"The Enemy Within"
PRESS RELEASE
FRONTLINE EXAMINES LODI TERROR CASE TO GAUGE
U.S. RESPONSE TO HOMEGROWN THREAT
FRONTLINE presents: THE ENEMY WITHIN
Tuesday, October 10, 2006, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS
Soon after 9/11, an FBI informant made an alarming claim: Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had visited the town of Lodi, Calif., in the late 1990s and attended a mosque there. Moreover, two Pakistani imams preaching at the mosque came from a conservative Islamic school, or madrassa, linked to the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan. According to McGregor Scott, the U.S. attorney who led the federal anti-terror investigation, this was "an attempt by a group of radical Islamic religious figures to come to this country and ... establish a madrassa to serve as a recruiting ground."
However, a deeper look at the evidence creates uncertainty about what kind of threat actually did exist in Lodi and provides a case study of America's response to the threat of domestic terrorism. FRONTLINE and New York Times reporter Lowell Bergman examines the Lodi case and interviews FBI and Homeland Security officials to assess U.S. anti-terror efforts in The Enemy Within, airing Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2006, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings).
The Lodi case drew the attention of senior U.S. officials. "A network of Islamic extremists in Lodi," Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told Congress in February 2006, "maintained connections with Pakistani militant groups, recruited U.S. citizens, ... [and] allegedly raised funds for international jihadist groups."
But when Bergman interviews one of the defendants, Umer Hayat, an ice cream truck driver in Lodi, about the terror investigation, the story seems less clear. "I just make [up] a story, that's all," says Hayat, "because they would not believe me when I was telling the truth." At the trials of Hayat and his son, Hamid, the FBI showed a videotape in which the Hayats confessed to attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, but questions remain. After arriving at the bureau's Sacramento office voluntarily, the Hayats were interrogated nonstop for 15 hours without a lawyer present. Separated, they gave different accounts of the camp they had visited, and the FBI did not conduct a follow-up investigation in Pakistan. "You can hear the agents literally dictate to [Hayat] what it is that they thought he was involved in," says James Wedick, a retired 35-year veteran of the FBI, who reviewed the videos for the defense. "And then he mimics back to them what he thinks that they want to hear."
According to Wedick, from the beginning, the case was based on bad intelligence. He tells FRONTLINE that the idea that Zawahiri had visited Lodi was "totally ludicrous," and prosecutors now admit that the informant was mistaken. The trial ended April 25 with the conviction of Hamid Hayat for attending a training camp and lying to the FBI; the defense has filed an appeal. After the jury deadlocked over charges against Umer Hayat, he pled guilty to an unrelated charge of making a false claim on a customs form and was released.
Critics of the U.S. war on terror, both in and out of government, fear that cases like Lodi demonstrate that the Bush administration, the Justice Department and the FBI have exaggerated the terrorist threat inside America. "Terrorism itself can be a rallying cry for political purposes," says John Brennan, founder of the National Counterterrorism Center and 23-year veteran of the CIA. "There is a legitimate concern about terrorism. However, you don't want to overhype it, and I think there has been some of that over the past couple of years."
The Enemy Within is a FRONTLINE co-production with Cam Bay Productions in association with The New York Times. The film is written and produced by Lowell Bergman & Oriana Zill de Granados. The correspondent is Lowell Bergman. FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by The Park Foundation. FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. The FRONTLINE executive producer for special projects is Michael Sullivan. The executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning.
pbs.org/pressroom
Promotional photography can be downloaded from the PBS pressroom.
Press contacts
Diane Buxton (617) 300-3500
Andrew Ott (617) 300-3500
QuestionItNow Blogs
FRONTLINE EXAMINES LODI TERROR CASE TO GAUGE
U.S. RESPONSE TO HOMEGROWN THREAT
FRONTLINE presents: THE ENEMY WITHIN
Tuesday, October 10, 2006, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS
Soon after 9/11, an FBI informant made an alarming claim: Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had visited the town of Lodi, Calif., in the late 1990s and attended a mosque there. Moreover, two Pakistani imams preaching at the mosque came from a conservative Islamic school, or madrassa, linked to the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan. According to McGregor Scott, the U.S. attorney who led the federal anti-terror investigation, this was "an attempt by a group of radical Islamic religious figures to come to this country and ... establish a madrassa to serve as a recruiting ground."
