Update to our last post on unanimous media reports that Najibullah Zazi has admitted being involved in terror-related activities (which his lawyer, who is now issuing statements through a public relations firm, is still denying): The Denver Post reports Zazi left the Federal Building at 5:30 p.m. and is due back tomorrow for a fourth day of questioning. [Update: He was allowed to go home.]

Sounds like the interview that began in an attempt for Zazi to convince the feds he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time has turned into a proffer session where he's trying to get the best deal in exchange for his cooperation. His PR spokesperson says no deal is on the table, but won't rule one out, which tells me he still has a way to go to earn it.

Repeat after me: The jails are filled with people who thought if they could only tell their side of the story, the cops would see it their way. The 5th Amendment and Miranda rights are there for good reason. Use them or lose them.

Update: Zazi's father was allowed to go home after three hours of questioning. At 4:45 pm, Najibullah Zazi is still there.

ABC News is reporting:

The Aurora man under FBI investigation for alleged ties to a New York bomb plot, has admitted he has ties to al-Qaida and is in negotiations to plead guilty to a terror charge, a senior law enforcement official told ABC News. The official said Zazi had received explosives training and his possible guilty plea would be part of a deal to cooperate with the government.

The report says Zazi made the admissions this morning. The NY Daily News has a similar account. [More..]

Update: CBS' Rick Salinger reports at 11:30 pm Thursday, the questioning ended for the day and Zazi will return Friday for more questioning.

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Najibullah Zazi, the 24 year old person of interest in a federal terror investigation that is linked to last week's apartment searches in Queens, NY, began his second day of voluntary interrogation at 2:00 pm Thursday at the FBI office in Denver. As of 11:00 p.m., he was still there. I presume he is completely innocent of terror activities. But I question whether his voluntary cooperation will prove beneficial to him in the long run -- legally and otherwise.

CBS News today reported that Zazi filed bankruptcy in March, 2009 in the Eastern District of New York. The order of discharge was entered last month. Zazi's debts consisted of $52,000., all stemming from credit cards. At least 15 of the 20 credit card accounts were opened in a four month period in 2008. [More...]

Arthur Folsom, the Denver lawyer for Najibullah Zazi, says he will bring his client back to the F.B.I. office today for more questioning . (My earlier post on yesterday's search of Zazi's home and voluntary marathon interview is here.)

Former Sen. Gary Hart, who now serves as vice chairman of the Homeland Security Council, says he met yesterday with New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Hart doubts that the police have "uncovered an al-Qaeda terrorist cell that was planning a major terrorist attack." [More...]

As Najibullah Zazi was at the F.B.I. office in Denver with his lawyer voluntarily providing statements, handwriting samples and DNA, FBI agents were en route to search his residence. So why is Zazi talking to the feds? (Note: Update here.)

Zazi's lawyer says he called the FBI and offered to bring him down for an interview. The FBI called back and accepted. The local media sounds thrilled the lawyer for the suspect is "video-genic." I'll bet the F.B.I. is too. While Zazi was sitting in their office with his lawyer, volunteering handwriting exemplars and providing fingerprints and a saliva sample (and information about his travel history), they were searching his apartment (and his aunt's and uncle's nearby.) [More...]

I wonder how many years it will take us to undo the humiliating Bush-Cheney legacy of disrespect for the Constitution and our fundamental principles of justice, and the damage to America's reputation in the world, brought by their regime of torture, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary renditions, Ghost Air, military commission trials and other wrong-headed reactions to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Good reading: An op-ed about Dick Cheney in today's Miami Herald, Fear Was No Excuse for Torture by Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar, former top USMC Generals.

“[W]e never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a Vice President of the United States,” .... “we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas – and his scare tactics.”

If you have any thoughts about the 9/11 attacks, which were 8 years ago today, here's a thread for them.

Tomorrow is the 8th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Tonight, on ABC World News with Charles Gibson and Nightline, Elie Assaad, a former FBI informant, says he became suspicious of Mohammed Atta in early 2001, when the FBI sent him to infiltrate a small mosque outside Miami. Atta was there with Adnan Shukrujuman, an al Qaeda fugitive who now has a $5 million U.S. reward on his head.

