THE FOIA WARS

FARRELL VS DOD VS BINGHAM VS DOJ
IN SEARCH OF THE HIDDEN VIDEOS
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/The Frustrating Fraud
December 17 2006

Enter Judicial Watch (JW), a conservative/libertarian grouping of lawyers who target government/judicial/legal corruption. They’ve been harsh on the Clintons and their various scandals, and were instrumental in House of Representatives impeachment efforts in the 1990s. But they have also proven willing to tackle the Bush administration to some extent – after all they’re supposed to be watchdogs. Representing FBI special agent Robert Wright, Judicial Watch charges pre 9/11 incompetence at the FBI’s counter-terrorism division (over both the Clinton and Bush years, from Freeh to Mueller). Most pointedly, they summed up that Wright “accuses the FBI of obstructing investigative efforts that might have prevented some of the September 11 attacks.” [1] Although it apparently wasn’t intended to such ends, the lawsuit has been used by many as evidence of a LIHOP theory of the attacks based in the dubious line that “softness” on “the Saudis” was to blame.

Now Judicial Watch is making moves towards pulling a leading leg from beneath the MIHOP no-plane-at-the-Pentagon crowd. In February 2006 they filed a lawsuit against Alberto Gonzales’ Justice Department to release some video of the attack captured by Pentagon cameras. They have also announced plans to sue the FBI to release the 84 videos from surrounding cameras seized and kept under wraps. “Our experience has been that whenever the government takes extraordinary measures to keep the lid on documents,” their announcement of intent read, “it is worth investigating.” [2] JW clarified they were seeking video release “in part to help put to rest conspiracy theories that a government drone or missile hit the Pentagon,” clearly something the government should be eager to cooperate with. [3] Earlier JW suits to this end had been denied, with the government saying they needed to keep the tapes secret on account of the pending trial of Zaccarias Moussaoui.

Whatever logic there may have been in that refusal, it fell flat after the trial’s conclusion in early May 2006. On May 16, Judicial Watch posted the first two videos handed over to them by the Justice Department - one of them is simply the video from the Pentagon's security cameras from which the five stills were extracted in 2002, and the video is no better than the stills. The other was from a camera just a few inches away at the same checkpoint, and equally worthless as evidence for either side. These were not much, but were hoped to be the first in a series of releases. [4] This was big news on May 16; JW President Tom Fitton was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly in his “Impact Segment:” Fitton explained “we wanted to help put to rest conspiracy theories out there that were suggesting that a cruise missile hit the Pentagon, that the government murdered the passengers on Flight 77, and other outrageous stuff. Just having the videos released is one more leg of the conspiracy theory that has been knocked out. This also reminds Americans of the evil we are facing.” [5] Fox News in general also ran the story [6] along with several wire services. Fitton was quoted in a May 16 CNN story as saying “we fought hard to obtain this video because we felt that it was very important to complete the public record with respect to the terrorist attacks of September 11.” [7]

Despite the watchdog group’s public relations coup, there is in fact some contention over who is responsible for these releases. Scott Bingham, administrator of the site Flight77.info, claims it was he, not Judicial Watch, that “forced the release of the recent flight 77 video.” He pointed to his FOIA lawsuit, Scott Bingham vs. DoJ et al., with Bingham posting letters sent to the DoJ and responses sent to his attorney Scott Hode. The reason for the request was summed up by the department: “tired of what plaintiff’s complaint calls “outlandish conspiracy theories” about the crash […] plaintiff seeks to correct what he describes as a veritable culture of misinformation.” Their opinion, issued August 1 2005, was that “this information should not be released until the risk to the Moussaoui prosecution has passed. Defendant therefore seeks summary judgment in favor of its assertion of Exepmtion 7(A) and dismissal of plaintiff’s lawsuit with prejudice.” [8] Perhaps it’s no coincidence, but unlike JW, Bingham is a 9/11 Truther, just one fed up with the Fraudsters. He seems to believe neither Loose Change nor the government.