However, a deeper look at the evidence creates uncertainty about what kind of threat actually did exist in Lodi and provides a case study of America's response to the threat of domestic terrorism. FRONTLINE and New York Times reporter Lowell Bergman examines the Lodi case and interviews FBI and Homeland Security officials to assess U.S. anti-terror efforts in The Enemy Within, airing Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2006, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings).
The Lodi case drew the attention of senior U.S. officials. "A network of Islamic extremists in Lodi," Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told Congress in February 2006, "maintained connections with Pakistani militant groups, recruited U.S. citizens, ... [and] allegedly raised funds for international jihadist groups."
But when Bergman interviews one of the defendants, Umer Hayat, an ice cream truck driver in Lodi, about the terror investigation, the story seems less clear. "I just make [up] a story, that's all," says Hayat, "because they would not believe me when I was telling the truth." At the trials of Hayat and his son, Hamid, the FBI showed a videotape in which the Hayats confessed to attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, but questions remain. After arriving at the bureau's Sacramento office voluntarily, the Hayats were interrogated nonstop for 15 hours without a lawyer present. Separated, they gave different accounts of the camp they had visited, and the FBI did not conduct a follow-up investigation in Pakistan. "You can hear the agents literally dictate to [Hayat] what it is that they thought he was involved in," says James Wedick, a retired 35-year veteran of the FBI, who reviewed the videos for the defense. "And then he mimics back to them what he thinks that they want to hear."
According to Wedick, from the beginning, the case was based on bad intelligence. He tells FRONTLINE that the idea that Zawahiri had visited Lodi was "totally ludicrous," and prosecutors now admit that the informant was mistaken. The trial ended April 25 with the conviction of Hamid Hayat for attending a training camp and lying to the FBI; the defense has filed an appeal. After the jury deadlocked over charges against Umer Hayat, he pled guilty to an unrelated charge of making a false claim on a customs form and was released.
Critics of the U.S. war on terror, both in and out of government, fear that cases like Lodi demonstrate that the Bush administration, the Justice Department and the FBI have exaggerated the terrorist threat inside America. "Terrorism itself can be a rallying cry for political purposes," says John Brennan, founder of the National Counterterrorism Center and 23-year veteran of the CIA. "There is a legitimate concern about terrorism. However, you don't want to overhype it, and I think there has been some of that over the past couple of years."
The Enemy Within is a FRONTLINE co-production with Cam Bay Productions in association with The New York Times. The film is written and produced by Lowell Bergman & Oriana Zill de Granados. The correspondent is Lowell Bergman. FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by The Park Foundation. FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. The FRONTLINE executive producer for special projects is Michael Sullivan. The executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning.
pbs.org/pressroom
Promotional photography can be downloaded from the PBS pressroom.
Press contacts
Diane Buxton (617) 300-3500
Andrew Ott (617) 300-3500
QuestionItNow Blogs
posted by REB 84 at
10/06/2006 12:27:00 AM
4 Comments:
From the piece:
'Critics of the U.S. war on terror, both in and out of government, fear that cases like Lodi demonstrate that the Bush administration, the Justice Department and the FBI have exaggerated the terrorist threat inside America. "Terrorism itself can be a rallying cry for political purposes," says John Brennan, founder of the National Counterterrorism Center and 23-year veteran of the CIA. "There is a legitimate concern about terrorism. However, you don't want to overhype it, and I think there has been some of that over the past couple of years."'
