Remembering 9/11 – Peter A. Gay

This blog entry is part of the Project 2996 initiative to remember the victims of September 11th.  It will be a placeholder until a fitting tribute page can be assembled.

September 11, 2001 changed the lives of countless people in the U.S. and around the world. That beautiful sunny Tuesday started out normal for most of us. We drove to work admiring the cloudless fall day in the northeast and went about our business. The same holds true for all the innocent people boarding the jets in Boston and Virginia that would ultimately be taking over by homicidal radicals and used as missiles against symbols of our nation’s economy, military, and government. Thousands of innocent lives were lost that day and today we pay tribute to each of them and assure they will never be forgotten.

Peter A. Gay was 54 years old on that fateful day. He was married and the father of two sons and a daughter. He was also a brother, son, son-in-law, brother-in-law, friend, colleague and leader. Besides being a wonderful family man, Peter loved to run, fish, boat, and was a well respected and admired leader at a major defense contractor where he worked from the time he got out of college.

There are several tributes for Peter that were already done, so I’ll ask that you visit the links below to see what a great man Peter was:

http://www.legacy.com/Sept11/Story.aspx?PersonID=91796

http://www.southofboston.net/specialreports/sept11anniv/pages/remember_1.shtm

http://www.wickedlocal.com/taunton/news/x289109198/Logan-memorial-honors-victims

Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” – words that have been attributed to Thomas Jefferson. Two centuries later, Gen. Douglas MacArthur stated “no man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.” We often hear these words paraphrased during times of great challenge (e.g., 9/11), but the attention level is often too short and the message is sometimes completely lost.

Today, the economy is in crisis and it’s easy to allow it to monopolize the news and all of our efforts, but we still have a persistent cyber and physical threat that can not be left unattended.

In many contact sports, it’s not a good strategy to go in thinking you are going to deliver a knockout punch or a submission hold to win right away. You need to break down your opponent’s defenses, hurt him, then go for the knockout or submission.

The economic crisis has broken down our “defenses”. We are down and hurt, but far from out; however, our enemies are seeing an opportunity. They know they can’t deliver the one shot knockout or submission – they tried and failed on 9/11, but if we are already hurt, they have a better chance at coming in for that shot or two and getting closer to a victory.

Maybe it’s a coincidence that we are seeing increased provocation. Maybe it’s a strategy to see if America is still powerful enough (or willing) to keep the world’s troublemakers at bay. Regardless, there are threats that we can’t ignore. Iran has helped create and sustain crises in the Middle East while they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon. North Korea is preparing to take their next step in testing a long range missile and Venezuela and Russia continue to provoke us any way they possibly can.

We’ve often heard it’s not a matter of “if”, it’s “when”…I submit that it is also “who” is going to be the first to test us and see if we can handle another crisis.

We must take every threat as a clear and present danger or we will pay the price. None of us know what the next attack will be, but it will probably be something asymmetrical and we better be ready to respond with speed, agility and decisive fury.

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.  Sun Tzu – The Art of War

Middle East in Crisis (again) – Is Iran Preparing for Battle?

Originally I was going to write about what I believe are two of the most immediate and dangerous threats to America:  first, Africa due to  the many lawless hot spots that are harboring and training terrorists. It’s becoming Afghanistan on steroids and we need a clear strategy on dealing with the issues. The second threat is Mexico – not only because of illegal immigration, porous borders, etc., but because of the drug trafficking and brutal killing that has been occurring. Drug lords are decapitating victims, including children, and displaying their bodies to terrorize citizens. They’re also using other methods of torture and murder that I won’t describe here – you can research by googling “mexico drugs murders”. It’s disturbing and it’s carrying over to the U.S. and must be stopped.

While Africa and Mexico are still a clear and present danger, recent actions in the Middle East combined with the timing (U.S. POTUS transition) may be a warning shot that this particular crisis is about to escalate.

Iran has blood on its hands in nearly every conflict in the Middle East. They support Hezbollah, Hamas and several other terrorist organizations that provoke conflict at an opportune time that reduces pressure and attention toward their nuclear program and other covert activities. It appears that Iran is once again behind a terrorist proxy (Hamas) provoking Israel with missile strikes as they did with Hezbollah in 2006 , which led to the Israel/Lebanon war. Any kind of cease-fire or semblance of progress toward peace in the Middle East, along with success in Iraq, spells doom for Iran; however, when the world is focused on other crises, Iran can continue to work on their nuke program and be confident that international sanctions will be limited.

