsuits from victims' families, and a key question will be whether any of the hijackers had smuggled a gun aboard one of the planes. It's one thing to move through security with a legal box cutter in a pocket—quite another to make it through with a firearm. The presence of a gun would clearly illustrate a lack of security. And if a gun had been planted aboard a plane, it could be an indication that Al Qaeda had breached our security system even further than previously supposed.
On 9-11, in the hours after the attacks, the FAA issued an executive summary of what went on aboard Flight 11, which hit the World Trade Center. "At approximately 9:18 a.m., it was reported that the two crew members in the cockpit were stabbed. The flight then descended with no communication from the flight crew members," the report read. "The American Airlines FAA Principal Security Inspector (PSI) was notified by Suzanne Clark of American Airlines Corporate Headquarters that an onboard flight attendant contacted American Airlines Operations Center and informed them that a passenger in seat 10B had shot and killed a passenger in seat 9B at 9:20 a.m. The passenger killed was Daniel Lewin, shot by passenger Satam al Suqami. One bullet was reported to have been fired."
That afternoon, say Dzakovic and Elson, an FAA security officer in Washington saw the word "gun" on a bulletin board set up to keep staff members abreast of what was going on in the agency's command center. The FAA subsequently changed its report, removing the reference to a gun, and the 9-11 Commission concluded there had never been one.
However, on Flight 93, passenger Tom Burnett, a medical executive, had called his wife, Deena, and, in one version of the call, said, "They've already knifed a guy. There is a bomb on board. Call the FBI." Deena immediately called emergency officials. Another version of the call had Burnett saying, "One of them has a gun." Tom's call to Deena was not recorded, but Deena's call for help was; on the tape, she says Tom told her: "They just knifed a passenger and there are guns on the plane." Deena later told the London Times, "He told me one of the hijackers had a gun. He wouldn't have made it up. Tom grew up around guns. He was an avid hunter and we have guns in our home. If he said there was a gun on board, there was."
The Rushdie connection
The FAA maintains it had no foreknowledge of an attack by Al Qaeda within the U.S., but there is a continuing series of suggestions that the federal authorities, including the FAA, did in fact know something was about to happen.
One little noticed example concerned novelist Salman Rushdie, who told the