The judge agreed to the exemption and and blocked the release, but as the Moussaoui case was decided, on May 5, Judge Friedman set a deadline date of May 26th, giving the government three weeks to either let the videos go or “show cause” to hold them longer. Bingham explains it was this date, not JW’s actions, that got them released in May. [9] According to a timeline of all this litigation, Bingham was indeed well ahead of JW. (thanks to Jim Hoffman at 9-11 Research for compiling this). It was back on October 14, 2004 that Scott Hodes, on behalf of Bingham, sent a Freedom of Information Act request to David Hardy of the FBI for any videos “that may have captured the impact of Flight 77 into the Pentagon.” On November 3: The FBI replies that their search “revealed no record responsive to your FOIA request,” and on the 17th Hodes appealed, citing evidence that the videotapes indeed did exist. [10]

Finally on December 15 Judicial Watch’s Director of Investigations & Research Chris Farrrell first asks for the same videos. Farrell’s request bypassed the DoJ and instead was put on a fast track via the Defense Department, though the request covered files from the FBI and Homeland Security as well. Both Hodes and Farrell received early-2005 responses that the evidence needed to be kept secret to protect ongoing legal cases. On September 9, 2005, a FBI Counterterrorism special agent filed a declaration admitting to 85 videotapes in the FBI's possession that were “potentially responsive” to Hodes’ and Bingham’s request; the agent further declared that she watched 29 of them before she found one that actually showed the impact. On September 26, Hodes filed a request seeking all 85 videos. [11]

On February 22, 2006 Judicial Watch filed a further lawsuit against the DoD for its refusal to release the videos, and on May 16 they finally obtained them, although the actual handover was by the Justice Department. They immediately posted the clips on the Judicial Watch website. Hoffman noted “the site is down for about half of the day due to demand” for the brand new footage. The high-profile lawyers thus were able to break the story first despite entering the race late and thus eclipsed Bingham and his site which, unlike JW, seeks to prove a MIHOP scenario with remote controlled airliners. It seems possible Rumsfeld and his lawyers helped JW steal Bingham’s thunder by approving the video first to Farrell - indicating that their days of letting secrecy feed the wing nuts were perhaps nearing an end.

Disc sent by Hardy at FBI to Hodes and Bingham, 3/16/06

Yet back on March 16, exactly two months earlier, David M. Hardy, section Chief of Records/Information dissemination at the FBI sent Hodes a disc with the same two time lapse videos later received by JW, labeled with a fancy cursive font “Flight 77 CD-ROM”. Bingham seems not to have posted them at this time – or if he did it seemed to generate no buzz. The first news my internet searches are showing was on and after May 16. On the 17th, Alex Jones’ Infowars site did a piece on the videos that mentioned the Bingham case, but this seems to be the biggest story on Bingham’s pivotal role, which remains absent from the mainstream news.

sources:
[1] Klayman, Larry, Chairman, Judicial Watch Schippers, David, Counsel, Schippers and Bailey, Judicial Watch. Wright, Robert, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Judicial Watch News Conference: FBI Whistle-Blower.” May 30 2002. National Press Club, Washington, D.C. http://www.infowars.com/jw_transcript.htm
[2] Judicial Watch Files Lawsuit Against Defense Department for Withholding Video of 9/11 Attack on PentagonDOD has "no legal basis" to refuse release of videotapeMarch 1 2006http://www.judicialwatch.org/5724.shtml
[3] See [2].
[4] “First video of Pentagon 9/11 attack released: Watchdog group says video will end 'conspiracy theories.'” CNN. May 16, 2006. http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/16/pentagon.video/index.html
[5] The O’Reilly Factor Flash. Tuesday, May 16 2006. http://www.billoreilly.com/show?action=viewTVShow&showID=807
[6] "Pentagon releases video of plane Hitting Building on 9/11" Fox News. May 16 2006. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195702,00.html (Conspiracy theorists may or may not be disappointed Tuesday when they see footage released from the Pentagon showing two angles of American Flight 77 hitting the western wall of the building on Sept. 11, 2001...)
[7] See [4].
[8] Case 1:05-cv-00475-PLF Document 13 page 5 of 23. Filed 08/01/05. Accessed November 8 2006 at: http://www.flight77.info/documents.htm
[9] Accessed November 8 2006 at: www.flight77.info
[10] Hoffman, Jim. “Pentagon Attack Footage: The Suppression of Video Footage of the Pentagon Attack.” http://911research.wtc7.net/pentagon/evidence/footage.html
[11] See [10].
[12] See [10].
[13] Accessed November 8 2006 at: www.flight77.info
[14] Watson, Steve. “FBI Withholding 84 More Tapes of Pentagon on 9/11: Magically Only 1 shows impact so why not release the rest?” Infowars. May 17 2006. http://infowars.net/articles/may2006/170506Pentagon_videos.htm

