Honorary President of the Supreme Court of Italy , 911 = Operation Gladio

[Steven Gaal]

SEC: Government Destroyed Documents Regarding Pre-9/11 Put Options

Posted on June 15, 2010 by WashingtonsBlog

On September 19, 2001, CBS reported:

Sources tell CBS News that the afternoon before the attack, alarm bells were sounding over unusual trading in the U.S. stock options market.

An extraordinary number of trades were betting that American Airlines stock price would fall.

The trades are called “puts” and they involved at least 450,000 shares of American. But what raised the red flag is more than 80 percent of the orders were “puts”, far outnumbering “call” options, those betting the stock would rise.

Sources say they have never seen that kind of imbalance before, reports CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. Normally the numbers are fairly even.

After the terrorist attacks, American Airline stock price did fall obviously by 39 percent, and according to sources, that translated into well over $5 million total profit for the person or persons who bet the stock would fall.

***

At least one Wall Street firm reported their suspicions about this activity to the SEC shortly after the attack.

The same thing happened with United Airlines on the Chicago Board Options Exchange four days before the attack. An extremely unbalanced number of trades betting United’s stock price would fall — also transformed into huge profits when it did after the hijackings.

“We can directly work backwards from a trade on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. The trader is linked to a brokerage firm. The brokerage firm received the order to buy that ‘put’ option from either someone within a brokerage firm speculating, or from one of the customers,” said Randall Dodd of the Economic Strategy Institute.

U.S. investigators want to know whether Osama bin Laden was the ultimate “inside trader” — profiting from a tragedy he’s suspected of masterminding to finance his operation. Authorities are also investigating possibly suspicious trading in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Japan.

On September 29, 2001, the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out:

“Usually, if someone has a windfall like that, you take the money and run,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Whoever did this thought the exchange would not be closed for four days.

“This smells real bad.”

***

There was an unusually large jump in purchases of put options on the stocks of UAL Corp. and AMR Corp. in the three business days before the attack on major options exchanges in the United States. On one day, UAL put option purchases were 25 times greater than the year-to-date average. In the month before the attacks, short sales jumped by 40 percent for UAL and 20 percent for American.

***

Spokesmen for British securities regulators and the AXA Group also confirmed yesterday that investigations are continuing.

The source familiar with the United trades identified Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, the American investment banking arm of German giant Deutsche Bank, as the investment bank used to purchase at least some of the options.

***

Last weekend, German central bank president Ernst Welteke said a study pointed to “terrorism insider trading” in those stocks.

The Chronicle illustrated the story with the following chart:

On October 19, 2001, the Chronicle wrote:

On Oct. 2, Canadian securities officials confirmed that the SEC privately had asked North American investment firms to review their records for evidence of trading activity in the shares of 38 companies, suggesting that some buyers and sellers might have had advance knowledge of the attacks.

***

FMR Corp. spokeswoman Anne Crowley, said her firm — which owns the giant Fidelity family of mutual funds in Boston — has already provided “account and transaction” information to investigators, and had no objection to the new procedures announced yesterday. Crowley declined to describe the nature of the information previously shared with the government.

So the effort to track down the source of the puts was certainly quite substantial.

What were the results and details of the investigation?

Apparently, we’ll never know.

Specifically, David Callahan – executive editor of SmartCEO – submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the SEC regarding the pre-9/11 put options.

The SEC responded:

This letter is in response to your request seeking access to and copies of the documentary evidence referred to in footnote 130 of Chapter 5 of the September 11 (9/11) Commission Report.

***

We have been advised that the potentially responsive records have been destroyed.

If the SEC had responded by producing documents showing that the pre-9/11 put options had an innocent explanation (such as a hedge made by a smaller airline), that would be understandable.

If the SEC had responded by saying that the documents were classified as somehow protecting proprietary financial information, I wouldn’t like it, but I would at least understand the argument.

But destroyed? Why?

[Len Colby]

The FOIA was filed more than 8 years after 9/11, how long are such records kept?

[Steven Gaal]

THINGS ARE SHIELDED FROM FOIA

EQUATION = LIE ABOUT OKC MEANS LIE ABOUT 911 BECOMES MORE PROBABLE

Wednesday, July 6 2011 - 9/11 Precedents

The EyeOpener: Secret FBI Storage Drive to Shield Evidence from FOIA?

