Why is the FBI dragging its feet and not producing the requested records about this wealthy Saudi family? (Pictured is the home they abandoned suddenly just before 9/11 — a sumptuous mansion in a Florida gated community.) Could someone high up be implicated in some illegal activity? Clearly something is happening here, and we don’t know what it is. I expect that if a comprehensive history of the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks is ever written, or ever could be written, it would contain more than a few surprises, if it revealed exactly why the U.S. government and the mainstream media has been so unanimously against facing the problem realistically and doing anything genuinely effective to defend basic principles of human rights, particularly the freedom of speech and the equality of rights of all people before the law. I expect it has more to do with stupidity than complicity, although in this particular case, there does seem to be more than a hint of a cover-up. In any case, I doubt that such a history will ever be written.
“Judge blasts FBI over Saudi family investigation,” by Michael Pollick for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, April 4 (thanks to Kenneth):
A federal judge on Friday chided the FBI for failing to produce records tied to a prominent Saudi Arabian family who seemed to abandon their Sarasota home suddenly just prior to the 9/11 terror attacks.
U.S. District Court Judge William Zloch ordered the FBI to conduct a much more thorough search than it had previously done and deliver all pertinent documents — uncensored — to him by April 18 for review.
The judge said the FBI must comply using its most advanced document search system, called Sentinel, to search for records pertaining to a year-and-a-half old Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the Fort Lauderdale news site Broward Bulldog. The Herald-Tribune Media Group joined the suit earlier this year as a “friend of the court.”
Under the judge’s order, the FBI also must search for documents related to the Saudi family, a home in Sarasota’s gated Prestancia subdivision and the investigation following the 2001 attacks using Sentinel and multiple other search systems.
The agency initially refused to search for the family’s names, claiming that would result in an invasion of privacy.
Judge Zloch ordered the FBI to also inform the court of any documented communications between it and other government agencies concerning the investigation.
That information, and an explanation of how the FBI is complying with the judge’s order, is due by June 6.The 23-page order Friday was Judge Zloch’s second in favor of the Bulldog and its editor, Dan Christensen.
In the latest order, Zloch takes the FBI to task for failing to exhaustively produce documents pertaining to the case.
He describes the agency’s initial search as “preemptively narrowed in scope based on agency decisions that categories of documents are exempt and thus, will not even be sought.”
He called one of the government’s characterizations of the Bulldog’s requests “literal to the point of being nonsensical.”
Tom Julin, the attorney for the Bulldog, praised the judge’s action.
“That is just exactly the kind of order a federal judge should render when the FBI refuses to acknowledge the existence of important documents like this,” Julin said. “I hope the FBI will follow his order to a ‘T’ and we will finally get to the bottom of this controversy.”
In joining the case in mid-March, the Herald-Tribune and the Miami Herald cited articles written about the Prestancia case and described ways in which a further search would be in the public’s interest.To date, the FBI has turned over 35 pages of heavily redacted documents — out of the 15,000 files it has acknowledged were part of its Florida inquiry into the 9/11 attacks.
Last summer, Zloch asked Julin to explain in writing how an FBI search could be done better. The FBI, the lawyer noted, did not even search for documents using the names of the family members residing in, or owning, the Prestancia home.
The home was owned by Saudi businessman Esam Ghazzawi and his wife, Deborah. Ghazzawi is known to have connections to the Saudi royal family.
For the six years before the terror attacks, the home was occupied by their son-in-law, Abdulaziz Al-Hijji, and their daughter, Anoud.
The Al-Hijjis came to the FBI’s attention after the couple apparently returned abruptly to Saudi Arabia two weeks before the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., leaving behind clothes, food, children’s toys and cars.
Federal agents also linked phone calls from the Prestancia home — some dating to a year before the attacks — to known 9/11 suspects, the Bulldog has reported.
The calls were made to, or received from Mohamed Atta, fellow pilots and 11 other terrorist suspects, the Bulldog reported.
Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi had learned to fly at Huffman Aviation at the Venice Municipal Airport. Ziad Jarrah also took flying lessons nearby, at the Florida Flight Training school.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
I expect that if a comprehensive history of the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks is ever written, or ever could be written, it would contain more than a few surprises…
And those surprises, if they exist, would sit between the bad offices of Louis Freeh and Robt. Meuller, who as the leader of the FBI during the latter part of John O’Neill’s career as a senior special agent. O’Neill called the Osama bin-Laden/al Qaeda airplanes-as-weapons conspiracy years before 9/11, and was run off for his efforts.