TERROR IN STILL LIFE: THE 2002 FRAMES

Eyewitness accounts of the 757 strike on the Pentagon apparently didn’t carry the same weight as the real time video we saw at the World Trade Center, and secrecy and speculation ruled the day. Only after Meyssan’s no-plane arguments hit the news did somebody finally release five badly compressed stills from cameras on the Pentagon’s grounds that were said to show the plane and the first few seconds after its impact. These were published on March 7, 2002 by the Washington Post and on the 8th by all other major media outlets, clearly in response to Meyssan’s weeks-old inflammatory charges. The American media widely pushed these as confirmation of the official story, if still curiously weak. But strangely, no one would vouch for the pictures; according to the Post:

“Officials from the Pentagon said the photos were not released officially by the Department of Defense. […] “The Pentagon has not released any video or any photos from security cameras from the terrorist attack of Sept. 11,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin. A spokeswoman at the Department of Justice, which reviews taped and photographed evidence obtained by federal security cameras, said she could not comment on whether the photos are legitimate, adding that the photos “were not disseminated by the FBI or the Department of Justice.” [1]

Wherever they came from, the stills attracted quite a lot of buzz and served to remind everyone what the “War on Terrorism” would be all about in the dawning year 2002 and beyond. Indeed, they offered no evidence toward any theory, predicting the continued “trust us” mentality the Bush regime had been fostering as it pushed ahead into Iraq and other adventures regardless of evidence.

The pictures I had found back in 2004, I thought from CNN, had time stamps and frame labels at the bottom, whereas the ones I just found on the same CNN website have these Cropped off. (link to images on page: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/03/07/gen.pentagon.pictures/)
Maybe I just used a different link from the source I got them from. Anyway, I have older copies of frames one and two with the original time and title stamps and superimposed those on the cropped versions of these frames – the other three are left unlabeled. Then I found a full uncropped set on a 757-denier page, but I liked this unique set and I don’t think anything worthwhile was cropped from the other three.


Frame one was the only one that, according to its title, showed the plane itself, a blob of about 100 whitish pixels of uncertain shape and size mostly hidden behind an unknown boxy object (far right in the shot above, just below the horizon line). With the label “plane” cropped off – as well as half of the pivotal “plane’ itself in an inexplicable right-crop – this seems almost designed to show as much nothing as possible. In its entirety, as the ASCE noted, this frame “captured an image of the aircraft when it was approximately 320 ft (approximately 0.42 second) from impact with the west wall of the Pentagon. […] the top of the fuselage of the aircraft was no more than approximately 20 ft above the ground when the first photograph of this series was taken.” [2]


Frame 2: “impact.” Its brightness and contrast are different from the others, and some have noted the aqua blue optic distortion on the left side of this frame, the worst of which has recently been cropped off. This is probably an effect of the exceptionally brilliant flash. Oddly, with nothing at on the far right to show, this frame actually has less cropped than the first.


Frame three: Here we see an explosion rolling forward with the plane’s trajectory and hurling debris away at other angles, possibly having deflected off the façade.


Frame four: The Pentagon Building Performance Report explained these apparently continuous frames were “taken approximately one second apart.” [3]


Frame Five: Now large debris hurtling forward, explosion dimmed down – plane’s smoke trail dissipating. As for what’s with the smoke trail, I’m working on two posts dealing with this: one to sort out what was object and what vapor in that first still, then one to explain the obvious smoke trail in the other four frames which ordinarily should not be there in an airliner attack.

