Respite for the Politically Incorrect Who Challenge Authority, Tyranny and Enemies of Our Republic
Bogdan Dzakovic was born in 1954 in Ohio. As the son of refugee parents from war torn Europe he grew up with the notion that the United States was a guiding beacon of light in a world gone mad, and joined the federal government to enhance that light, and to fight the bad guys. After a brief stint in the military and federal law enforcement, in the late 1980's he started working for the Federal Aviation Administration as an air marshal and later as a Team Leader in the air marshal program. Still later, as a Team Leader in the FAA's Red Team (terrorist team), he was one of the few
people in the federal government that identified the threat of terrorism, the vulnerabilities in aviation security and attempted to prevent the 9/11 attacks. Working with others to improve security before the 9/11 attacks, he took their concerns to the highest officials in the bureaucracy, to the Inspector General's office, to the General Accounting Office, and to individual members of Congress. They did nothing but cya. He testified at the 9/11 Commission and maintains that the Commission was a whitewash in certain key areas to keep the government's own bloody hands out of the light of public scrutiny. He wrote the book FORTRESS OF DECEIT to shed some light on what went on behind the scenes in Washington DC before the attacks, as well as the government's nefarious activities after the attacks to ensure they maintained this system of no
accountability. Things are worse now than they were in the lead up to 9/11. After a 32 year government career, he discovered that the worst "bad guys" were some of our own senior bureaucrats and national elected officials, where they continue to thrive.
feed your head
By Bogdan Dzakovic, jetPilots.com, 06APR2022
Amazing how the brain works. A few weeks back I was rummaging through some old boxes in my basement and stumbled across a crumpled hard copy of an article that I had published in a law enforcement magazine, and it brought back a lot of memories.
This took place late last century. It was a dark time in human history. It was a time before smarty phones turned everyone into geniuses, before computers automatically corrected your grammar and spelling. It was a time when you actually had to be able to read a map, and you had to memorize your best friend’s phone number. A time when “mindfulness” was taken for granted instead of being a new age wave of mental awareness. It was a time before digital cameras became ubiquitous and gave a boost to Orwell’s dystopian society. It was a time when the phrase, “feed your head”, had a totally different connotation than the way I’m using it now.
The article described a mnemonic technique that I learned in college and subsequently applied in my early law enforcement days and later throughout my security career. The ability to effectively take a flash photograph (using only your eyes and your brain) of a crime scene, or a suspect, or the continuing developments in a lengthy surveillance. While working over-seas I used a similar technique while engaged in counter-surveillance. It can be used to memorize spoken details of a suspect or witness when jotting down notes are impractical, or used on any of the other myriad things a police officer (or secret agent) comes across on a daily basis. Want to challenge Sherlock Holmes on his famous ability to observe details – this system will help you do just that. (The “deduction” part will have to wait for another essay.) I recently heard of an airline pilot who used his own mnemonic technique to memorize the extensive pre-flight check-list while preparing the plane for flight. Much to my chagrin, I once used this while observing an autopsy and have been unable to purge the image from my mind. It's essentially applicable to anything that crosses before one’s eyes – and store it in your short or long term memory.
Not unexpectantly, I received a lot of positive feedback from law enforcement professionals concerning this mental phenomenon; but what surprised me at the time was that I also received positive feedback from just regular folks, most of whom were teachers. I’m assuming they were the spouses of law enforcement personnel, otherwise they wouldn’t necessarily be reading a law enforcement magazine.
What the teachers described was that when they taught this technique to some of their students, particularly those that had some difficulty with school, that their academic performance improved dramatically. In fact, the technique can be used to notice details and memorize anything that crosses a student’s path – not just a visual scene. Use it to memorize: the most important points in a reading assignment; your pen runs out of ink while you’re listening to a lecture or speech, use this to memorize the key ideas presented; studying for an essay exam, use this to memorize the key issues; while you’re taking a shower, use it to memorize a grocery list you’re putting together; easily memorize passwords or numbers; you’re driving to work, use it to memorize the list of things you have to accomplish that day; you see a suspicious person milling around your neighborhood, memorize his image; for those approaching their second century of life, can’t remember why you walked into the next room, use this technique. Its use is limited only by one’s imagination.
My article was published so long ago that it hasn’t even been digitized yet, so I’m not able to provide a link. Instead, I copied the meat of the text below for you to learn from, and apply the way you see fit.
