The U.S. says it is close to capturing alleged al Qaeda leader al Zarqawi.

He is believed to have been in a car that was stopped in February. His laptop was seized but he got away.

A February raid by a covert US military unit came so close to Zarqawi that he fled from the vehicle in which he was traveling on foot, leaving his computer behind, say government sources.

How did he run away with only one leg?

Al-Zarqawi is then believed to have fled to Iraq in 2001 after losing a leg in a US missile strike on his Afghan base.

Some other times Zarqawi has been close to capture:

• March 28, 2005
• June, 2004

The feds have arrested Haji Bashir Noorzai, a reputed Afghan heroin kingpin who allegedly did business with the Taliban.

Noorzai had an ``unholy alliance'' with deposed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, trading drugs and weapons for protection of his operation, [U.S. Attorney David] Kelley said. Last June President George W. Bush described Noorzai as a ``drug kingpin'' under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, which targets individuals who pose ``a threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States,'' Kelley said.

Soundbite of the day - designed to stick in a juror's mind:

John Gilbride, special agent in charge of the New York office of the DEA, called Noorzai the ``Pablo Escobar of heroin trafficking in Asia,'' referring to the former leader of Colombia's Medellin cocaine cartel. Escobar died in 1993.

What is it with wacky women writers named Annie? Remember Annie Jacobsen, the business writer on Northwest Flight 327 in June, 2004 who got hysterical over seeing 14 Syrian men and went on national tv to say they were terrorists out doing a dry run? Even after she was told by air marshals the men had been hired as musicians to play at a casino in the desert and had return flights on Jet Blue, she didn't let it drop. She turned it into a regular series.

Via Memeorandum, we learn she's back, with her 13th column about the flight. This one has details about a recent visit she says she got from Homeland Security agents. Details, she says, of facts never before released. Like that Mohammad Attah was on actor James Wood's much publicized flight from Boston to LAX in August, 2001 [note: Wood's account, as told to Bill O'Reilly, is here.] Jacobsen writes:

by TChris

As TalkLeft noted here, the State Department, having issued a misleading report last year concerning worldwide terrorist attacks, decided not to release the statistics this year. Rep. Henry Waxman has written to State Department Acting Inspector General Cameron Hume, complaining that the State Department is denying "public access to important information about the incidence of terrorism." Waxman wonders whether the Bush administration is releasing information selectively, and asked the IG whether the State Department's decision was based on politics.

"There appears to be a pattern in the administration's approach to terrorism data: favorable facts are revealed while unfavorable facts are suppressed," Waxman wrote. "This is wrong," he added. "Regardless of whether disclosure of the terrorism data is in the political interests of the White House, the public has a right to know basic facts about the number of attacks launched by terrorists in 2004."

Waxman isn't alone in recognizing the administation's pattern of concealing data that doesn't support its warped perception of reality. The State Department claims that the data will be released by the National Counterterrorism Center, but that seems to be news to the NCTC. The CIA, speaking on behalf of the newly formed NCTC, said "no decisions had been made on whether to release the data."

by TChris

Can the Transportation Security Administration protect us from terrorists when it can't protect itself from its own employees? TSA employees have been on a spending spree, wasting money that should be spent to enhance security. One of the worst offenders "spent $500,000 on art, silk plants and other decorations for a new operations center and then went to work for the vendor after leaving the agency."

The inspector general found that the project manager and other TSA employees routinely violated agency policies to buy furniture, leather briefcases, coffee pots and other items. They concealed purchases of more than $2,500, including one for $47,449, by splitting them into several credit card transactions, the report said.

TSA employees built themselves a nice fitness center and outfitted their offices with cable tv's. The president thought it would be detrimental to national security to provide TSA employees with the job protections that apply to most federal employees, but the real detriment to security comes from the diversion of funds to unauthorized or unnecessary purchases.

Who, in the Bush administration, will be held accountable? Anyone?

by TChris

The good news: right wing organizations that foment domestic terrorism are "in disarray."