Instead of being satisfied with being right, O’Neill took the position of security chief for the WTC, an eerie coincidence if there ever was one, or a prescient one. He died somewhere in the WTC complex sometime after the first tower collapsed from the weight of the Holy Ko-Ran.
It’d be easy to chalk this up to the incompetence of Freeh and/or Meuller, but my guess is that the surprises are to found higher than the FBI Director’s office, maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of the Oval Office.
Brian Hoff says
The FBI arrest than Redneck far rightwinger in Texas on terrorism charge which the media refuse to talk about here is the link http://www.loonwatch.com/2014/04/robert-james-talbot-jr-radical-right-terrorist-sought-to-blow-up-mosques-was-a-fan-of-pamela-geller/.
duh_swami says
Loonwatch is for loons, are you a loon?
Brian Hoff says
Here it is in than Texas Newpaper http://thedailynewsonline.com/news/article_36e40e2e-bc75-11e3-99ab-001a4bcf887a.html.
Brian Hoff says
Here it is in than Texas Newpaper http://thedailynewsonline.com/news/article_36e40e2e-bc75-11e3-99ab-001a4bcf887a.html.
Angemon says
For the record, the article in thedailynewsonline.com makes no mention of Pamela Geller.
Brian Hoff says
O’Neill plant c4 on the bream in the builting to bring it down as many u-tude viedo show that muslim and Islam have nothing to do with 9-11.
duh_swami says
Sure Brian…sure.
Angemon says
The almost illiterate Brian Hoff posted:
“muslim and Islam have nothing to do with 9-11.”
Yeah, why do people keep linking islam and muslims with 9/11? Other than a muslim head of an islamic organization taking credit for it and saying they acted according to islamic principles.
“O’Neill plant c4 on the bream in the builting to bring it down as many u-tude viedo show”
This claim is the crux of this conspiracy theory and it is the easiest to disprove.
There are many videos showing the entire event. None of those videos shows any explosion. The best way to debunk the theory of controlled demolition is to watch the collapse of the WTC towers and compare them with controlled demolitions.
In controlled demolitions the columns are perforated and dynamite is placed inside them. When they are detonated the building falls and get crushed as the floors hit the ground. In controlled demolition, the demolition happens from bottom up. Besides, the process of preparing a building for demolition is very elaborate and time taking. Did all the preparations happen in the offices of people in WTC under their nose withouth anyone noticing?
The collapse of the WTC is very different. All the videos show that the demolition is talking place from top to bottom. While the upper floors are being destroyed the floors below them are still standing. They fall as soon as they are hit by the weight of the falling debris.
It takes only a few minutes of attentively watching the videos of the falling of the twin towers to dismiss that asinine conspiracy theory. If you watch carefully you will see that the floors below the impact are standing intact when the upper floors fall on them, which means no demolition took place bellow them and the whole argument of controlled demolition is discredited. This is all we need to dismiss all the other claims. Compare this fall with the falls of many other controlled demolitions. You will see the difference. In controlled demolition all the floors fall together. Whereas the lower portion of the WTC towers are standing firm until they are hit from above.
This is all you need to watch to see this conspiracy theory is a big lie. All you need is to have a little bit of common sense.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
It takes only a few minutes of attentively watching the videos of the falling of the twin towers to dismiss that asinine conspiracy theory.
Yeah, but Rosie O’Donnell says that’s what happened. That’s a huge dollop of The View integrity & credibility rat there, Angemon.
MrSquat says
Love it how these people are so proud of Bin Laden for 9/11 and at the same time denying that Muslims were behind 9/11.
Exactly like being happy that the Nazis perpetrated the Holocaust and at the same time denying that the Holocaust ever took place.
But it is fully OUR fault for letting them into our countries.
bill says
bream in the builting to bring it down as many u-tude viedo
You are really quite funny or just bat sheet.
EYESOPEN says
APF said: “It’d be easy to chalk this up to the incompetence of Freeh and/or Meuller, but my guess is that the surprises are to found higher than the FBI Director’s office, maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of the Oval Office.”
