IN August 2001, Zacarias Moussaoui the would be hijacker was arrested. He had a laptop computer, two knives, 747 flight manuals, a flight simulator computer program, fighting gloves and shin guards, and a computer disk with information about crop dusting. An FBI agent Mr Harry Samit who interrogated the Zacarias wanted to investigate the laptop and sent 70 emails in one weekand FBI agent Coleen Rowley made an explicit request for permission to search Moussaoui's personal rooms. These requests were first denied by her superior, Deputy General Counsel Marion "Spike" Bowman, and later rejected based upon FISA regulations (amended after 9/11 by the USA Patriot Act). Several further search attempts similarly failed.
This is from a statement given by Gus Hosein Visiting Fellow, Department of Information Systems, the London School of Economics and Political Science and Senior Fellow, to the the OSCE Mediterranean Seminar 2002 titled "An Academic's Response to The Media and New Technologies: Implications for Civil Society".
"Trend I: Increased International Co-operation in Criminal and Terrorism Matters
The issues surrounding jurisdiction and globalisation are confusing and sometimes quite constrictive to governments and other actors. A solution is to foster and generate co-operative regimes and structures. Sometimes this co-operation occurs under Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties, other times it occurs under quasi-rules; either way problems may arise. There are two examples of international co-operation conundrums.
The first involved Zacharias Moussaoui, the suspected 20th hijacker. When the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested him in August 2001 on a visa violation, the FBI found that Moussaoui also had a laptop computer. According to congressional testimony, the FBI agents believed erroneously that existing law would not permit them to gain access to the data on the laptop. As a result they devised a plan to send Moussaoui to France where French officials could gain access more readily to the computer and send the information back to the U.S. for review. In this sense, the FBI was planning to circumvent its perception of U.S. law by using international co-operation through France."
The guy does not say when this happened. Most probably after September 11th.
And from this article you can see that the laptop contained information concerning crop spraying, may be to put the investigations off track on bio terrorism.
"At the time of his arrest FBI agents found flight manuals for the Boeing 747-400, a flight-simulator computer program, binoculars, two knives, fighting shields and a laptop computer. They later learned that French intelligence officials suspected Moussaoui of involvement with Islamic extremists. The FBI team applied to Washington for a special warrant to go into Moussaoui’s computer but were turned down: as it turned out, a disc contained information about spraying pesticide from a plane. “All I can tell you is that the agents on the scene attempted to follow up aggressively,” FBI director Robert Mueller said this week. “The attorneys back at the FBI determined that there was insufficient probable cause for a [warrant], which appears to be an accurate decision. And September 11 happened.”
In the aftermath, investigators turned up still more bits of evidence. Moussaoui, they say, was carrying the phone number in Dusseldorf, Germany, assigned to Ramzi bin al-Shibh. Al-Shibh, now a fugitive, is allegedly a member of the Hamburg Al Qaeda cell that also included Mohammed Atta, who flew American Flight 11 into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Al-Shibh served as a financial coordinator for the conspiracy, the Feds say, and in early August sent $14,000 in two wire transfers to Moussaoui, who was evidently using some of the cash to enroll at Pan Am."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