As for the cropping of these new photos: while likely innocent and irrelevant, the reason the excised stamps are significant is the time and date: September 12, 2001, 5:37 pm. It’s got the wrong date and time on it - it’s clearly shot at the time of impact from the angle of the sun and the facts that the first frames show an intact wall that ended on 9/11 and that nobody recalls a staged explosion on 9/12. Of course no one believes it was shot on 9/12, but some have taken this as evidence of tampering. I never got that – and take this as a sign that the video was analyzed repeatedly and finally finalized, official story decided, then had it catalogued at 5:37 pm on the 12th. It may have been doctored then, or earlier, or later, or never at all. The timestamp reveals nothing, but rather than simply explain this - which they have never done to my knowledge - the stamps have been removed from newer postings, I suspect to “quell conspiracy theories.” It should be no surprise if it has the opposite effect.

sources:
[1] Pino-Marina, Christina. “New Photos Show Attack on Pentagon.” Washington Post. March 7, 2002. Accessed November 5, 2005 at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A56670-2002Mar7¬Found=true
[2], [3] Pentagon Building Report – p. 14

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

THE SECRET IMAGES OF THE PENTAGON ATTACK
Adam Larson / caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Last updated 6/26/07

Back in 2002, at the Fraud’s genesis and amid loud and deserved rebuttals of the no-plane-at-the-Pentagon theory, some took the opportunity to point out that we had no convincing evidence to disprove the crazy construct. French Sociologist Pierre Lagrange aptly noted just after the release of Thierry Meyssan’s book “9/11: L’Effroyable Imposture,” which he dismissed, “there is no official account of the crash [...] the lack of information is feeding the rumor.” [1] There were serious questions about how the plane could do what it was alleged to have done and leave so little physical evidence, and these questions were compounded by continuing secrecy and evasiveness from the Pentagon’s leadership and the government in general. It was “move along folks, nothing to see here” from minute one.

Some footage went quickly from private to Federal custody, the two famous cases being from the camera at an unnamed hotel (originally thought to be the Sheraton National, but probably the Doubletree) and from the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station open only to Department of Defense personnel. The hotel's employees, according to a 9/21/01 report in the Washington Times, had time to “watch the film in shock and horror several times before the FBI confiscated the video as part of its investigation.” [2] On the other hand, Jose Velasquez, owner of the Citgo station, famously told National geographic that his security cameras were "close enough to the Pentagon to have recorded the moment of impact.” But he said “I’ve never seen what the pictures looked like. The FBI was here within minutes and took the film.” [3]

V-DOT Cam 740 view, cropped with Flight 77's alleged attack path inserted.

Other videos were reportedly seized from the Virginia Highway Department’s cameras, which may have captured the plane’s flight over I-395 and Washington Blvd. At trafficLand.com I was able to verify the view of a few likely cameras, most notable V-DOT traffic camera 740, which has a clear view of the Pentagon’s west wall and Washington Blvd from well above and a few hundred yards south. The plane's line of attack should have been in view for at least a few hundred feet. [4] At almost any frame rate, this should yield some views of the attack craft, whatever it was.

There were an unknown number of other tapes seized from State and private owners by the FBI and kept under wraps, and yet more that began in Federal hands. The Pentagon itself clearly sports a few surveillance cameras, but nothing was forthcoming from their trove. No photographic evidence of the plane had been seen at all as late as six months after the attack, leaving all sides endlessly grappling to argue their cases. Doubts were growing much stronger as it seemed Rumsfeld’s people were covering up something; in the presence of so much bovine manure, conspiracy theories mushroomed on a worldwide scale, and Meyssan sold many books.

So did the Pentagon yield and quell the mental mutiny by releasing proof that Flight 77 did hit their building? No. Somebody finally released what appeared to be such footage: five badly compressed stills supposedly showing the plane’s impact. These were published on March 7, 2002 by the Washington Post and on the 8th by all other major media outlets, clearly in response to Meyssan’s weeks-old inflammatory charges. The American media widely pushed these as confirmation of the official story, if still curiously weak. But strangely, no one would vouch for the pictures, with both DoD and DoJ (who responsible for evidence of federal crimes) denied any knowledge of the stills' source. [5]

Wherever they came from, they attracted quite a lot of buzz and served to remind everyone what the “War on Terrorism” would be all about in the dawning year 2002 and beyond. Indeed, they offered no evidence toward any theory, predicting the continued “trust us” mentality the Bush regime had been fostering as it pushed ahead into Iraq and other adventures regardless of evidence. The stills have served more as a Rorschach test than evidence; many have looked closely (as I'm starting to) to find evidence of a hijacked Boeing 757, a Cruise missile, an A-3 Skywarrior or Global Hawk drone, even a simple hologram to cover for the bombs placed inside the building or in a truck nearby.