And my guess would be that you couldn’t be more right if you tried. (And if I remember correctly, weren’t members of the bin Laden family spirited out of the U.S. just before the FAA shut down U.S. airspace? Yes, “funny” shenanigans indeed, I would say.)
Gudrun Eussner says
Osama bin Laden – Die verbotene Wahrheit. Das Schicksal des FBI-Beamten John O´Neill. Artikel vom 21. November 2001 (in German)
http://www.eussner.net/artikel_2004-07-14_20-10-37.html
Jean-Charles Brisard et Guillaume Dasquié: Ben Laden : La Vérité interdite, Editions Denoël
duh_swami says
The Saudi family getting out of town, just in time, is one of the things that fuels truthers. if they got a 3AM phone call telling them to leave because ‘something’ was going to happen that could mean they had no pre-knowledge but believed whoever called them. Find out who tipped them off, and you have found a lot…Or it could be just a case of severe homesickness. And an overwhelming desire to return to the land of Allah. Getting to the bottom of that, is at least a piece of the puzzle.
Mr. Squat says
Why are these people allowed to settle in the US as they please?! Do our borders mean anything anymore? Does US citizenship mean anything anymore?
Mr. Squat says
My take:
Elements of the Saudi royal family/gov’t were involved in 9/11. The US gov’t knows it, but it was and is kept secret because acknowledging that would have meant taking action against SA. Instead, Bush decided to attack Iraq (!?). The US citizenry was lied to. Outrageously so.
Jay Boo says
Obama’s FBI resources are stretched thin as they keep track of anyone who mocks Islam.
Inchoate says
Re:
“Jay Boo
April 5, 2014 at 3:28 pm”
….see my longer post somewhere nearby. We need a reality check, a very, very Politically INcorrect reality check.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Obama’s FBI resources are stretched thin as they keep track of anyone who mocks Islam.
Ouch. That’s some biting cynicism rat there. But probably correct. But don’t worry, with a smart Ivy-League Man like Secretary Holder at the helm, they’ll make best possible use of their resources to pursue, whatever that is.
kikorikid says
The “Whole Enchilada” of Obamas activities can and
may be listed under the column: SHARIAH COMPLIANCE.
Stephen Poole says
… Wow !! … This thread is pretty mixed up … … I have Never abandoned my home(s) on short notice, unless I could not pay my rent … Perhaps these Saudis were actually broke, perhaps from supportin’ jihad … Just sayin’/askin’ … SP OX …
Inchoate says
This tangled mess of “who knew what, and when did they know it” involving the “authorities” in the FBI, CIA , NSA is a direct result of the very adroit “lawfare” conducted by the likes of the C.A.I.R and the A.C.L.U. They’re winning the propaganda war. We’re permitting this ourselves.
It’s my outsider’s guess that these government agencies of ours charged with our first line physical defense simply don’t have the resources or the manpower to fight our trans-national Muslim enemy and all of these lawsuits popping up like jacks in boxes at the least provocation of “prejudice”, “racism”, “discrimination”. They simply can’t do both at the same time, so nothing is done right, and this in turn creates more “outrage” and “why isn’t something done about this stupidity”? It’s all very circular.
These very politically correct shrieks from so many sides have resulted in the FBI, for example, purging its training manuals of any mention of Muslims or whatever they’ve purged to try to cut down on these drains on their resources. What to do? Put yourselves in their places. Throw up your hands.
In like manner, this is why Grandma and her colostomy are groped along with EVERYBODY else in the check-in line. Mustn’t single out that young, bearded, dark skinned guy over there with that strange wire hanging out of his backpack sagging so heavily. He’s going to sue for “racial prejudice” and “religious discrimination” because of his Muslim prayer beads nervously being fingered while standing in that line. The Israelis must be smirking at our “political correctness”…rightfully.
Now, in like manner when EVERYBODY’s telephone numbers and destinations are recorded, along with our email addresses and their destinations, in order – perhaps- to avoid such cries of “I’m being singled out!”, now EVERYBODY stands up and shrieks about “privacy”. This is insane.
We’re in one helluva mess with this “security” question. We can’t have complete Privacy and Security from our Muslim enemy both at the same time.
