THOUGHT BOMB: Would wikileaks have prevented 9/11? #yes

Amazing story…. and an important discussion without an easy answer.

Thoughts?

“If WikiLeaks had been around in 2001, could the events of9/11 have
been prevented? The idea is worth considering.

The organization has drawn both high praise and searing criticism for
its mission of publishing leaked documents without revealing their
source, but we suspect the world hasn’t yet fully seen its potential.
Let us explain.

There were a lot of us in the run-up to Sept. 11 who had seen warning
signs that something devastating might be in the planning stages. But
we worked for ossified bureaucracies incapable of acting quickly and
decisively. Lately, the two of us have been wondering how things might
have been different if there had been a quick, confidential way to get
information out.

One of us, Coleen Rowley, was a special agent/legal counsel at the
FBI’s Minneapolis division and worked closely with those who arrested
would-be terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui on an immigration violation less
than a month before the World Trade Center was destroyed.

Following up on a tip from flight school instructors who had become
suspicious of the French Moroccan who claimed to want to fly a jet as
an “ego boost,” Special Agent Harry Samit and an INS colleague had
detained Moussaoui. A foreign intelligence service promptly reported
that he had connections with a foreign terrorist group, but FBI
officials in Washington inexplicably turned down Samit’s request for
authority to search Moussaoui’s laptop computer and personal effects.

Those same officials stonewalled Samit’s supervisor, who pleaded with
them in late August 2001 that he was “trying to keep someone from
taking a plane and crashing into the World Trade Center.” (Yes, he was
that explicit.) Later, testifying at Moussaoui’s trial, Samit
testified that he believed the behavior of his FBI superiors in
Washington constituted “criminal negligence.”

The 9/11 Commission ultimately concluded that Moussaoui was most
likely being primed as a Sept. 11 replacement pilot and that the
hijackers probably would have postponed their strike if information
about his arrest had been announced. ”

more:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rowley-wikileaks-2010101…