It appears the FBI has pissed of an attorney who was on flight 253 with his wife... I understand that law enforcement needs to keep information from the public at times to help with an investigation...

Do you think that is what is happening here... that there is a legitimate reason to be holding information about two other men's direct involvement back to help the investigation or is it an attempt to cover up a major screw up???

Drudge also has a link saying that the bomber's visa had expired... nice.


Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell: 'I was visited by the FBI'
By Aaron Foley | MLive.com
December 31, 2009, 9:41AM

Courtesy photoLori and Kurt Haskell
Following up on a visit from FBI officials about an eyewitness account first described to MLive.com, Michigan attorney Kurt Haskell described the visit in comment sections across MLive on Wednesday.

Haskell and his wife, Lori, were aboard Flight 253 when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to destroy the plane. They say another man tried to help Abdulmutallab board the plane in Amsterdam.

Haskell had two detailed posts in two different stories. Here is Part One, originally posted here:


"Today is the second worst day of my life after 12-25-09. Today is the day that I realized that my own country is lying to me and all of my fellow Americans. Let me explain.

Ever since I got off of Flight 253 I have been repeating what I saw in US Customs. Specifically, 1 hour after we left the plane, bomb sniffing dogs arrived. Up to this point, all of the passengers on Flight 253 stood in a small area in an evacuated luggage claim area of an airport terminal. During this time period, all of the passengers had their carry on bags with them. When the bomb sniffing dogs arrived, 1 dog found something in a carry on bag of a 30 ish Indian man. This is not the so called "Sharp Dressed" man. I will refer to this man as "The man in orange". The man in orange, who stood some 20ft away from me the entire time until he was taken away, was immediately taken away to be searched and interrogated in a nearby room. At this time he was not handcuffed. When he emerged from the room, he was then handcuffed and taken away. At this time an FBI agent came up to the rest of the passengers and said the following (approximate quote) "You all are being moved to another area because this area is not safe. I am sure many of you saw what just happened (Referring to the man in orange) and are smart enough to read between the lines and figure it out." We were then marched out of the baggage claim area and into a long hallway. This entire time period and until we left customs, no person that wasn't a law enforcement personnel or a passenger on our flight was allowed anywhere on our floor of the terminal (or possibly the entire terminal) The FBI was so concerned during this time, that we were not allowed to use the bathroom unless we went alone with an FBI agent, we were not allowed to eat or drink, or text or call anyone. I have been repeating this same story over the last 5 days. The FBI has, since we landed, insisted that only one man was arrested for the airliner attack (contradicting my account). However, several of my fellow passengers have come over the past few days, backed up my claim, and put pressure on FBI/Customs to tell the truth. Early today, I heard from two different reporters that a federal agency (FBI or Customs) was now admitting that another man has been held (and will be held indefinitely) since our flight landed for "immigration reasons." Notice that this man was "being held" and not "arrested", which was a cute semantic ploy by the FBI to stretch the truth and not lie.

Just a question, could that mean that the man in orange had no passport?

However, a few hours later, Customs changed its story again. This time, Mr. Ron Smith of Customs, says the man that was detained "had been taken into custody, but today tells the news the person was a passenger on a different flight." Mr. Ron Smith, you are playing the American public for a fool. Lets take a look at how plausible this story is (After you've already changed it twice). For the story to be true, you have to believe, that:

1. FBI/Customs let passengers from another flight co-mingle with the passengers of flight 253 while the most important investigation in 8 years was pending. I have already stated that not one person who wasn't a passenger or law enforcement personnal was in our area the entire time we were detained by Customs.
2. FBI/Customs while detaining the flight 253 passengers in perhaps the most important investigation since the last terrorist attack, and despite not letting any flight 253 passenger drink, eat, make a call, or use the bathroom, let those of other flights trample through the area and possibly contaminate evidence.
3. You have to believe the above (1 and 2) despite the fact that no flights during this time allowed passengers to exit off of the planes at all and were detained on the runway during at least the first hour of our detention period.
4. You have to believe that the man that stood 20 feet from me since we entered customs came from a mysterious plane that never landed, let its passengers off the plane and let this man sneak into our passenger group despite having extremely tight security at this time (i.e. no drinking even).
5. FBI/Customs was hauling mysterious passengers from other flights through the area we were being held to possibly comtaminate evidence and allow discussions with suspects on Flight 253 or to possibly allow the exchange of bombs, weapons or other devices between the mysterious passengers from other flights and those on flight 253.

Seriously Mr. Ron Smith, how stupid do you think the American public is?

Mr. Ron Smith's third version of the story is an absolute inplausible joke. I encourage you, Mr. Ron Smith, to debate me anytime, anywhere, and anyplace in public to let the American people see who is credible and who is not.

I ask, isn't this the more plausible story:

1. Customs/FBI realized that they screwed up and don't want to admit that they left flight 253 passengers on a flight with a live bomb on the runway for 20 minutes.
2. Customs/FBI realized that they screwed up and don't want to admit that they left flight 253 passengers in customs for 1 hour with a live bomb in a carry on bag.
3. Customs/FBI realize that the man in orange points to a greater involvement then the lone wolf theory that they have been promoting.