Simply, something has to give. Those of us old enough to remember the Second World War remember the similar questions about “who knew what, and when” after Pearl Harbor. Now, we have had this Muslim attack on Lower Manhattan and the District of Columbia, and….where are we now? Right back to January of 1942. Franklin Roosevelt….that shy shrinking violet of a Democrat politician, issued that Executive Order interning those American citizens of Japanese ancestry in California because there wasn’t time to find out who among them had enemy sympathies.
Again, this is all so very circular. We can’t have things both ways.
Jay Boo says
@Inchoate
Comment below / I forgot reply
Inchoate. says
RE:
“Florida: Judge blasts FBI for failing to produce records on Saudi family in touch with 9/11 hijackers that fled U.S. just before 9/11…”
Compare this with our, your, America of January of 1942. Nearby is posted also under “Inchoate” my amplification of our current politically correct insanity.
Jay Boo says
The propaganda war
As Ayaan Hirsi Ali noted ‘We must begin by calling things by their TRUE name.’
The ‘weight’ of Islam’s history and ideology leaves it very vulnerable in “The propaganda war” providing that it is revealed for what it is (Jiu Jitzu against jihad.)
Informers
Another area Islam is especially vulnerable is from within.
Islam does not just abuse infidels it also abuses some of its own. That is why Muslim leaders are so quick to cry out ‘Islamophobia’ when they suspect that they have been infiltrated themselves.
Banning Islam and (arresting imams who violate ban)
Many Muslims are victims of Islam and I can’t agree with the last option mentioned but I see no problem with making Islam illegal. and fining people with TAX if they submit to Islamic cult behavior.
Since Muslim leaders seem to have no problem with The Saudi approach they should have no reason to complain if Islam is banned.
richard Sherman says
People must be reminded that Muslims revere the SOCIOPATH MUHAMMAD WHO PERSONALLY DECAPITATED 900 UNARMED JEWS…and that the foundational antisemitism of Islam is identical to National Socialism…..and that MUHAMMAD’s slaughter of the JEWS is identical to Eichmann, Heydrich and Mengele..
Richard Sherman says
First people must constantly be reminded that Muslims revere a sociopath named Muhammad who personally decapitated 900 unarmed Jews…no different that Mengele , Eichmann or Heydrich…Remind people that the fascism of Islam and National Socialism are identical and that virulent. Antisemitism is foundational to both.
Jay Boo says
Jews have more right to claim Medina than Muslim’s to claim Jerusalem.
Violence in God’s name is done without shame.
Where do Muslims get such vile ideas?
Kill non-Muslims – Surahs 8:39, 8:65, & 9:5
Pillage, destroy, rape, and adultery of non-Muslims – Surahs 8:69, & 4.24
Attack & Extort tax on non-Muslims – Surah 9:29
Persecute non-Muslims – Surah 48:29
Hold hostages for ransom – Surah 8:67
elisheva14 says
It is amazing: that 13 years later there is a judge interested in this. Are there still honest judges who haven’t joined the majority of asleep people. The is no doubt the Saudi’s were supporting Jihad worldwide. Yet Obama goes and bows to them and is afraid to mention their human rights abuses. Bush was another enabler. We are in deep trouble. Our leaders are in bed with the criminals. We no longer have a democracy.
Leith Wood says
The FBI and other institutions in America have been compromised since 2008. Bless the judge for doing his job and staying on top of it. Why would Mohammed Atta and some of the other terrorists be having telephone conversations with the family in the house in Sarasota, before they fled home to Arabia? Our freedoms in America are being taken away. We must take them back by voting wisely and standing up for our Constitutional rights. The government works for the people, not the other way around!
Leith Wood says
They referred to the family in the house fleeing back to Arabia. Sorry
Gudrun Eussner says
Osama bin Laden – Die verbotene Wahrheit. Das Schicksal des FBI-Beamten John O´Neill. Artikel vom 21. November 2001 (in German)
http://www.eussner.net/artikel_2004-07-14_20-10-37.html
Jean-Charles Brisard et Guillaume Dasquié: “La Vérité interdite” Editions Denoël
Bamaguje says
“The agency initially refused to search for the family’s names, claiming that would result in an invasion of privacy” – Sarosta Herald Tribune.
Ridiculous!! Utterly ridiculous!
Nearly 3000 innocent souls perished on 9/11 at the hands of murderous Jihadists, and the FBI is worried about the “privacy” of Jihadi suspects?