June 20, 2011

Boilingfrogspost.com

J. Edgar Hoover's Ghost Still Lingers over the FBI

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

Welcome. This is James Corbett with your Eyeopener report from BoilingFrogsPost.com. And now for the real news.

A recent court case in Utah has uncovered yet more evidence that the FBI is hiding key documents from the public by placing them in a separate, hitherto unknown electronic storage medium known as an "S-drive." The fact that this drive was previously unknown has raised the specter that the FBI are using it as a place to hide requests for sensitive documents through the Freedom of Information Act. Now, a federal judge has given the FBI until the end of the month to explain what the S-drive is, how it is being used, and whether it contains key documents related to the case in question.

The case concerns Salt Lake City-based lawyer Jesse Trentadue, who has been investigating the death of his brother, Kenneth Trentadue, at an Oklahoma Federal Transfer facility in 1995. The government has maintained his brother's death was a suicide by hanging, despite the fact that his brutalized corpse revealed him to have been beaten to death, with cuts and bruises all over his body. Numerous irregularities in the wake of Trentadue's death were suggestive of a coverup, from the government's unprecedented offer to cremate the body before it was sent to the family at its own expense to the fact that the coroner was not allowed to examine the cell until it had been washed, to the fact that the visitor logs from the facility on the night of the death had been destroyed. Subsequent investigations uncovered leaked documents showing that the cover-up went all the way up the chain of command to Eric Holder, currently Obama's attorney general.

Originally baffled by the extent of the cover-up, several tips, including one from Timothy McVeigh himself, led Jesse Trentadue to the understanding that his brother had been transferred to an Oklahoma transfer facility because he fit the description of the so-called John Doe No. 2 in the Oklahoma City bombing case. Since that time, Trentadue has been suing the FBI to try to pry more information about the OKC investigation from the agency's vaults.

Among the documents he is pursuing are the surveillance tapes from the Murrah Building itself, which were being stored off-site and thus were not damaged in the blast. These tapes, which sources connected to the investigation have told the LA Times and other major media outlets that they have seen, are purported to show the approach of the Ryder Truck to the building, and also show Timothy McVeigh's accomplice getting out of the truck.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI is not required to say if a document exists, only that they searched their database and found no records responsive to the request. If these documents are placed in an external or disconnected storage drive, however, the agency can insure that they will never show up in any FOIA request.

In fact, the FBI has been known to have used this very technique in the past. Going under such names as "June files," "zero files" and "I-drive," the agency has a long and documented history of placing key evidence in special, compartmentalized files that are reviewed by senior officials before the information is placed into the bureau's official files.

Joining me earlier this week to discuss the history and significance of the FBI's secret storage drives was attorney Jesse Trentadue.

[interview]

Critics of the FBI have long noted how the bureau under J. Edgar Hoover's leadership sanitized files to hide potentially embarrassing information about the FBI and its agents from the public.

In a conversation with The Corbett Report last week, Coleen Rowley, the former privacy act coordinator at the Minneapolis FBI field office and noted FBI whistleblower, confirmed the sordid history of the FBI's attempts to conceal information from the public and reveals other methods that keep key records from being accessed through FOIA requests.

[interview]

Spokespersons for the bureau have so far refused to comment to the press about the S-drive story, citing the ongoing litigation. The court order requires them to present a full explanation of the use of these document storage systems to federal court by June 30th. For more on this story, stay tuned to boilingfrogspost.com and corbettreport.com.

#########################################

FBI explanation of missing Oklahoma City bombing tapes not credible, judge says

http://www.deseretne...ays.html?pg=all

Edited October 1, 2012 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

Wednesday, March 28 2012 - Civil Liberties-Police State

Obama takes Bush's secrecy games one step further

By Glenn Greenwald

March 26, 2012

Salon.com

(updated below)

The ACLU is suing the Obama administration under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), seeking to force disclosure of the guidelines used by Obama officials to select which human beings (both U.S. citizens and foreign nationals) will have their lives ended by the CIA's drone attacks (a particular,as the group explains, the FOIA request seeks to find out when, where and against whom drone strikes can be authorized, and how the United States ensures compliance with international laws relating to extrajudicial killings). The Obama administration has not only refused to provide any of that information, but worse, the CIA is insisting to federal courts that it cannot even confirm or deny the existence of a drone program at all without seriously damaging national security; from the CIA's brief in response to the ACLU lawsuit:

. . .

