The Intelligence Data Mining Program That Went Ignored (Able Danger)

Able Danger was a classified military planning effort led by the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). It was created as a result of a directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff in early October 1999 by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton, to develop an information operations campaign plan against transnational terrorism. Able Danger identified Mohamed Atta 13 separate times prior to 9/11 and that the unit also identified a potential situation in Yemen two weeks prior to the October 12, 2000 attack on the USS Cole. However SOCOM officials would later order one of the Able Danger team member, Erik Kleinsmith, to destroy 3 terabytes of data collected. Another of the team members of the program, Anthony Shaffer, would later come under attack by the Defense Department and SOCOM lawyers for telling 9/11 Commission Director Phillip Zelikow about the covert operation, to which they would create fictitious charges which were later dropped.