After the white blur stills, there was nothing new for four years as Pentagon Strike, IPS, and Loose Change tore up the Truth scene with their no-757 claims. Then after years of badgering and lawsuits on at least two fronts, two actual videos were released in May 2006 by the DoJ and Dod via Judicial Watch, one of which is simply the video from the Pentagon camera from which the five stills were extracted in 2002, and the video adds nothing to the stills - they really were just frames from the video. [6] The other video, listed as #1, was from a camera just a few feet away - actually it seems to be inside the unknown box from the 2002 stills - two cameras right by each other pointed the same way. Before we'd seen a white blur with no shape, apparently partly hidden behind the second camera. Now we can see what the second camera saw through its horrible glare - no obstruction, but still onlya liver ever visible - it's clearly the edge, the missing piece of the white blur that gives it its shape - it looks like the nosecone of a jet, or prhaps a wingtip, or perhaps something else - but its the same color as the blur, meaning this is indeed a large white/silver object flying fast on a sunny day. [Watch the video here - Youtube]

On the five-year anniversary of the attack, the DoJ also released the video seized from the Citgo gas station. It showed low-resolution views from the station’s six security cameras together on one screen with the lower half blurred out to conceal identities of the pixilated customers. After a few minutes of nothing in particular, the attendant, Velasquez, steps outside at 4:45 to join a small, agitated crowd outside to view the aftermath. [7] Despite Valasquez’s optimism, we see nothing at all, since these cameras were aimed to observe the gas pumps and the customers, not the Pentagon across the Highway. Another video reportedly from the Doubletree hotel was due to be released on or around November 9, after the mid-term elections; despite the “horror” the employees felt watching it, this video does not contain the impact either, according to the FBI. [8] The release date for this was later pushed up to December 21, supposedly because the FBI was moving its FOIA function to Winchester, Virginia and its video equipment was being reassembled there. [9]
Update: The Citgo video shows a distinct flash in the window "dual pump side.' Look under the canopy at 4:44 in the the video. There are other clues as well that seem to indicate a silver object passing by just to the south of that location. Analysis forthcoming)

Update, 1/27/07: That video too has been released - Flight 77.info: "The FBI has sent us 10 Doubletree hotel DVDs. Only two show sky. The DVD of camera 1 is about 8 hours long, and we've clipped it down to 15 mins in the best quality." it actually does show the skyline in the direction of the Pentagon - I haven't analyzed it carefully myself, but Scott Bingham's got it up as of Christmas 2006. He thinks it shows a helicopter going by towards the Pentagon at 9:23 am - 14 minutes before Flight 77's impact. I think he may be right and it may be relevant.
Update: This video shows the explosion, but the building itself and the plane are invisible, a half-mile away behind a cluster of raised highway lanes. Analysis fortcoming

Sources:
[1] “French lap up Pentagon crash 'fraud'.” BBC News. April 2 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1907955.stm
[2] “Reverse Psychology and the hidden Pentagon videotapes: seizing the videos proves foreknowledge, NOT "no plane"
blurry images published May 16, 2006 intended to fuel "no plane" hoaxes.” http://www.oilempire.us/pentagon-video.html
[3] McKelway,Bill. “Three Months On, Tension Lingers Near the Pentagon.” Richmond Times-Dispatch. December 11 2001. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/12/1211_wirepentagon.html
[4] Trafficland. http://www.trafficland.com/findacamera/findacamera.php?city=WAS
[5] Pino-Marina, Christina. “New Photos Show Attack on Pentagon.” Washington Post. March 7, 2002. Accessed November 5, 2005 at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A56670-2002Mar7¬Found=true
[6] First video of Pentagon 9/11 attack released Tuesday, May 16, 2006 http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/16/pentagon.video/index.html
[7], [8] 9/11 Gas Station Video Released - Does not show Flight 77
Prisonplanet | September 15 2006
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/September2006/150906_b_Video.htm
[9] Flight77.info Forces Release of Doubletree Hotel Video http://www.flight77.info/