* * *
In order to quickly demonstrate that what I’m presenting is not a gimmick or parlor room trick, briefly examine the following “words” of a person, place, or thing: (see list A)
LIST A
01 Dog
02 Beach
03 Cigarette
04 Flag
05 George Washington
06 Computer
07 Gun
08 Watch
09 House
10 Bus
11 Knife
12 Airplane
13 Notebook
14 Glass
15 Baby
16 Badge
17 DNA
18 Boss
19 Clown
20 Crime scene
How long would it take, using standard rote memorization, to memorize this list, to be able to recall the list forward, backward, or randomly?
Using this mnemonic technique, in little more time than it takes to read the next few paragraphs, you will be able to recall the list in any order or sequence. This technique requires the student to apply something that he is intimately acquainted with to the items to be memorized. In this case I use the numbers from 1 to 20; as numbers are the easiest to organize.
The next step is to equate the appropriate mnemonic device with the individual numbers from 1 to 20. The association between the two, as you will see, is based on rhyme or some other obvious link between the number and device. (see list B)
LIST B
01 Bun
02 Shoe
03 Tree
04 Door
05 Hive
06 Sticks
07 Candle
08 Gate
09 Dime
10 Can
11 Heaven
12 Egg
13 Baker’s dozen
14 Cupid
15 Tennis
16 Driver’s liscense
17 Magazine
18 Soldier
19 Booze
20 Lincoln
As you can see, rhyme provides the connection between the mnemonic tool and the number in most cases, several may require further explanation: “Candle”, refers to the seven pronged candelabrum. “Egg”, a package of a dozen eggs. “Bakers dozen”, refers to what was apparently the practice during medieval times for a baker to add another donut to a bag of a dozen, as the consequences of short-changing a customer was quite severe. February 14th is always Valentine’s Day. “Tennis” points in the game are awarded in groups of 15. “Driver’s license”, sixteen is the normal age when a youth gets his driver’s license. “Magazine” refers to Seventeen Magazine. “Soldier”, draft age. “Booze”, nineteen was apparently the legal drinking age where the original proponent of this mnemonics system came from. And “Lincoln”, refers to his Gettysburg Address (ie: Four score and seven years ago….”, a “score” being 20.
The above is the only aspect of this technique that requires any effort using traditional rote memorization that we all have learned and used to one degree or another.
The next step is to associate the mnemonic list (B) you have just learned with the sample list (A) of items to be memorized. Before initiating this next phase, I cannot emphasize enough that when looking at the sample list, one does not focus on the actual word but rather on the visual image of what that word represents.
The objective is to memorize the practical items in list (A) and be able to recall the list in sequential order; in reverse order; or randomly. This will be accomplished as rapidly as it takes to read the following “visualizations” and spend a second or two merely thinking of the visual image presented combining the mnemonic device with the object to be memorized.
The technique works as follows:
Item 01…..visualize a dog chewing on a hamburger bun
Item 02…..visualize an old shoe washing up on sandy beach
Item 03…..a cigarette propped up on a tree branch
Item 04…..a flag draped over your front door
Item 05…..George Washington getting stung by a bee
Item 06…..a computer with a stick smashed through the monitor
Item 07…..a candle sticking on the end of a barrel of a gun
Item 08…..a wristwatch wrapped around the iron prong of a gate
Item 09…..a dime leaning against the outside wall of a house
Item 10…..a bus in the shape of a tin can with wheels
Item 11…..an angel holding a knife
Item 12…..an airplane loaded with a eggs instead of passengers
Item 13…..a baker holding a notebook
Item 14…..a drinking glass with “cupid” imprinted on the side
Item 15…..a baby sitting on a tennis racket
Item 16…..a police car with an oversized badge on the hood
Item 17…..a science magazine with the cover story DNA
Item 18…..a soldier saluting his boss
Item 19…..a clown with a bottle of booze in his hand
Item 20…..Lincoln holding a magnifying glass examining a corpse
* * *
In the few moments it took you to read the above “item” list, you should be able to recall the entire list (A).
With a little imagination you will be able to apply this technique to virtually any situation in which you may want to observe and remember minute details and possibly open up new frontiers in the use of your brain. Initially when you use this system you are only downloading the information into your short-term memory. To save it to your long-term memory you merely need to reinforce the memory a few times, and remember – practice makes perfect. While this system is easy to learn it is actually difficult to use – requiring a degree of concentration most people aren’t accustomed too – which, just by itself, is good exercise for your head.
Another side benefit of using this system is to help stem the atrophy of the brain caused by the over-usage of the current generation of high-tech gizmos, from smart phones, various sonic and visual stimulations and even artificial intelligence. All of which, from my observation and experience, is dummifying people and turning former human beings into mere consuming, non-thinking, biologic units.