Assaad, who worked in at least 10 states and overseas since becoming an FBI operative in 199, tells ABC News the FBI was so focused on undercover stings they missed a chance to stop Mohammed Atta and prevent the al Qaeda plot.

Assaad, who posed as "Mohammed" – a personal representative of Osama bin Laden, says he's a "million percent positive" the 9/11 attacks could have been stopped if the FBI had gone after Atta and Shukrujumah. But because Atta and his men were suspicious of the FBI undercover operative, and secretive, Assaad says his FBI agent handlers sent him after the easier target – two wannabe terrorists whose cases were easy to crack and who were both eventually convicted and sent to prison.

[More...]

We have learned that the CIA proved itself incompetent at interrogation. Of course, they also proved themselves willing to follow the criminal (yes criminal) directives of the Bush Administration on torture. I am not a fan of Eric Holder's "Abu Ghraib solution" (stick it on the small fish) to investigation of the criminal acts of the Bush Administration on torture. I prefer a Truth Commission, so that we can stamp out, from top to bottom, the view that torture can ever be justified. But I do find it amusing that the Keystone Cop torturers at the CIA are pouting about being called out for their incompetence:

Krongard, one of the few active or retired CIA officers with direct knowledge of the program willing to voice publicly what many officers are saying privately, said agency personnel now may back away from controversial programs that could place them in personal legal jeopardy should their work be exposed. "The old saying goes, 'Big operation, big risk; small operation, small risk; no operation, no risk.'" "If you're not in the intelligence business to be forward-leaning, you might as well not be in it," Krongard said.

[More...]

Last month we reported on the Obama Administration's plan to shift interrogation of high-value detainees from the CIA.

The Washington Post reports the new plan has now been approved.

Obama signed off late last week on the unit, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. Made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the interrogation unit will be housed at the FBI but will be overseen by the National Security Council -- shifting the center of gravity away from the CIA and giving the White House direct oversight.

[More...]

Glenn Greenwald:

In May, The Washington Times' Eli Lake reported that an extraordinary letter sent to the British by the Obama administration proved that "the Obama administration [said] it may curtail Anglo-American intelligence sharing if the British High Court discloses new details of the treatment of a former Guantanamo detainee." . . . [N]ow, The Guardian reports that . . . threats were issued by the Obama administration not only in the form of that previously disclosed letter, but also personally by Hillary Clinton in a May meeting with him and other British officials:

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, personally intervened to suppress evidence of CIA collusion in the torture of a British resident, the high court heard today. . . . David Miliband, the [British] foreign secretary . . . met Clinton in Washington on 12 May this year.

The most amazing thing about this to me is, except for Dan Froomkin when he blogged for the Post, this story has been completely ignored by the American Media. Watchdogs indeed.

Speaking for me only

Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano gave a major address today. Shorter version: It's time to ramp up the war on terror, give more money to cops and tweak but not eliminate some Bush policies, and encourage citizens to report suspicious activity. From the Wall St. Journal this morning:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is expected to outline Wednesday the Obama administration's domestic approach to preventing terrorist attacks -- a strategy that will rely in large measure on refining and expanding initiatives launched under President George W. Bush.

We can't afford a health care plan, but we can afford more cops for New York City.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the city will get $35 million in transit security stimulus money that the city can use to hire more police officers. She says the money will put more than 100 additional cops on city subways and busses.

[More...]

Remember the Buffalo/Lackawanna Six? It's now coming out that Dick Cheney urged former President Bush to ignore the Posse Comitatus Act and send the military into Buffalo to make the arrests. Bush ended up rejecting the idea.

A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests has few precedents in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

The Fourth Amendment bans “unreasonable” searches and seizures without probable cause. And the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.

What did Cheney use as support for his view that the military could be used for a law enforcement operation if national security was involved? A 2001 Justice Department memo co-authored by John Yoo and directed to then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. [More...]