Earlier this evening, I was able to participate in a conference call with Mark Zaid, the attorney representing Lt. Colonel Tony Shaffer in his dispute with the DIA in the Able Danger controversy. Joining in the call were the group of bloggers that has kept the fire burning on this key element in our failure to discover the al-Qaeda terrorists in our midst before they successfully staged the 9/11 attacks:

Mark Coffey of Decision ‘08

Mike of Able Danger Blog

QT Monster

Rory O’Connor

Pierre from Pink Flamingo Bar & Grill

Bluto from Jawa Report and The Dread Pundit Bluto

AJ Strata already posted a good review of the conversation with Zaid over the Congressional hearings this past week, after Shaffer finally got an opportunity to speak publicly about the Able Danger program. The hearings fell rather flat, despite Rep. Curt Weldon's best efforts. The press has lost interest in covering the program that apparently put lie to the notion that the intelligence community had no idea of the threat profile of AQ in the US before the attacks.

As Zaid points out, the lack of press almost certainly results from the committee members themselves; the only thing that Republicans and Democrats have in common these days is a desire to push Able Danger out of sight. The FBI also appears to have gotten the same disease as the two parties. The FBI, which once acknowledged that several attempts occurred to have meetings between its agents and the Able Danger team now denies that any such contacts occurred.

I have not performed much better, to be fair. Other issues have pushed Able Danger off of my radar screen, and even Zaid noted that no explosive developments have arisen from the story in weeks. Nonetheless, the above bloggers have done an excellent job in maintaining some interest in the story. The conference call gave me an opprortunity to pick the thread back up and start pressing Congress for more hearings. Zaid thinks that three or four more committees may conduct hearings on the matter, and the DoD Inspector General is expected to issue a report on AD sometime in May. Zaid believes that an unclassified summary will be part of that, but if it isn't, he will take action to get a declassified summary released.

Shaffer and the rest of Zaid's Able Danger clients can use some donations to their legal fund. Those donations can be sent to:

Mark S. Zaid, Esq.
Krieger & Zaid, PLLC
1920 N Street, N.W.
Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036

Zaid is deep into out-of-pocket territory on this case, and the men who risked their careers to make sure that the entire story of American intelligence efforts to combat AQ before 9/11can use your support.

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