For you die-hard law enforcement types (or others that have the intellectual interest), if you wish to read the entire article you’ll have to find a copy of the book: The Best of Police Marksman, Volume II, 1995-2000. Pages 234-238. Titled: Tactical Memorization, or mnemonics and the law enforcement officer, by Bogdan Dzakovic. At least until they digitize it.
the red team enigma
(or The Deep State vs. the Dumb State)
By Bogdan Dzakovic, jetPilots.com, 04SEP2021
I’ve been questioned fairly frequently in the recent past concerning the concept of a Red Team, so I decided to jot down a few comments for the benefit of whomever else might be interested.
Briefly, there are two overlapping types of red team. One is an adversary team designed to give the good guys some experience at combatting a potential enemy. I believe it was the military that first instituted this type of red team during the cold war by using weapons and tactics of our Soviet counterparts to train our own troops. It could be used in law enforcement training too. But it also has operational uses: Instead of just using snitches, high tech surveillance and pure dumb luck to anticipate how the next shipment of dangerous drugs are going to cross the border, use a red team to replicate and predict the tactic before it happens. Want to know how the bad guys could/would attack a large public gathering – use a red team before it happens. Got a problem with juvenile delinquents defacing public property – ditto. The potential law enforcement operational uses are limited only by imagination.
Closely related to this, another type of red team is an adversary team designed to test the vulnerabilities of a given target. Essentially determine how easy it may be for a potential bad guy to breech security and wreck whatever havoc he may have in mind once he arrives on the other side. This form of a red team is applicable, of course, to any type of security system: From banks, computer systems, high-risk personnel, power plants, water treatment facilities, ocean liners, commercial aircraft, cargo aircraft, military bases, the various elements within the Department of Homeland Security, and any commercial and private entity that has anything of value to protect that a potential bad guy would want to destroy or usurp. It also has uses in the research and development phase of a given product/project. Want to know how the projected use of artificial intelligence could be confused – some red team type thinking and application might prevent a nervous breakdown within the system. Concerned about what the head of state of a foreign country may do in a given situation – apply some red team type reasoning. In fact, in many situations the operational use of a red team may not be practical; instead using a red team version of a thought experiment would suffice.
A red team is a crucial tool to assess how effective one’s security is in thwarting a real world attack. If properly executed, a Red Team can accurately predict the exact type of impending attack by a sophisticated adversary that may already be in the planning phase; with the intent that managers can take the appropriate corrective actions to thwart just such an attack from taking place. I look at this as sort of a chess game. The more moves you can accurately think through ahead of your opponent the better your chances of winning the game. A Red Team can give you that advantage.
If you think any of this is an exaggeration, science fiction or fantasy, let me give you a real world example: Probably the single most ‘cosmic’ man-made event this century (so far) was the 9/11 terrorist attacks (the jury is still out on whether the virus flurry was man-induced or not). In the years before the attacks, individuals within the FAA Red Team accurately predicted the attacks and attempted to prevent them. As a former Red Team leader by this time, I also predicted the 2006 [British foiled] attempt by the bad guys to bomb twenty commercial aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean as well as the Transportation Security Administration’s knee-jerk reaction of minimizing the amount of liquids and jells that passengers can bring aboard aircraft. There were a lot of smaller things we predicted but the above have a clearly documented record.
Not speaking for my colleagues, but the basic methodology I used to accomplish this is the following five point plan. Keep in mind that what I describe is very situation specific to the prelude of these attacks, but the basic methodology is applicable to any Red Team exercise.
First, I totally ignored all the classified information on the subject of terrorism. As history has demonstrated, the entire intelligence and federal law enforcement community dropped the ball in the lead up to the attacks. If one is going to rely on the conventional wisdom, there’s no point in using a Red Team. One has to look beyond that.
Instead, I immersed myself in any and all unclassified information on the subject of contemporary terrorism that I could get my hands on. To include the weapons, tactics, training, motivations, capabilities, politics, psychology, and the [not so politically correct] understanding of the religious dogma, as well as anything else available and relevant.
Second, I studied the current domestic and international aviation security environment, not by reading the regulations but rather by researching aviation security from any open source material available to the public.
Third, the first operational deployment involved just conducting non-intrusive surveillance of airport security. Get an idea of what’s going on. Walking through an airport terminal building gave one valuable insight, if one knew what to look for.
Fourth, the second operational phase involved fairly mild testing of the system with the goal of ascertaining how feasible an actual attack would be.
And finally, add all this together and it definitively led to only one conclusion. As early as 1998, we knew the United States was going to get hit hard by terrorists and that it was going to be conducted via commercial aviation.