Mr. Ron Smith I encourage you to come out of your cubicle and come up with a more plausible version number 4 of your story."

Haskell continued his comment in a different post on MLive.

"For the last five days I have been reporting my story of the so called "sharp dressed man." For those of you who haven't read my account, it involves a sharp dressed "Indian man" attempting to talk a ticket agent into letting a supposed "Sudanese refugee" (The terrorist) onto flight 253 without a passport. I have never had any idea how it played out except to note that the so called "Sudanese reefugee" later boarded my flight and attempted to blow it up and kill me. At no time did my story involve, or even find important whether the terrorist actually had a passport. The importance of my story was and always will be, the attempt with an accomplice (apparently succesful) of a terrorist with all sorts of prior terrorist warning signs to skirt the normal passport boarding procedures in Amsterdam. By the way, Amsterdam security did come out the other day and admit that the terrorist did not have to "Go through normal passport checking procedures".
Amsterdam security, please define to the American public "Normal passport boarding procedures".

You see the FBI would have the American public believe that what was important was whether the terrorist in fact had a passport.

Seriously think about this people. You have a suicide bomber who had recently been to Yemen to but a bomb, whose father had reported him as a terrorist, who supposedly was on some kind of U.S. terror watchlist, and most likely knew the U.S. was aware of these red flags. Yet, he didn't go through "Normal passport checking procedures." What does that mean? Maybe that he flashed a passport to some sort of sympathetic security manager in a backroom to avoid a closer look at the terrorist's "red flags"? What is important is that the terrorist avoided using normal passport checking procedures (apparently successfully) in order to avoid a closer look into his red flags. Who cares if he had a passport. The important thing is that he didn't want to show it and somehow avoided a closer inspection and "normal passport checking procedures." Each passport comes with a bar code on it that can be scanned to provide a wealth of information about the individual. I would bet that the passport checking procedures for the terrorist did not include a bar code scan of his passport (which could have revealed damning information about the terrorist).

Please note that there is a very easy way to verify the veracity of my prior "sharp dressed man" account. Dutch police have admitted that they have reviewed the video of the "sharp dressed man" that I referenced. Note that it has not been released anywhere, You see, if my eye witness account is false, it could easily be proven by releasing the video. However, the proof of my eyewitness account would also be verified if I am telling the truth and I am. There is a reason we have only heard of the video and not seen it. dutch authorities, "RELEASE THE VIDEO!" This is the most important video in 8 years and may be all of two minutes long. Show the entire video and "DO NOT EDIT IT"! The American public deserves its own chance to attempt to identify the "sharp dressed man". I have no doubt that if the video indicated that my account was wrong, that the video would have already swept over the entire world wide web.

Instead of the video, we get a statment that the video has been viewed and that the terrorist had a passport. Each of these statements made by the FBI is a self serving play on semantics and each misses the importance of my prior "sharp dressed man" account. The importance being that the man "Tried to board the plane with an accomplice and without a passort". The other significance is that only the airport security video can verify my eyewitness account and that it is not being released.

Who has the agenda here and who doesn't? Think about that for a minute."

Gee whiz, maybe our government really is lying to us.

heck, every time .gov opens it's mouth, there is a LIE coming out. Congressman Joe Wilson was more accurate than even he knew when he so accused hussein.

Say it ain't so... trying to give them the benefit of a doubt... some super secret James Bond kind of espionage thing...gaining vital intelligence...Yada yada yada...

Or bureaucratic CYA on a grand scale...

Our Government lying? I'm shocked, truly shocked.

Our Government lying? I'm shocked, truly shocked.

This is only the beginning. I see a ton more boulders rolling downhill before long. Frankly, from both parties.

this is the new den-o-crappers way getb rit of them all then its time to get the untided nations out of this country along with hellery clinton

Does this mean the world will end in 2012? or in 2036? I'm so confused!

already ended with Y2K---this is overtime.

Our federal law enforcement hunts in packs.. Do you know why? Their combined intelligence and initiative in any group equals one decent for profit person. I am saying it's more important to cover their butt than do the job they are tasked. So lying is a constant thing..to their bosses and to the general public. Thats my opinion.

It will be interesting to see how many heads will roll under Bad Barry's bus over this... if he ever gets done surfing that is...

Hussein The National Lawn Jockey would throw all of the Federal Security/LEO under the if that is what it takes to make him look good. His ego knows no bounds.

What an astounding read,.......

on second thought, not all that astounding.

I know, let's throw the FBI guys in with the Muslim Terrs, to get the chit beat outta' em', ....like Compean and Ramos.

that'll put everything back on it's SNAFU rails.

If I were Haskell, I'd be keeping my head down.

GTC

My guess is that Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell, attorney from Michigan will be spending some time in the near future discussing every single photo and file and link on his computers, at his home and his office, and all his emails and all his his phone records from home, office and mobil, and his personal books and records, and his port folio and his financial records, and his banking deposits and debits and his home mortgage and anything else that can be dug up on him, with agents from homeland security and the nsa and the fbi and the irs and the cia and the doj and the cid and the brown shirts task force and whomever else the federal government and the whitehouse has standing around on the payroll that can be thrown at him.

