Sometimes stuff swept under the carpet makes its way out no matter how hard the broom is wielded, and so it is with Able Danger, the pre 9/11 program on data mining which popped back in the news when we learned that the Department of Defense had bought and destroyed almost 10,000 copies of a book which described the program. Andrew McCarthy writes on NRO:Five years ago, I called for an investigation of "Able Danger" and the 9/11 Commission. Able Danger was a military intelligence program members of which have stated that the program identified Mohammed Atta (and perhaps other 9/11 hijackers) long before the 9/11 attacks - directly contradicting the 9/11 Commission's conclusion that the government was unaware of Atta before he struck. The 9/11 Commission knew about Able Danger but did not include any information about it from the commission's ballyhooed Final Report. The Defense Department, meanwhile, purged goo-gobs of Able Danger documents. The whole thing was...(Read Full Post)