Homeland Security and Federalism

I am currently reading a book called Disconnecting the Dots by Kevin Fenton. The entire book is basically on why 9/11 was allowed to occured despite the ability that homeland security had to prevent it. The main reasons that the terrorist attack still occured, despite the information we had about it were the withholding of information from the FBI, the omition of key facts in government reports, and the lack of action when faced with solid evidence.

When the FBI, and even senior members of the CIA, requested manuscripts of satellite calls made from Bin Laden's satellite phone, of which the CIA had access to, they were given only summarizations or incomplete manuscripts, making it impossible to detect patterns in aliases and code words.



There are astounding facts throughout the book that, so far, have made me even more passionate about what happened on 9/11 as well as angry about the government's choice to let it occur. Alec Station, the small CIA group solely focused on Bin Laden, had access to his satellite phone for years before the attack and had knowledge of his whereabouts, his terrorist plans, and his affiliation with Al Qaeda amongst other things. This surplus of information could have easily been used to prevent the attacks, however the decisions of a few select people caused the deaths of thousands- for virtually no reason. The power that the government has, even a small, specific group in the government, to control what information is withheld or shared, despite its magnitude is astounding, as are the severe failures in the system that allowed 9/11 to not only happen, but to happen on such preventable grounds. This book is extremely enlightening and provides a lot of insight into both the causes and what led up to the 9/11 attacks, as well as into homeland security itself.

Book Review for Disconnecting the Dots
http://911reports.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/deconstructing-the-911-dot-disconnection-a-book-review-by-erik-larson/