Overhyping a threat is rounding up nearly 200,000 people of one ethnic and/or religious group from their homes and putting them into camps because the country they or their ancestors were from attacked the US, even while many members from said ethnic group were serving the US in the military as voluteers. While many who profess the Muslim faith were questioned soon after 9/11, even for long periods, there were no "relocation" camps set up for these people, or Muslims in general, even those who preach that the US and Israel are Satan. Underhyping the threat was what allowed jihadi terrorists to attack us on 9/11 from within. The facts show that there is no overhyping about terrorism by the Bush administration on any kind of a scale, as touted by so-called civil libertarians, let alone on the scale of what happened to Japanese-Americans during WWII.
Were or are there violations of civil rights of some of these people? Perhaps. Has it happened to other Muslims since the 9/11 terrorist attacks? Perhaps. Overhyping by the Bush administration? I don't think so. We are still at war, and were when Hamid Hayat went to the jihadist training camp (as noted in the criminal complaint filed by the FBI). Unless Hayat's appeal proves his innocence, then it must be concluded that he is guilty as charged.
I think the only overhyping being done is that by the usual "civil rights" crowd, and those who hate the Bush administration. Bergman seems to fall into this camp as he recently appeared with Bush-hater George Soros (and others) at a UC Berkely panel whining about the war against the terrorists.
The only overhyping going on is not by the Bush administration, but by those who are overhyping about governmental overhyping.
By
Steve, at 9:47 AM, October 09, 2006
Steve,
Don't you see that it's their job to justify their political existance. Who said it had to be true?
BTW Frontline is not what I'd call a good source for a non-biased story. They have a well known slant...
Making stuff up is business as usuall on both sides of the ailse...
"I did not have sex with that woman"
"I did not have sex with that paige"
I did not know how I made that million on the land deal I voted for."
Etc. Etc. Etc.
Your Tax dollars at work
By
Cal Trask, at 8:46 PM, October 11, 2006
We had a case in Detroit a couple of years ago in which an innocent man was arrested for a still unsolved random shooting into a crowd in the middle of downtown during our spectacular fireworks display.
The pressure on law enforcement to show results has too often lead to abuses of power and the indictment and arrest of innocent people. I'm sure you all remember Richard Jewel, the hard-luck security guard at the Atlanta Olympics.
BTW - Why have those who have been found innocent of any involvement with terrorists not yet found their way out of Quantanimo?
Every media outlet has their own bias. Often the bias begins with what it chooses to cover. I like Frontline because it covers issues that are typically ignored or buried in the back pages of mainstream media.
By
REB 84, at 12:06 AM, October 12, 2006
REB,
There are times (rare, but they exist) when Frontline does a good job. I would note that one that came out a couple of years ago or so regarding Kim Jong Il and North Korea, and their developing nukes.
Most that have gone through Gitmo have been released, and the ones still there have been determined (by a military tribunal hearing) to be hardcore and not worthy of release. Besides, who releases prisoners captured on a battlefield, regardless of whether or not they were terrorists?
Speaking of law enforcement run amok, there's a case in Mississippi of a man named Cory Maye who was convicted and sentenced to die (still in appeal) for killing a cop. From what I've read, he did do it, but as a result of a botched no-knock raid. Cops were making a drug raid at a building and barged into Maye's place (the wrong one) by accident. The targets of the raid (which did not include Maye, who had never been arrested) were actually in the building, but not through the entrance the police went in. The police also had not cased the place well as there was no connecting door between Maye's and the raid targets. When they burst into Maye's place (his 1 1/2-year old child was there also), he was startled as he woke up, didn't know who was breaking in, and pulled his gun and shot one of the raiding officers (who later died). Turns out, the dead cop was a son of the police chief. His case was rushed through court, and he seems to have been hastily convicted and sentenced to death. There's been a push to get Maye's retried to see if he really is guilty of any crime. The best and most current info on this is here. Glenn Reynolds has had lots on this too.
Gone for the weekend. Later.
By
Steve, at 7:02 AM, October 12, 2006
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