What makes this so appalling is not merely that the Obama administration demands the right to kill whomever it wants without having to account to anyone for its actions, choices or even claimed legal authorities, though that’s obviously bad enough (as I wrote when the ACLU lawsuit was commenced: “from a certain perspective, there’s really only one point worth making about all of this: if you think about it, it is warped beyond belief that the ACLU has to sue the U.S. Government in order to force it to disclose its claimed legal and factual bases for assassinating U.S. citizens without charges, trial or due process of any kindâ€). What makes it so much worse is how blatantly, insultingly false is its claim that it cannot confirm or deny the CIA drone program without damaging national security.

Numerous Obama officials — including the President himself and the CIA Director — have repeatedly boasted in public about this very program. Obama recently hailed the CIA drone program by claiming that “we are very careful in terms of how it’s been applied,†and added that it is “a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists, who are trying to go in and harm Americans, hit American facilities, American bases and so on.†Obama has told playful jokes about the same drone program. Former CIA Director and current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also likes to tell cute little jokes about CIA Predator drones, and then proclaimed in December that the drone program has “been very effective at undermining al Qaeda and their ability to plan those kinds of attacks.†Just two weeks ago, Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech purporting to legally justify these same drone attacks.

So Obama officials are eager to publicly tout the supposed benefits of the CIA’s drone programs in order to generate political gain for the President: to make him look like some sort of Tough, Brave Warrior single-handedly vanquishing Al Qaeda. The President himself boasts about how tightly controlled, precise and effective the CIA drones are. Everyone in the world knows the CIA has a drone program. It is openly discussed everywhere, certainly including the multiple Muslim countries where the drones routinely create piles of corpses, and by top U.S. Government officials themselves.

But then when it comes time to test the accuracy of their public claims by requesting the most basic information about what is done and how execution targets are selected, and when it comes time to ask courts to adjudicate its legality, then suddenly National Security imperatives prevent the government even from confirming or denying the existence of the program: the very same program they’ve been publicly boasting and joking about. As the ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer put it after Obama publicly defended the program: “At this point, the only consequence of pretending that it’s a secret program is that the courts don’t play a role in overseeing it†– that, and ensuring that any facts that contradict these public claims remain concealed.

This is why the U.S. Government’s fixation on secrecy — worse than ever under the Obama administration, as evidenced by its unprecedented war on whistleblowers — is so pernicious. It not only enables government officials to operate in the dark, which inevitably ensures vast (though undiscovered) abuses of power. Worse, it enables the government to aggressively propagandize the citizenry without challenge: Obama officials are free to make all sorts of claims about how great and targeted the drone program is and how it Keeps Us Safe™, while simultaneously suppressing any official evidence or information that would test those claims and/or contradict them (even as some evidence suggests these assurances are false).

Worse still, it literally removes our highest political officials from the rule of law. The sole purpose of these vast claims of secrecy around the drone program — the absurd notion that they cannot even confirm or deny its existence without harming National Security — is to block courts from reviewing the legality of what they’re doing, which is another way of saying: they have removed themselves from the rule of law. Even Bush DOJ lawyer Jack Goldsmith, a vociferous advocate of executive authority and secrecy powers, understands how abusive this is:

First, it is wrong . . . for the government to maintain technical covertness but then engage in continuous leaks, attributed to government officials, of many (self-serving) details about the covert operations and their legal justifications. It is wrong because it is illegal. It is wrong because it damages (though perhaps not destroys) the diplomatic and related goals of covertness. And it is wrong because the Executive branch seems to be trying to have its cake (not talking about the program openly in order to serve diplomatic interests and perhaps deflect scrutiny) and eat it too (leaking promiscuously to get credit for the operation and to portray it as lawful).

Indeed, one of the worst abuses of the lawless Bush presidency was that Bush officials repeatedly invoked secrecy powers (the State Secret privilege) to shield their most controversial and lawless programs from judicial review: warrantless eavesdropping, rendition, and torture. One of the earliest alarms about what the Obama presidency would be was when the Obama DOJ told courts early in 2009 that it would continue to assert those same radical secrecy claims: thus telling courts that the very programs which candidate Obama long denounced as illegal were now such vital State Secrets that courts must not risk their disclosure by adjudicating their legality. Beyond Obama’s decree that the DOJ must not investigate Bush-era crimes, that was the instrument used by Obama to shield Bush’s criminal policies from judicial challenge: through Kafkaesque claims of secrecy whereby programs that everyone in the world knows exist were Too Secret even to let courts examine. In sum, there is only one place in the entire world where these policies of warrantless eavesdropping, rendition, torture, and CIA drones cannot be discussed: in American courts, when it’s time to review their legality and/or allow its victims to vindicate their legal rights.

