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Pentagon Whistle Blower Charged with Stealing Pens

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posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 10:44 AM
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'Able Danger' Officer's Clearance Revoked


An officer who has claimed that a classified military unit identified four Sept. 11 hijackers before the 2001 attacks is facing Pentagon accusations of breaking numerous rules, allegations his lawyer suggests are aimed at undermining his credibility.

The alleged infractions by Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, 42, include obtaining a service medal under false pretenses, improperly flashing military identification while drunk and stealing pens, according to military paperwork shown by his attorney to The Associated Press.

Shaffer was one of the first to publicly link Sept. 11 leader Mohamed Atta to the unit code-named Able Danger. Shaffer was one of five witnesses the Pentagon ordered not to appear Sept. 21 before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the unit's findings.

The military revoked Shaffer's top security clearance this month, a day before he was supposed to testify to a congressional committee.

Mark Zaid, Shaffer's attorney, said the Pentagon started looking into Shaffer's security clearance about the time in 2003 he met in Afghanistan with staff members of the bipartisan commission that studied the Sept. 11 attacks and told them about Able Danger.

Zaid said he can't prove the Pentagon went after Shaffer because he's a whistleblower, but "all the timing associated with the clearance issue has been suspiciously coincidental."


Move along now. No cover up here. The guy stole pens!!! Come on. Lock him up already Rummy.


No really, the neocon house of cards is falling APART before our very eyes this week. Conservative blogger (VOT) for the defense on stealing pens versus America's stolen integrity.

We should not have to wait until 2006 to clean house. Really, this is just a comedy at this point. What happened here?

[edit on 30-9-2005 by RANT]



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 10:56 AM
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I agree in spirit, but if you truly believe this can be blamed on one political party, I think I have lost a great deal of respect for someone I believed to be a very intelligent poster with a sharp, analytical mind.

The problems this and related stories point out are (or should be) undeniable, but thinking that one party is to blame is naive. Anyone with enough brains to not swallow all the political BS being tossed around these days should also have enough brains to figure out that it is the whole political machine that is corrupt, not one party or the other.

Of course, I'm just a stupid newbie, what the hell do I know....right?



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 11:00 AM
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This Able Danger officer has been under attack ever since he declared the 9-11 commission was full of it. He went forward saying they had tried to get Atta arrested in 1998, I believe, but the current administration would not allow them to contact law enforcement. He and several comrades, after being dismissed by the 9-11 commission as not holding as much weight as the testimony of a single terrorist (after all, these guys were only highly trained operatives whose principle goal was to track down terrorists; a terrorist has far, far more credibility than they do), went to the press with their story.

Naturally, the response was swift. Was an inquiry opened to find out why the 9-11 commission's story changed 5 times on the information Able Danger had presented after the report had been written? Was an inquiry opened to discover how this could have been missed? No, an inquiry was opened on Able Danger. Demands were made to know everything there was to know about these guys.

And now they're being accused of stealing pens. If you can't fight them fairly, press legal charges against them. We're seeing a lot of this lately, it seems.



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 11:02 AM
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Rant surely the evidence exists that he also defaced governement property by scribbling on governement paper to make sure the stolen pens worked. He may have have left his exe's name on the men's room wall in the pentagon as well.

I'm betting the pen is the tip of the theft......he got markers, paper clips, staples, maybe a whole ream of computer paper!

Ooooooooooh. He's a Big Bad criminal!



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 11:07 AM
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Didn't Bush come into office in 2000? So if he wanted Atta arrested in 1998, how could the current administration want to put a stop to it?



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 11:08 AM
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"all the timing associated with the clearance issue has been suspiciously coincidental."


Isn't it interesting how there is so much 'coincidental timing' in government and military actions going back quite a ways now.

There's Bunantine Greenhouse, for instance.

Halliburton Critic Demoted by Army

Her performance just happened to go from first to worst after a twenty year career when she started questioning Halliburton and Co.s lucrative, uncontested awards. I guess it was no-bidness of hers, and she was offered retirement or a ridiculous demotion. And the list goes on.

Brownie, on the other hand, doinks it bigtime with the Katrina response and gets kept on as a consultant, of all things. Either they are going to ask him how not to handle things, or they need a disaster plan for equestrian events and he has the track record.

I think the house cleaning is starting now, with the legal issues facing prominent politicians, and will be in full swing by 2006. Maybe then we can get some true reformers into office who won't end up needing reformation themselves a few years later.

Moral Majority, Silent Majority, how about Fed-up Majority?



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 11:14 AM
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Originally posted by Jaryn
Of course, I'm just a stupid newbie, what the hell do I know....right?


No, no, you're right in the sense I may not always be clear in my labored terminology or all the things I see and hear running around in my head.

I don't throw around the term "neocon" lightly though and never use it to refer to an entire party, but when it comes to these people left over from the Nixon era that effectively ran the world into the ground in 5 short years and are currently imploding all around us, I simply don't know what else to call them.



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 11:17 AM
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I really hope this is picked up by all news outlets and brought out in the spotlight. The timing of this is to conicadental. The Pentagon is being extremely petty over things which happens so long ago.

