Day: June 23, 2006

Former Democratic Vice President Walter Mondale (yes, he’s still alive) suggests a U.S. strike on North Korea. Clinton’s defense secretary William Perry agrees.

The feds busted up a terrorist plot in Miami. Good thing they did it before the New York Times had access to the surveillance information.

The “jihad” was intended to be “as good or greater than 9/11,” beginning with destruction of the 110-story tower and FBI buildings, according to court documents obtained Friday by CNN.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in a news conference Friday, described the men as examples of “homegrown terrorists” who “may prove to be as dangerous as groups like al Qaeda” and who have come “to view their home country as the enemy.”

Named in the grand jury indictment is Narseal Batiste, who allegedly told an informant — posing as a member of al Qaeda — that he was organizing an Islamic army to wage a jihad in the United States.

The document said that Batiste wanted to “attend al Qaeda training, along with five of his soldiers, during the second week of April and further detailed his mission to wage a ‘full ground war’ against the United States in order to ‘kill all the devils we can’ … beginning with the destruction of the Sears Tower.”

Actually, it’ll be the U.S. that kills these devils.

More: Hot Air

Looks like the New York Times and L.A. Times couldn’t help but take another toke off the ‘anonymous source‘ crack pipe. They leaked classified counterterrorism information revealing a successful program used to capture the most wanted al-Qaida figure in Southeast Asia.

Well, the program was successful, up until Eric Lichtblau and James Risen decided to listen to the leakers and agree that it shouldn’t be secret anymore.

Nice.

Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to al-Qaida by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. The records mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas and into and out of the United States. Most routine financial transactions confined to this country are not in the database.

Viewed by the Bush administration as a vital tool, the program has played a hidden role in domestic and foreign terrorism investigations since 2001 and helped in the capture of the most wanted Qaida figure in Southeast Asia, the officials said.

Bill Keller, the newspaper’s executive editor, said: “We have listened closely to the administration’s arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration. We remain convinced that the administration’s extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest.”

Blood pressure…rising…must control…fist of death!

One step forward, two steps behind. Let see how proud these blabbermouths are when America gets hit again.

More: Backlash