Did Terrorist Case Busy NYC Bus Terminal?
— -- Did Terrorist Case Busy NYC Bus Terminal?
N E W Y O R K, April 30 — The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force has been given information about a suspicious man seen taking pictures at NYC's Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Port Authority workers told ABCNEWS that a man of Middle Eastern descent had been taking pictures of obscure areas of the terminal. When approached by police, the man fled.
The Port Authority immediately turned the case over to the FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force, but the FBI would not comment about the incident.
Renowned terrorist expert Harvey Kushner says taking photographs of a potential target is a common practice of al Qaeda operatives.
"There's a history, they cased out the embassies in East Africa. They cased out Kohbar Towers, the U.S.S. Cole and certainly the World Trade Center. So, this is the M.O. of that particular group," Kushner says.
Inside the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan, there are dozens of stores and thousands of people. More people pass through NYC's Port Authority Bus Terminal than any other in the nation: 200,000 people every day.
Last week Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that public places like shopping centers and malls could become potential terrorist targets.
The Port Authority says "it has operated at high-level security since Sept.11, and believes that is sufficient for the bus terminal."
The suspicious photographer seen at the bus terminal has not been identified or tied to any terrorist group. Sources told ABCNEWS that investigators showed the person who witnessed the incident pictures of suspected terrorists in an attempt to identify him.
—ABCNEWS.com
Judge Tosses Out Case Against Jordanian student
N E W Y O R K, April 30 — A federal judge threw out a perjury indictmenttoday against a Jordanian college student who knew two allegedSept. 11 hijackers, citing errors made when investigators appliedfor an arrest warrant.
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin dismissed the indictmentafter concluding that Osama Awadallah, 21, was unlawfully arrestedafter he was taken from his San Diego home several days after theSept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"Awadallah was effectively seized," she wrote.
Scheindlin said that federal statute does not authorize thedetention of material witnesses for a grand jury investigation. Itwas not immediately clear what effect such a ruling could have ondozens of material witnesses held since the terrorist attacks onthe World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"We believe the court's opinions are wrong on the fact and thelaw and we are reviewing our appellate options," U.S. AttorneyJames B. Comey said in a statement.
A message left with a lawyer for Awadallah was not immediatelyreturned.
The judge also threw out evidence seized after Awadallah, astudent at Grossmont College in El Cajon, Calif., was taken intocustody on Sept. 21. The evidence included videotapes and a pictureof Osama bin Laden.
The judge cited several factors showing that Awadallah's consentto go with FBI agents to their office and later submit to a liedetector test was the "product of duress or coercion."
She said the agents repeatedly made a show of force by tellinghim he could not drive his own car, frisking him, refusing to lethim inside his apartment and ordering him to keep a door open as heurinated. Moreover, she said, one agent threatened to "tear up"the apartment if he did get a warrant.
Agents also failed to tell Awadallah he had a constitutionalright to refuse any searches when they asked him to sign a formconsenting to a search, the judge said.
Awadallah was charged with perjury for allegedly lying about hisknowledge of one of the men blamed for the suicide attack on thePentagon.
In grand jury appearances, Awadallah admitted meeting allegedhijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi 30 to 40 times but denied knowing associateKhalid al-Mihdhar. Confronted with an exam booklet in which he hadwritten the name Khalid, he later admitted he knew both of them.
If convicted, Awadallah could have faced up to 10 years inprison.
—The Associated Press
Security Around County Relaxed Slightly Since 9/11
C H I C A G O, April 29 — Small planes can fly again over the nation'stallest building. Picnics are back along the Mississippi River. Butvisitors still must pass through metal detectors to reach LibertyIsland, home of the Statue of Liberty.
Seven months after the nation tightened security in response tothe terrorist attacks, some measures have been quietly dropped,while others have been woven into the fabric of a new, morecautious life in the United States.
Fewer soldiers are stationed at airports and state capitols, butthe long lines of travelers, extra metal detectors and bag searchesremain. Parking restrictions have been lifted at some governmentbuildings, but the temporary concrete barriers set up around themafter Sept. 11 have been replaced by enormous, permanent planters.
The American public seems to have changed, too. People whoinitially bristled at the inconvenience and intrusiveness ofpersonal searches now accept them as part of the daily routine asthey enter their workplaces.
When Justin Stein, a security guard at the Chicago MercantileExchange Center, began searching bags and briefcases last fall,people expressed annoyance and some even left the building inprotest.
But as the weeks went on, he said, "they started to acknowledgeour efforts, and people started realizing it could easily have beenus that were killed."
Across the country, many officials have refined their approachesto security since their initial, all-out response to the attacks.
"We now are moving from that kind of knee-jerk phase," saidDaniel Goure, an intelligence and defense expert at the LexingtonInstitute in Washington. "This is a much more complex or subtleproblem than the way we treated everything at first, which was justprotect everything and put barriers around everything."