And now since the '9/11 commission' has dismissed these charges, which were backed by other high ranking individuals, goes to show that the commission was a total farce.

This is so pathetic of our country.



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 11:24 AM
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Originally posted by Zaphod58
Didn't Bush come into office in 2000? So if he wanted Atta arrested in 1998, how could the current administration want to put a stop to it?


Yep.



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 11:26 AM
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In matters such as these there is always the argument that the current government is not to blame as they were not in power at the time. The same happens in the UK too as the blame bounces around.

However, irrespective of whatever political party was actually running the country at the time such events took place, there are always the career politicians and senior statesmen/advisors/civil servants who are always there in the background and know what is going on.
These people are the real power brokers and wheeler-dealers behind any government, although they are usually unelected and overlooked in the day to day political reporting.

So, it's no good just blaming Clinton or Bush for any coverups of something that happened on their watch, the whole political structure is at fault.



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 11:31 AM
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Originally posted by RANT

I don't throw around the term "neocon" lightly though and never use it to refer to an entire party, but when it comes to these people left over from the Nixon era that effectively ran the world into the ground in 5 short years and are currently imploding all around us, I simply don't know what else to call them.


yep, we are talking about a specific group that seems to have infested the area surrounding the white house since Nixon, and then added to during the reagon years...
and surprise... With the election of the prodigal son, we see an encore performance from the likes of rumsfeld, ashcroft, Rove, Saddam, OBL, Baker, and many other leading cast of scalliwags...
We thought we had seen the last of them during the Reagon/Bush years... but they, like the rest of the zombified voodoo economics crew, just keep tickin...

and thanks for the word up on whether able danger was true...
attack on the whistleblower is proof in my eyes everytime... maybe they will start leaving the truth tellers alone now...

[edit on 30-9-2005 by LazarusTheLong]



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 11:59 AM
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Originally posted by RANT

Originally posted by Jaryn
Of course, I'm just a stupid newbie, what the hell do I know....right?


No, no, you're right in the sense I may not always be clear in my labored terminology or all the things I see and hear running around in my head.

I don't throw around the term "neocon" lightly though and never use it to refer to an entire party, but when it comes to these people left over from the Nixon era that effectively ran the world into the ground in 5 short years and are currently imploding all around us, I simply don't know what else to call them.


My faith is restored!


I agree with you and the others that there are plenty of people in the government (not necessarily elected) that have only themselves and their 'peers' in mind with everything they do. I see these people as representing the government 'of the government, for the governement and by the government' with no concern for the people.

I think placing the begginings of this mindset at the Nixon era is a bit too limiting, but otherwise I think we are in agreement.



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 05:00 PM
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Originally posted by junglejake

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Didn't Bush come into office in 2000? So if he wanted Atta arrested in 1998, how could the current administration want to put a stop to it?


Yep.


I see where you guys are coming from now. I accidentally just stumbled on the alternate universe myself, where Rumsfeld is responsible for nothing, the Clintons run the world and still pull all the strings in the Pentagon.


Where is Rumsfeld on this? If the Republicans cant protect this guy who can we protect, Obviously no one. The Clintonites in the Pentagon are still running things and Bush is standing there with his thumb up his butt. He let Bubb a go with no prosecutions he let Gorelick off the hook and now he turns his back on this man.




Have to say I like this guy already though.



It's been five years since Clinton was in office. We have nobody to blame but the losers that we worked so hard to hand the entire government over to.


Smell the reality creeping in.



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 05:29 PM
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me and my co workers steal pens all the time... accidentally of course and i've even brought them back...
No biggie though, they get filled back up again.

these dudes are desperate now eh, charging people with petty theft that i'm sure was accidental,perhaps the story will unfold eventually into something like;

the whistleblower wouldn't of had to have blown any whistle if he wouldn't of even picked up a pen in the first place to get his work done.

But he did and now we're going to charge him for doing his job!



posted on Sep, 30 2005 @ 06:57 PM
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I'm not going to make the absurd statement that this has nothing to do with the Pentagon nailing this guy's balls to the wall. But it's interesting to me how you only focus on the lesser charge of stealing office supplies, while completely ignoring the charge of "obtaining a service medal under false pretenses." If that is true, and they're not just setting him up, then it's a serious offense. I don't care what this guy knows or what his claims are, but obtaining a service medal under false pretenses is about as low as one can get. That, of course, is assuming that it's a legitimate charge which can be followed up with some actual evidence.

However, I feel that the fact that he is a whistleblower and has revealed information which is sensative and/or classified, then his security clearance should certainly be revoked regardless of him stuffing Bic pens into his pockets. I do applaud him for coming forward but I think it is justified for the Pentagon to remove his security clearance at this time. He shouldn't lose his job, have a decrease in pay or benefits, or be assigned to an insulting position, though. Unless he did lie to get a medal. Then they should can him and he can come foward and talk all he wants about Able Danger and how he alleges he wanted Atta arrested in 1998.

Knowing how our government has spent $500 (I think that was the price, maybe more) on a simple toilet seat leads me to believe that the pens which he stole could be worth thousands of dollars! Our tax dollars at work...




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