Bush administration raised terror alert based on con man’s scam

By Zach W On December 28, 2009 · 5 Comments · In News, Those Kooky Conservatives!

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to a single soul, given the fact that former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has indicated the Bush administration used the color-coded terror alert system as a political tool, but it’s being reported the Bush administration raised the nation’s terror alert level in December 2003 based on claims made by a Nevada con man:

The man who prompted the December 2003 Orange alert was Dennis Montgomery, who has since been embroiled in various lawsuits, including one for allegedly bouncing $1 million in checks during a Caesars Palace spree. His former lawyer calls him a “habitual liar engaged in fraud.”

Working out of a Reno, Nevada, software firm called eTreppid Technologies, Montgomery took in officials in the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology and convinced them that technology he invented — but could not explain — was pulling terrorist-produced “bar codes” from Al Jazeera television broadcasts. Using his proprietary technology, those bar codes could be translated into longitudes and latitudes and flight numbers. Terrorist leaders were using that data to direct their compatriots about the next target.

It’s important to note Montgomery’s “technology” for decoding Al Jazeera broadcasts could never be reproduced, and perhaps more disturbing, the federal government was acting on the Al Jazeera claims without even understanding how Montgomery was able to decode the supposed messages in the Al Jazeera broadcasts.

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5 Responses to Bush administration raised terror alert based on con man’s scam

silent E says:

December 28, 2009 at 7:35 am

Please explain the point of this post… Shouldn’t you be posting on the queen of clueless, Janet Napolitano?
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- Zach W says:
  
  December 28, 2009 at 6:35 pm
  
  Please explain to me why I should explain the point of this post to you.
  
  As for Janet Napolitano, I haven’t heard about her randomly raising the terror alert level just to scare folks, nor have I heard stories about her department giving money to con men. If you’ve got information about that, I’d certainly like to see it.
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silent E says:

December 28, 2009 at 7:33 pm

I just find it amusing that Janet commits a HUGE blunder and you decide to deflect from the current admin and bring up a totally irrelevant subject. Can you possibly give me some kind of time frame that has to elapse before the Obama admin take responsibility for it’s own actions? The attempted attack isn’t really the fault of the Obama admin but you have to admit they need to take some heat for the stupidity Janet was blathering…. Bringing up old Bush stories is just lame….
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- Zach W says:
  
  December 28, 2009 at 7:50 pm
  
  “The attempted attack isn’t really the fault of the Obama admin”
  
  And thus I see no need to attack the Obama administration for a situation they had little to do with. How about we blame passenger screening procedures in Amsterdam and Nigeria instead?
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silent E says:

December 29, 2009 at 7:53 am

What about Janet Napolitano coming out and saying the system worked???? How about addressing how clueless she is?? Maybe even pointing out that she isn’t qualified to hold this cabinet position???? NOPE!!!!! Find and old Bush story and pretend it didn’t happen….
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