Able Danger: Condi Rice a Security Risk

Well, I can't argue with that!

But I guess this is why Able Danger was cancelled so quickly by the Bush administration:

NYPost--

"The Pentagon canceled its contract with the private firm shortly after the analysts — who were working on identifying al Qaeda operatives — produced a particularly controversial chart on proliferation of sensitive technology to China, the sources said.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the veteran Army officer who was the Defense Intelligence Agency liaison to Able Danger, told The Post China "had something to do" with the decision to restructure Able Danger.

Sources said the private contractors, using sophisticated computer software that sifts through massive amounts of raw data to establish patterns, came up with a chart of Chinese strategic and business connections in the U.S.

The program wrongly tagged Rice, who at the time was an adviser to then-candidate George W. Bush, and former Defense Secretary William Perry by linking their associations at Stanford, along with their contacts with Chinese leaders, sources said.

The program also spat out scores of names of other former government."

Seems to ME, Rice WAS a security risk! But what do I know-- I'm just a tinfoil-hat-wearing kook.

Certainly it's funny how the Clinton admin didn't seem to mind this program but the Bush admin. got very touchy about the findings of this program.

In any case, the idea that Able Danger was fatally flawed because it identified Rice and other government offficials is bullshit, and I think is an excuse to make this story go away once and for all. Basically, Able Danger was a data-mining program, and there was absolutely no reason why they couldn't have modified it to only analyze foreigners who were terrorist threats. In fact, I would be surprised if they DIDN'T have a more circumscribed analysis that focused only on foreigners. After all, the point of the whole program was to identify Al Qaeda suspects!

(The complete text of the Post article can be found here and this blog comments on the story.)