Now, in this ACLU/FOIA case, the Obama administration is taking these warped secrecy games one step further. They boast publicly about the programs to lavish themselves with praise, only to turn around once they’re sued in court and insist that the programs are too secret even to acknowledge. So extreme is the fixation on secrecy from the Most Transparent Administration Ever™ that they are routinely reduced to this type of self-parody; behold how they are insisting in response to a separate FOIA lawsuit from The New York Times that they cannot even confirm or deny the existence of the OLC memo which authorized the assassination of Anwar Awlaki — even though the NYT reported on its contents. More amazingly still, the Obama administration continues to insist that they cannot confirm or deny the memo’s existence even after Eric Holder talks about the memo in a Senate hearing.

This would be laughable if it were not so destructive. It results in the government’s most consequential actions being completely shielded not only from public scrutiny, but also from the rule of law. It enables the most powerful political officials to inculcate the public with claims about their actions while preventing any form of checks and suppressing any contrary information. It literally means that the Obama administration is able to conduct multiple secret wars around the world, ones conducted by drone attacks, the very existence of which they refuse to acknowledge. And it is yet another way the Obama presidency is cementing the worst abuses of the Bush presidency: the very same ones he so inspirationally vowed to reverse.

UPDATE: Just this weekend, The Washington Post published a lengthy, glowing profile of the anonymous CIA official who oversees the CIA drone program. We learned how the drone program has slain countless Al Qaeda leaders with such precision and force: the same program the Obama administration insists cannot be acknowledged without seriously harming national security. Given that claim, will the anonymous officials who enabled this hagiography by talking to the Post about this glorious official and all that the drone program has accomplished be prosecuted under espionage statutes? Yes, that question is rhetorical, and further highlights how severely secrecy powers are manipulated and exploited by this administration.

Follow Glenn Greenwald on Twitter: @ggreenwald. More Glenn Greenwald

Edited October 1, 2012 by Steven Gaal

[Paul Brancato]

Senator Bob Graham is the brother of Philip Graham. Anyone know something different? He was meeting with Porter Goss and Lt. general Mahmoud Ahmed on the morning of 9/11. When Graham asks for a reopening of the 9/11 investigation I think the government, if it cares at all, should listen. I couldn't believe it when I read on some post in this forum that Goss was part of Operation 40.

Colby - you are very skeptical of conspiracy claims, which is good to an extent. But you are driving Mr. Gaal out of his mind. Almost any claim of conspiracy can be contested on the basis that there could be other explanations for individual actions than the conspiratorial ones. But just because things are not proven beyond any doubt does not mean that they are untrue. I think most of us try to use our own common sense when we try to sift truth from lies and fact from fiction. But I do get annoyed when theorists start postulating ridiculous scenarios because it muddies the waters and gives a bad name to conspiracy researchers in general. Sometimes that it exactly the point, as in deliberate disinformation. I spent a lot of time on UFO stuff once upon a time, and though I certainly think there are many unexplained events and sightings I found the field crowded with so many nut jobs that it became a real chore. 9/11 seems to draw out nut jobs too. But I am sure there is much we don't know about top secret operations and UFO's too, and the more noise the more suspicious I get. Does anyone recall the hatchet jobs on Stone's movie that began months before its release?

[Len Colby]

Senator Bob Graham is the brother of Philip Graham. Anyone know something different? He was meeting with Porter Goss and Lt. general Mahmoud Ahmed on the morning of 9/11. When Graham asks for a reopening of the 9/11 investigation I think the government, if it cares at all, should listen.

Hi Paul,

I forgot to welcome you to the forum.

1) Graham is of course peddling his new book is it is not surprising he would suddenly be making attention getting claims.

2) The new investigation he has called would not be to look into all aspects of the case but rather “the story of who may have facilitated the 19 hijackers and the infrastructure that supported the attacks.” He has AFAIK shown no signs of doubting the basic narrative that the attacks were carried out 19 AQ operatives working at the behest of OBL.