OK, so what happened?
And here we have the enigma. None of this works!
There’s a culture in the federal government that once you get into management the bureaucracy will defend you no matter how big a numskull you are. The last thing senior managers in government want to start is a trend of management accountability. They don’t know how high this accountability monster could go, and they certainly don’t want to risk loosing this monster on themselves. So its safer to protect the numskulls. Throughout my 32 year career, most of the managers I knew were more concerned about getting their next job than they were in performing their current one. Going way out on limb supporting an “out of control” Red Team isn’t conducive to a profitable career. Even agency heads have to answer to somebody – if only to ensure they are towing the company line.
The weakest link in any red team exercise is the senior management team. Managers are a dime a dozen (figuratively speaking), real leaders with a strong moral base and mission oriented are a unique breed. This lack of appropriate accountability breeds a culture of mediocrity at best, certainly dangerous and perhaps illegal behavior at worst. One of the very first things the government did immediately after the 9/11 attacks was terminate the red team and replace it with what I called a “Pink Team” in my testimony to the 9/11 Commission. Furthermore, within this type of culture there’s also the very real risk of additional abuse: Slanting red team results specifically to enhance a crony’s lucrative business enterprise rather than fulfilling the agency’s mission.
With all the other domestic and international issues overwhelming the news with real or contrived problems, the United States Congress has little interest in fulfilling it’s Constitutional oversite responsibilities of the federal bureaucracy. In fact, we implicated a number of them for their complicity in allowing the attacks to occur. The Congress has their own vested interest in maintaining this bureaucratic status quo. We essentially elect our federal politicians to do the bidding of whomever pays them most, not to rationally address problems while keeping within the confines of the Constitution. This has nothing to do with politics (as in political parties), but rather a dysfunctional culture of the largest employer in the United States where deadly mistakes are routinely and easily buried.
Another potential weak link in the Red Team chain are the quality of the members, leaders and managers. Most of the people involved with the FAA Red Team were as clueless as the rest of the federal government proved to be. In his phenomenal book RED TEAM, the author Micah Zenko, interviews a number of successful red team leaders from various industries and government agencies who state (and I’m paraphrasing here for brevity) “that the best red team members didn’t think outside the box, they were in another dimension”. I should point out that Steve Elson, one of my colleagues in this endeavor, has such a gifted insight in these matters that had he the political clout in the wind up to the 9/11 attacks that the course of world history in this century would have started off much more benign than it turned out. Fighting terrorism proved to be easy compared to fighting politics and bureaucracy.
As to the question of whether the prelude to the 9/11 attacks and its endless wars postscript is a result of the nefarious self-serving deep state efforts or if it is the result of a lot of stupid, self-serving, gutless people behaving according to their nature in the dumb state,
I really don’t know.
license to kill
(or a great big can of worms)
By Bogdan Dzakovic, jetPilots.com, 06NOV2020
On October 29, 2018 a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max crashed killing 189 people. Already suspicions were being aroused concerning FAA complicity in the disaster. But it took another 157 to die in an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max crash on March 10, 2019 for Congress to hold hearings on this latest failure of the system.
In September of 2020 the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released its damning report of these aviation disasters which “excoriates Boeing and the FAA” and which resulted from “horrific culmination of failures by Boeing and the FAA”.
But so what? There is a culture in the federal government that while bureaucracies may perform in a manner that, let us say at a minimum, is not in the interests of the tax-paying public; apparently these bureaucratic failures occur without any human involvement as no one is ever held accountable for making the decisions that directly lead to these types of tragedies.
While some sources claim that the United States commercial aviation system is one of the safest in the world, whenever a disaster does occur its certainly worth a closer examination to determine the internal mechanics of what led up to the disasters. Unfortunately, the Congress doesn’t do this. And it, in turn, leads to one bureaucratic failure after another. And the body count keeps getting higher.
Lets take a look at this history – just from an aviation security perspective:
During the early to mid-1980’s the world was hit with a wave of comparatively small-scale terrorist attacks including aircraft hijackings with a handful of innocent people killed in the process. The end result was that FAA Security was gifted (by Congress) with an increase in tax-payer funds and additional personnel without a corresponding increase in performance – essentially doing the same quality of work but at a greater cost to the tax-payers. Thus, beginning a trend of Congress continually reinforcing this failure-based mentality. The more people that got killed the more money FAA received. I started as a Federal Air Marshal during this time frame.
