To connect them, anti-terrorism authorities first have to collect them
"AFAILURE to connect the dots." That was the diagnosis of the malady that helped bring on the Sept. 11 attacks on America nearly five years ago as delivered by the 9/11 Commission.
Some of those dots were the size of manhole covers. Flight-school lessons whose students had no interest in landing procedures. At least six reports warning of chatter about an impending al-Qaida attack. A man (Zacarias Moussaoui) with jihadist beliefs arranging flight lessons in Minnesota so he could "learn how to fly a Boeing 747." All pieces of a puzzle that fell into place only after the toppling of the World Trade Center and kindred horrors made 9/11 one of America's worst days.
One consequence of Bloody Tuesday was a massive overhaul of U.S. intelligence, particularly the FBI. Policymakers leaned on the agency to turn from its traditional criminal-investigation mode to a get-'em-before-they-light-the-fuse M.O. So now the question is, how quickly should prosecutors move against possible threats? Three cases in point have emerged in North America this summer.
On June 2-3, Canadian authorities arrested and charged 17 people in Toronto with participating in a terrorist group, importing weapons, and planning to bomb the Canadian Stock Exchange and a Canadian security office. The busted radical-Muslim gang had obtained 3 tons of ammonium nitrate, a component of bombs like the one that 11 years ago destroyed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Four hundred investigators labored more than two years to nail these plotters, whom the police first identified by monitoring Internet chat rooms.
Later in June, the FBI announced it had arrested seven men in Miami who planned an assault on the Sears Tower in Chicago as well as sundry FBI offices. The ringleader, Narseal Batiste, had lived in the Windy City. Investigators say he told an informant he was raising an Islamic army to wage jihad within the United States. While Deputy FBI Director John Pistole called the plan "more aspirational than inspirational," Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said, "We felt that the combination of planning and the overt acts taken were sufficient to support the prosecution."
Now comes word of yet one more plot unearthed. Eight foreign nationals are accused of planning to blow up tunnels that run under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Manhattan. The scheme, supposedly masterminded by a 31-year-old man from Beirut, was "the real deal," says FBI Assistant Director Mark Mershon. It came to light as Lebanese and U.S. counterterrorism forces eavesdropped on chat-room conversations and tapped into e-mail.
Cynics note that announcements of these last two foiled plots come during the lead-up to the midterm elections when the Bush administration is desperate to prove it is acting effectively to thwart terrorists. Citing the lack of "substance" in both cases, a defense lawyer told The New York Times, "Talk without any kind of action means nothing. You start to criminalize people who are not really criminals." The Times itself, meanwhile, has gnashed its teeth over FBI probes of the financial dealings of possible terrorists.
The courts will decide whether some people have been unjustly criminalized, but, meanwhile, monitoring chat rooms, finances, e-mail, and, yes, even certain phone calls is an ability that investigators must retain to head off future 9/11's at the pass.
America can't have it both ways: Either citizens give law enforcement the means to connect the dots, or they should expect more mass carnage. Did the Justice Department move too quickly in the Sears Tower and New York tunnel cases? The thousands of people who work in the 110-story Sears Tower and the quarter-million commuters who use the tunnels would likely say "no."