So, why not throw a few bucks at Hamas and order them to break the cease-fire and get things fired up again? At the same time, why not instigate and fund protests around the world to make it appear that the world is condemning Israel. Why would Iran do that? In addition to refocusing international attention, could it be that Iran is setting the stage for an attack on Israel in the very near future?

The Israeli response to Hamas breaking the cease-fire may have been unexpected and the nominal reactions from other Arab countries may have been disappointing to the Iranians, but Iran may have things in place to take the opportunity to launch an attack. With a fresh Israeli offensive, an agitated Arab/Muslim community, and a U.S. in government transition – this may be Iran’s chance to take on Israel.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to this, but not be surprised.

“The Constitution is not a Suicide Pact”

I said I would be writing about the PATRIOT Act in a future post, so here it is…

The attacks on September 11, 2001 exposed significant weaknesses in the United States’ intelligence apparatus and security controls. On October 26, 2001, the President signed the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act, which was intended to deter and punish terrorist attacks and enhance law enforcement investigation capabilities. The “PATRIOT Act” has been heralded by law enforcement agencies, but civil liberties organizations have described it as an assault on our Constitutional rights.

The PATRIOT Act was enacted to provide more investigative tools to law enforcement agencies and to close some of the gaps that allowed 19 Islamic extremists to hijack four commercial airliners and murder thousands of innocent human beings. Some of the capabilities that the PATRIOT Act provided are similar to tools being used to investigate organized crime and drug trafficking, including wiretaps. The Act also allows more flexibility for notification of search warrants, investigation of business records, facilitation of information sharing between agencies, and more severe penalties for terrorism crimes.

The PATRIOT Act has many features that have kept America safe since the 9/11 attacks. Dr. James Carafano highlights in his article “U.S. Thwarts 19 Terrorist Attacks Against America Since 9/11“, that, as the title implies, 19 terrorist plots that have been disrupted since September 11, 2001. This includes, most notably, Richard Reid, Jose Padilla, the Lackawanna Six, the Fort Dix Six, and the JFK airport plot. Arguably, some of these plots were interrupted by luck and a more vigilant public, but investigations went much smoother and information was shared much more effectively because of the PATRIOT Act provisions.

One of the most significant issues that limited our ability to prevent the attacks of 9/11 was “the wall” between intelligence agencies and even within agencies. Amy Zegart states in her book, Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11, that there were 23 opportunities to disrupt the 9/11 plot, but the organizational weaknesses in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency prevented any response to the threats. Specifically, the culture within the FBI allowed stovepipes to be formed where information never made it past the organization that discovered it. Some of these organizational boundaries were for good reason since the bureau was, in essence, a reactive organization that gathered information after an event and protected it so it could be used in trial. The FBI’s mission prior to 9/11 wasn’t to disrupt terrorist plots. Zegart also points out that protecting information vs. sharing and responding to a disaster vs. preventing one were two of the culture shifts that needed to occur in the FBI, CIA, and other agencies. The PATRIOT Act helped break down the intra and interagency walls by allowing information to be shared legally and it has improved greatly since the attacks at all levels. Further, the National Response Plan/Framework was developed to facilitate cooperation and has enabled the public and private sectors to effectively work together to prepare for and provide a unified national response to any hazard. Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISAC’s) have been set up to help share threat information to all the potential stakeholders and the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) provides and online collaborative environment to post unclassified intelligence to authorized users within the public and private sectors. Finally, the Act paved the way for the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), which has enabled agencies to share people, equipment, and most important, intelligence.

As previously mentioned, the PATRIOT Act allows for similar tools and tactics that have been successfully employed for investigating organized crime and drug trafficking. The Act allows Federal agents more freedom to use electronic surveillance to investigate many of the crimes associated with terrorism, including procurement of weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons, and financial transactions associated with terrorists and/or terrorist organizations. The Act also allows roving wiretaps to be conducted in order to better track terrorists who are capable of detecting and avoiding detection.

The Act addressed shortfalls in criminal law for terrorist offenses as well. Harboring of terrorists is a new offense that is more severe than a “conspiracy before the fact” charge, which is not applicable unless there was actually a crime. Other conspiracy offenses were upgraded as well to address the severity of the offenses, especially attacking critical infrastructure and interference with flight crews. The Act further addressed aging laws that did not account for 21st Century technology. While not solely for terrorist acts, the Act allows law enforcement to monitor and investigate hackers, which will be especially useful as terrorists yearn to use the Internet as a force multiplier and attack America virtually.