Hope he's got his ducks in a row. Audits can be a pain as it is, let alone when someone in the federal government has a hard-on for a guy and prefers he busy himself with various things other than submitting eye witness accounts of his recent experiences.

In my estimation flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell, attorney from Michigan, is most likely candidate to be thrown under any passing busses.

As a public officer for 17 years let me lay out four basic rules all public officers abide by:

1) CYA, means cover your azz

2) If you need to blame the other guy, in another department, in order to CYA, that's ok.

3) If you can't blame it on someone in another department, blame it on an underling.

4) If rules 1-3 fail, then plead ignorance and count it up to "Chit Happens"


I think others here with experience will agree that this is the way it works.

Pretty much, however I had to work with said agency on occasion and they were much less than impressive. OTW known as the Fumbling Bunch of Incompetents. Hell, they had Junior Gotti bugged,tapped surveilled and dogged for a long time and they STILL couldn't get him convicted after TWO trials. It also appears to me that the Klintoon admin has a ghost at large here. Jaime Gorelick, a Reno Justice dep lawyer, made a very effective "wall of silence" between Fed agencies. Seeing as how her former colleague, Holder is Atty General, somehow I am not surprised at all regarding the "failure".

Yeah... no.

After the 9-11 commission many of the barriers between CIA and FBI that had been put in place by Klinton's administration were torn down, agents in the field were allowed to take the gloves off, and a lot of good work was done. We, the American public, were not "fully informed" about what they did, and more to the point, we did not NEED to know. Richard Reid's interrogation transcript was not released to the media. Surveillance tapes were not aired on CNN. Names of detainees were not broadcast. I did not and do not regard that as "lying to the American public". When dealing with terrorists, most of the work is necessarily clandestine.

Then Barry O took office, and immediately sic'd his dogs on the very people who kept America safe for 6+ years. This has resurrected the bad old days, it seems. No one in federal law enforcement trusts anyone else, and with good reason. Just doing your job in this environment can get you indicted.

If FBI and INS/Customs are withholding information from the public, it's because they're playing their cards close to the vest, and if I am gauging this correctly, it's because there are a lot more people involved in this terrorist attempt and they need time and stealth to wrap them up.

Did that idiot woman who is supposedly in charge of Homeland Security lie to us? Probably, but I also believe that she was (and possibly still is) largely ignorant of the full details of the case. My guess is that the people who are doing the real work on this case have been doing their best to keep information from going up the chain of command because they have absolutely zero trust in her and the rest of the Obamacrats.

Just my two cents.

That is probably true, but Obama and the dimocrits follow those basic guidlines, Blame the other guy means blame Bush.

Doc, considering the fuggups that had ALREADY occured, I don't think you are correct on this one. If these guys HAD been doing their jobs as GWB HAD THEM DOING, the scum would NOT have made it onto that aircraft. Information was NOT deseminated. Nope the feds went back to the Klintoon era incompetence.

ET, I agree that the intel on this scumbag terrorist that would have been disseminated under GWB has been stalled under the current administration, because of the persecution of the intellingence community by Holder and the rest of Obama's czars that I alluded to in my previous post. But I don't give the Obamacrats as much credit for screwing up federal law enforcement as others do. I think the people in the field who are actually doing the work now, AFTER the fact, are almost certainly doing what needs to be done. From what I've heard and read the security breaches in Amsterdam were at least in part outside of American jurisdiction.

If the FBI's hands are indeed being tied by the Obama administration, then this Michigan lawyer's whistle-blowing can only do good. If the administration is as incompetent as I strongly believe it to be, the field work will get done no matter what incompetence happens up the chain, and no matter what the lawyer has to say.

Dco, whatever a field man learns is no good if it is not desseminated. The "wall" is a high level blockade that is VERY much due to the incompetence of the upper echelons of said agencies and the gov't branch they come under.

No argument from me on that score. However, there is still good information-sharing at the lower echelons, and I know for a fact that there is a lot more 'unauthorized' interagency intel-sharing than the wall-building Obamacrats know of.

I'm not making excuses for the current administration by any means. But it really sticks in my craw when I read some of our members' denigrating comments about the quality of the rank and file of FBI, CIA, or LE in general. I usually don't rise to such bait, knowing the prejudices of many, but I'm in a pizzy mood today.

I understand Doc. Unfortunately I had to work with federal agents quite often and the only ones who impressed me were US Marshals. The rest cause us more problems than they solved.

Can't argue with you, as my experience is probably unusual due to the nature of the work I do with LE, which tends to be pretty much at the operator level. I've seen some good work done by people in FBI, DEA, the Marshals (U.S. and Air) and several other alphabet agencies. Then again, I've seen a fair share of "postmen with guns". But by and large, the individuals I've known/worked with have been solid professionals.

Like I said, just my two cents.