The number of militia groups in the country has dropped from 858 in 1996 to 152 in 2004, according to a count by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups. The charismatic leaders of two of the most prominent white supremacist groups in the United States have died in recent years and others are in jail, leaving a vacuum in leadership.

The bad news: disarray among organized "hate groups" doesn't stop right wing lunatics from speading hatred and violence on their own.

by TChris

The State Department seems to have a new philosophy: if you can't do the job right, don't do it at all.

The State Department said on Monday it will stop releasing annual statistics on terrorism deaths after officials botched last year's count, leaving the intelligence community to publish and explain the data.

TalkLeft discussed last year's misleading report here.

The National Counterterrorism Center is now tasked with compiling and releasing the data. When it will do so is unknown.

Critics suggested the State Department might be removing the data from its terrorism report because they could show a rise in attacks and deaths and raise questions about the Bush administration's claims to be winning the war on terrorism.

Once again, it appears Congress didn't do its homework. Buried in the recently passed Intelligence Reform Bill, is a provision that paves the way for the Government to ask for millions of international bank records.

The initiative, as conceived by a working group within the Treasury Department, would vastly expand the government's database of financial transactions by gaining access to logs of international wire transfers into and out of American banks.

Government officials said in interviews that the effort, which grew out of a brief, little-noticed provision in the intelligence reform bill passed by Congress in December, would give them the tools to track leads on specific suspects and, more broadly, to analyze patterns in terrorist financing and other financial crimes.

What is this provision?

The provision authorized the Treasury Department to pursue regulations requiring financial institutions to turn over "certain cross-border electronic transmittals of funds" that may be needed in combating money laundering and terrorist financing.

by TChris

Is the Transportation Security Administration doomed?

The TSA has been plagued by operational missteps, public relations blunders and criticism of its performance from the public and legislators. Its "No Fly" list has mistakenly snared senators. Its security screeners have been arrested for stealing from luggage, and its passenger pat-downs have set off an outcry from women.

A proposal to reorganize the Department of Homeland Security may limit the function of the TSA to airport security screening -- a function that private industry would like to perform instead.

It was like pulling teeth, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally admitted Tuesday at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the FBI used sneak and peek search warrants authorized by the Patriot Act in investigating Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield.

Gonzales at first denied the FBI used the Patriot Act while investigating Mayfield. "Senator, I think we have said publicly -- if not, I guess I'm saying it publicly -- that the Patriot Act was not used in connection with the Brandon Mayfield case,'' he told Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

But later, after Feinstein asked him a different question, Gonzales corrected himself: "You asked me specifically about the Mayfield case and I'm advised that there were certain provisions of the Patriot Act that apparently were used,'' he said.

In a move that likely will have a large, negative effect on tourism, the Bush Administration announced new rules today that will require Americans to have a passport if they want to re-enter the U.S. from Canada, Mexico, or the Carribean. The new program is the "Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative."

[I]t will require U.S. citizens to show a passport to re-enter the U.S. from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and Panama. Canadian citizens will also have to show their passport to enter the U.S.

According to the State Department, a passport or other accepted travel document will be required starting December 31, 2005 for air and sea travel to or from the Caribbean, Bermuda, Central and South America. The documents will be required for all air and sea travel to or from Mexico and Canada starting December 31, 2006. Starting December 31, 2007, the documents will be required for all air, sea, and land border crossings.

Passports now cost $97 for people over 16 and take six to eight weeks to arrive. The State Deparment is contemplating additional "papers" that will be acceptable in the future:

by TChris

One of the more obnoxious devices enshrined in the Patriot Act is its expansion of authority to conduct "sneak-and-peek" searches. A law enforcement agent conducting a typical "sneak-and-peek" enters a dwelling surreptitiously, snoops around, and leaves without ever notifying the resident that a search has occurred. The Justice Department wants you to believe that it rarely uses the powers conveyed by the Patriot Act, including sneak-and-peeks, but that just isn't true.

Disclosure of a 75 percent increase in secret wiretaps and ”sneak and peek” searches since 2000 is likely to provide ammunition for civil liberties groups determined to modify the USA Patriot Act when Congress begins two months of debate on the law Tuesday.