It’s evident that the PATRIOT Act has provided many benefits for law enforcement and prosecutors, but it does have some shortfalls. There are many opponents of the Act who feel it infringes on civil liberties. As we get further away from the events of 9/11, resistance to the Act is increasing. In fact, in 2001 the Act only had one dissent, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), and no amendments; however, in the reauthorization act of 2006, the PATRIOT Act was watered down with amendments and 9 Senators joined Senator Feingold in dissent. Some of these amendments include narrowing the scope of delayed notification search warrants, which in effect can unravel an investigation.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is one of the lead opponents of the PATRIOT Act. They suggest that the Act violates the First Amendment by authorizing investigations of American citizens for exercising their freedom of speech; Fourth Amendment by allowing foreign intelligence searches without probable cause; and Fifth Amendment by allowing indefinite incarceration and denying due process.

Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson once said “the Constitution is not a suicide pact” and his quote was the rallying cry for the changes needed to better protect the homeland, even if we had to yield some of our civil liberties. The changes came in the PATRIOT Act and law enforcement agencies are now better equipped to prevent, detect, and deter attacks on the homeland and have succeeded since September 11, 2001.

Terrorists are trying to get to us every day. They only have to be lucky once – we have to stop them every time. We must not be caught sleeping again and if we don’t enable our law enforcement and intelligence agencies with capabilities granted in the PATRIOT Act, we will give the terrorists another advantage.

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To Drill or not to Drill – That is the Question

After months of record oil prices that caused a lot of pain at the pump, we are finally seeing some relief, but don’t be fooled, we still have a problem.

According to the DoE, the top 5 oil producing countries are Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, China, and the United States. Twenty-five percent of the U.S. crude comes from offshore wells, but over 58% of our crude oil used in the U.S. comes from other countries.

Moreover, crude oil isn’t used only for gasoline. It’s used for fuel oil, jet fuel, diesel, liquid petroleum gases, lubricants, asphalt, and many other products.

While I fully agree we need to be more environmentally friendly and reduce our dependency on oil, our first goal must be to reduce our dependency on foreign oil (the 58% previously mentioned). It’s is just not logical to think that we will be able to wave a magic wand and reduce our >20 million barrel/day appetite.

Thus, the choice comes down whether we continue to get our oil from foreign countries and allowing it to impact our national security – or – we find/get more oil domestically.

Some will try to convince us that the oil offshore would take 10 years to hit the market and wouldn’t even make a difference. I bet Brazil said the same thing and now they are looking at 8 billion barrels offshore that will put them in the top 10 for oil producers!

I say let’s get crackin’. We have put this on the back burner for far too long and had we seriously looked at this problem over 10 years ago, we would have never had the problem we had.

Two things will happen if we allow offshore drilling: first, the markets will respond and realize that we are seriously going to attack this and prices will continue to fall. OPEC won’t even be able to control it at that point. Second, we will find ways to extract the oil much faster and safer and we will have the oil out in a few years not 10 years as opponents profess.

Drill here. Drill now. Don’t put off decisions until we go back up to over $100/barrell!

Life after 1/2009 – Forward or Backward in Homeland Security?

Despite the relentless and often shameful bashing of the Bush administration, one fact remains – we have not had another attack on the homeland since that terrible day in September, 2001. In fact, we have had over 19 plots disrupted since that time! This is not an accident or luck, it is because of the hard work and commitment of the great Americans in the DHS, FBI, CIA, and many other agencies. It’s also because of something called the PATRIOT Act, but that will be addressed in a future blog.

We are now a couple of months away from the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States. What happens after 20 January 2009 is anyone’s guess, but we must all commit to ensuring that we don’t weaken our defenses or hinder our law enforcement agencies. We must allow them to prevent and deter terrorists and their plots against the United States.

As Secretary Chertoff, Chief Paulison, Secretary Gates and others transition to their future and new leaders take the helm at DHS, FEMA, and DoD, we must push for continued forward momentum and not allow our country to be surprised again.

I’ll take this opportunity to thank those mentioned above and all the other Patriots who have helped us be better prepared and kept us safe for the past 7 years – THANK YOU – we appreciate your service and sacrifice!