The FBI has eased off issuing "high alerts" for the nation buthas begun giving more specific information. Last week, the FBIwarned of possible attacks on targets such as banks, shoppingcenters and supermarkets.
At the federal courthouse on Worth Street in New York City, lessthan a mile from the site of the World Trade Center, federalmarshals carrying shotguns no longer stand guard at curbside. But atent has been installed outside the entrance to provide the firstof two security checkpoints.
The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted various flightrestrictions over Washington, New York City and Boston. In Chicago,officials expressed concern earlier this month when the FAA endedthe no-fly-zone for small aircraft that had been in place over thedowntown area, including the Sears Tower, the nation's tallestbuilding. The officials have not decided whether to ask the FAA toreconsider.
Some of the last flight restrictions were lifted at ReaganNational Airport on Saturday. The restrictions had been imposedbecause of the airport's proximity to important governmentbuildings, including the Pentagon. There are still some specialrules in effect, including the no-standing rule on all planeswithin 30 minutes of takeoff and landing, and the use of passwordsby pilots when landing.
The government has begun relaxing other post-Sept. 11 rules,such as parking bans at airports. At Chicago's O'Hare Airport,drivers may again park in garage spaces that are within 300 feet ofthe terminal.
The posting of National Guardsmen at airports, one of the mostvisible reactions to the terrorist attacks, has all but ended. Thesoldiers are being replaced by local law enforcement officers untilthe federal government's own officers are hired, trained and inplace.
Several states have begun to scale back troops called up forother duty. For instance, in Iowa, officials have reduced thenumber of soldiers deployed to military bases and other sites from900 to 650.
National Guard patrols at state capitols and nuclear reactorsare also getting smaller. And law enforcement officers who wereworking extra shifts have significantly reduced patrols at shoppingcenters and recreational areas.
"If you go full-blow, it's very expensive," said Norm Arnoldof the Alabama National Guard. "The manpower was one of the bigthings."
Along the Mississippi River, the Army Corps of Engineers hasreopened some picnic and observation areas near key locks and dams.But commercial traffic remains banned on the road that windsthrough the Hoover Dam on the Arizona-Nevada line.
In Idaho, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne was criticized for imposingmeasures so severe that the Capitol was nicknamed "FortKempthorne." Most of those restrictions have since been lifted.The governor had ordered, for instance, that streets near theCapitol be blocked off, that concrete barriers be erected and thatall but two entrances be closed.
Elsewhere around the country, NASA has stopped announced launchtimes at Cape Canaveral, Fla., until 24 hours before liftoff.
The White House, which was closed to the public after Sept. 11,has started allowing tours again, but only for school groups thatmake arrangements beforehand. The FBI and Pentagon are doing thesame thing.
"A good homeland security system should be nearly invisible tothe average citizen because it isn't going to be the cop on thebeat, per se, or the National Guard," said Goure, the securityanalyst. "It's likely to be some computer jock who'scross-referencing data or some camera that can do visualidentifications. Proper, good security should be invisible."
— The Associated Press
First Federal U.S. Airport Screeners Begin Work
W A S H I N G T O N, April 30 — In an aviation security milestone ontoday, the nation's first team of federal screeners beganchecking airline passengers at Baltimore-WashingtonInternational Airport.
The 200 workers at two concourses are the first of anestimated 30,000 passenger and baggage screeners who will workfor the new Transportation Security Administration by the endof November.
Congress required the government to overhaul airportsecurity after the Sept. 11 hijack attacks. This included amandate to replace all passenger and baggage screeningoperations run by the airlines at more than 420 airports with afederal force.
No law enforcement agency has blamed screeners for thecatastrophic hijackings of four commercial jetliners almosteight months ago, but lawmakers considered this aspect ofairport security extremely vulnerable.
They wanted to replace the low-wage, high-turnover businesswith an operation staffed by an army of well-trained civilservants who would make more money than their predecessors andhave a clear career path.
Some screeners employed by private security firms may behired by the government to do the same work.
The first team at BWI will be a temporary, or "mobileforce," that initially will work as screeners.
Over the next six weeks that group will rotate through theairport's remaining concourse checkpoints to train otherscreeners before moving on to other airports.
Each screener will receive a minimum of 40 hours classroomtraining, five times the amount they received under theprevious system run by the airlines. They will also get 60hours on-the-job training.
The Transportation Department assumed responsibility forairport security from the airlines in February and contractedwith third-party services to handle baggage and passengerscreening.
The government immediately tightened standards after thatbut even under federal oversight the system has stumbled attimes.
Numerous security breaches at big airport screeningcheckpoints, including one on Monday in Los Angeles, havedisputed airport and flight operations. In some cases, terminalconcourses and planes have been evacuated.
—Reuters