What Was Able Danger?

Able Danger was a threat-analysis program run by the U.S. military. Based on data-mining techniques, it sought to identify suspicious patterns of behaviour among potential terrorists. Several military officers, formerly associated with the program, claim that is successfully identified Mohammed Atta, who has been described as the ringleader of the September 11th hijackers, as a suspicious person in 2000, almost a year before the attacks took place. These officers claim that bureaucratic restrictions prevented them from passing the information on to the law enforcement agencies which were in a position to take action against Atta.

Republican congressman Curt Weldon has been active in promoting public discussion of this issue. He claims the military officers who went public with their knowledge of the program have been retaliated against, and that leads about Able Danger which he supplied to the 9/11 commission were never followed up. In response to pressure from Weldon, the military instituted an inquiry into his claims. It concluded by rejecting them entirely, insisting it had found no evidence that Atta had been identified prior to the attacks, and that the testimony of the witnesses was unreliable.