… arise out of this passage from a Washington Post story today:

Shaffer said Able Danger identified Atta and three other Sept. 11 hijackers in 2000. But, he said, military lawyers stopped the unit from sharing the information with the FBI out of concerns about the legality of gathering and sharing information on people in the U.S.

“The lawyers’ view was to leave them alone, they had the same basic rights as a U.S. citizen, a U.S. person and therefore the data was kind of left alone,” Shaffer said.

Shaffer said he and a Navy officer disagreed with that and tried to set up meetings with the FBI, but each time the idea was rejected by lawyers from the Special Operations command.

“There was a feeling … if we give this information to the FBI and something goes wrong, we’re going to get blamed for whatever goes wrong,” Shaffer said.

BUT, Shaffer is also reported to have told the Post in a telephone interview that he did not personally have a recollection of Atta – he only knew generically that Able Danger was identifying potential terrorists. Instead, as the Post puts it, Shaffer said “a Navy officer and a civilian official affiliated with the Able Danger program told him after the attacks that Atta and other hijackers had been included on a chart more than a year earlier.” (Italics mine.)

If that is the case, how could Shaffer have tried to tell the FBI specifically about Atta three times before the attacks when he wasn’t aware of Atta’s name until after the attacks? If I am correctly understanding what he told the Post in the interview, the most he could have done was try three times to have the FBI briefed about Able Danger, only to be shot down by his superiors. Would such a briefing have told the FBI about Atta and perhaps other eventual hijackers? Only if Atta and the other hijackers had truly been identified by Able Danger – a matter on which, by his own account – Shaffer had no personal knowledge.

Shaffer’s version is that, after 9/11, he was shown a chart that included an identification of Atta and three other hijackers, and that he was told this chart was from 2000. But he doesn’t know these things of his own personal knowledge. He is relying on hearsay from the naval intelligence officer interviewed by the Commission in July 2004, and an unidentified civilian employee of the former Land Information Warfare Activity at Fort Belvoir. There’s nothing wrong with that, but those witnesses have not come forward publicly at this point.

Bottom line: we do not yet have a witness willing to say: “I am in a position to know, and I can tell you that we identified Atta and other hijackers prior to 9/11 in the Able Danger program.” We have been told that the naval intelligence officer is in a position to say that, and that he in fact said it to the Commission staff, but he has not come forward or expressed any willingness to say it publicly. Shaffer says the civilian employee is also in a position to come forward and say it, but, again, that person has not come forward.

That’s where we are at as of now. No conclusive assertion about documentary back-up from the Pentagon and no witness willing to give non-hearsay testimony about what Able Danger knew before 9/11.