3) His family history is a curious footnote at best; Phillip Graham who was only his half-brother was more than 21 years his senior and was at Harvard Law when ‘Bob’ was born in Miami. Far more relevant is his time as chairman/ranking Democrat of the Senate Intelligence committee

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-graham/911-saudi-arabia_b_1868863.html

I couldn't believe it when I read on some post in this forum that Goss was part of Operation 40.

Did you see any confirmation/documentation of this?

Colby - you are very skeptical of conspiracy claims, which is good to an extent. But you are driving Mr. Gaal out of his mind.

I don’t deserve the credit or the blame if you prefer, for what’s amiss with Gaal’s neuro-wiring, those problems seem to have predated his tenure here.

Almost any claim of conspiracy can be contested on the basis that there could be other explanations for individual actions than the conspiratorial ones. But just because things are not proven beyond any doubt does not mean that they are untrue.

Which is not exactly my position; I don’t see the spikes in the puts as clear evidence of foreknowledge. They can all be explained by non-sinister factors such as poor profit warnings etc.

Just so that we all know where you stand, what is your take on 9/11?

[Paul Brancato]

Just saw this response. Thanks for the welcome to the board.

I appreciate your skeptical approach. I would ask you a question too - what is your take on the JFK assassination? 9/11?

My thinking on 9/11 is that it might have been a false flag event that went wrong. I don't buy the on the ground detonations theory. The notion that some interested parties in the US would have killed 3000 Americans for nefarious political and economic reasons is untenable. But allowing or somehow facilitating a terrorist attack is not. So I am able to entertain the possibility that there is some US involvement. Although post 9/11 events, such as the coverup of the findings of official investigations, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, don't prove prior involvement, they certainly get my attention.

Clearly I have a conspiratorial view of history. To put it simply, great concentrations of money and power and desire for same cause people to conspire, to think long term, and often to resort to violence as becomes necessary to their survival.

As for JFK, I remain convinced of conpiracy. I am pretty certain that I can narrow it down to two interested and possibly interconnected power groups - LBJ and his Texas cowboys, and Edwin Walker and the John Birch segregationist military and ex-military anti-communist hawks. You didn't ask, but I don't mind sharing. I am no expert, and not a first hand investigator, just a concerned citizen.

Have you ever seen my trading cards?

[Len Colby]

Just saw this response. Thanks for the welcome to the board.

You're welcome.

I appreciate your skeptical approach. I would ask you a question too - what is your take on the JFK assassination? 9/11?

I don't think LHO could have fired all the shots in the requisite time frame even if one accepts the highly suspect SBT. As to who did it I believe the CIA either as an institution or a 'rouge' element were obvious suspects; that said I agree with “Tink” Thompson who said trying to figure out the answer to this question can drive one crazy. But this is not really the place for that discussion

My thinking on 9/11 is that it might have been a false flag event that went wrong. I don't buy the on the ground detonations theory. The notion that some interested parties in the US would have killed 3000 Americans for nefarious political and economic reasons is untenable. But allowing or somehow facilitating a terrorist attack is not. So I am able to entertain the possibility that there is some US involvement. Although post 9/11 events, such as the coverup of the findings of official investigations, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, don't prove prior involvement, they certainly get my attention.

I largely agree with the above but to a certain sense I'm more CT than you are I don't think Bush et. al. were beyond orchestrating such an attack to further their goals, but I have not seen any evidence they did.

Clearly I have a conspiratorial view of history. To put it simply, great concentrations of money and power and desire for same cause people to conspire, to think long term, and often to resort to violence as becomes necessary to their survival.

As for JFK, I remain convinced of conpiracy. I am pretty certain that I can narrow it down to two interested and possibly interconnected power groups - LBJ and his Texas cowboys, and Edwin Walker and the John Birch segregationist military and ex-military anti-communist hawks. You didn't ask, but I don't mind sharing. I am no expert, and not a first hand investigator, just a concerned citizen.

Have you ever seen my trading cards?

Yeah, a good friend of mine worked at See Hear in NYC decades ago and IIRC they sold quite a few 'back in the day'; unfortunately they went out of business a few years back. I even have pack which is amongst my stuff in a storage space in the city, I think I bought it there. Its probably worth big bucks now!

BTW I used have a T-shirt business and our wares were sold in some the same venues, did you ever deal with the Psychotronic Film guy in Chicago? He was a royal $##&@(*