Perhaps the single most powerful career bureaucrat within the Security Division of FAA during the 1990’s was Lynn Osmus. She was in charge of the Operations Section of FAA Security in the early 90’s and was the number two person in charge of all of Security by the time of the 9/11 attacks. Apparently, the powers that be thought so highly of her career performance that she was promoted to Acting FAA Administrator for a brief time in 2009 – according to Wikipedia. But there was a whole coterie of lap dog managers following in her path.
In the late 1980‘s a group of Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) became concerned enough about the sorry state of aviation security especially in light of the ever-increasing terrorist threat that they sent an anonymous letter to the Inspector General highlighting their allegations. Their concerns were shortly vindicated, however, with the bombing of Pan Am 103 on December 21, 1988; but it took these additional 270 unnecessary deaths to prove the point. The bomb was placed on the plane in Frankfurt, GE (FAA had security oversite responsibilities at foreign locations where US air carriers operated.)
Months before the attack a low-level FAA manager who conducted a routine security inspection at Frankfurt stated in his report that security at that location is held together by the “tenuous threads of luck”. Nine months after the attack I was part of an FAA team that was sent to Frankfurt to sew up the security loopholes that allowed the attacks to occur. That’s nine months, an indication of the priority FAA placed on this tragedy. The end result was that FAA was gifted (by Congress) with another increase in tax-payer funds and additional personnel – without a corresponding increase in performance.
Another pivotal player appeared during this time frame. This was Mary Schiavo, who was Inspector General for the Department of Transportation from 1990-1996 according to Wikipedia. Ms. Schiavo was unique in the annals of government bureaucrats in that she was actually doing the job the tax-payer was paying her to do. She had the nasty habit of continually rattling the cage of the FAA bureaucrats eventually popularizing the term “Tombstone Agency” (meaning they never did anything to improve safety or security until people got killed first).
On May 11, 1996 Value Jet 592 plunged nose first into the Florida Everglades killing 110 people due to a hazardous materials (hazmat) fire that started in the cargo hold. A summation of the crash investigation directly implicated FAA Security for its extremely poor performance of its hazardous materials oversight responsibilities for this airline. Hazmat fell within the responsibilities of the security division. By this time in my career I really began to appreciate the outstanding gift that FAA managers brought to the table – the ability to unashamedly drum-up excuses for virtually anything. More people died and FAA received more money.
A few months later on July 17, 1996 TWA 800 exploded just a few miles off Long Island, New York killing 230 people. The official investigation concluded that their ‘best guess’ of the cause of the explosion was some faulty electrical wiring in the fuel tank which ignited the vapors. By this time I had quit the FAM branch as I recognized it was an ineffectual, disaster prone outfit, which had completely bought into the Tombstone mentality. I transferred to a Team Leader position in the FAA Red Team (terrorist team). In this capacity I came across some very convincing circumstantial evidence indicating that a missile was seen striking the aircraft by multiple witnesses observing the disaster from different geographic areas and reporting similar observations unique to the geographic area in which they were located.
I have to report that I do not know if a missile destroyed the aircraft or not. All I had was very strong circumstantial evidence which supported that likelihood. What I do know, however, is that the government decided long before the evidence was in that a missile did not destroy the aircraft. I submitted my report thru my chain of command and provided copies to my FBI contacts I was working with at the time. I had a very good working relationship with my two FBI contacts until about a month or so after they received my report. Then, no further communication at all. Not even a polite goodbye or good riddance. Before they terminated this contact, they both expressed frustration to me that out of the hundreds of FBI agents assigned the task of investigating the calamity of TWA 800 and the 230 poor souls that perished, that only two FBI agents were assigned the task of investigating the disaster from a possible missile angle. Assignment of the number of agents to a given task in ANY bureaucracy is a direct correlation of the importance that senior management places on that line of work.
Furthermore, I never received ANY feedback from my own organization to this memo I wrote concerning the possible missile. Not even a verbal acknowledgement. This was rather odd, I thought at the time, when the front office would rapidly respond to complaints of not enough toilet paper in the restrooms, but in a situation involving 230 deaths, not a peep. My memo was addressed (thru my chain of command) to the Associate Administrator of FAA for Security who was Cathal Flynn at the time. A retired Navy Admiral. The US Navy I should point out. He was another pivotal manager supporting/leading the Tombstone Agency in the mid-late 1990’s. After he retired from the Navy, Flynn was a key player in SAIC, a major defense contractor. Whatever conspiratorial insight one may have about that I leave to your own conjecture. However, the reporter Jack Cashill (and a lot of other good folks) thinks there is a lot more to the missile angle that the government is hiding. After 9/11 Flynn was a consultant to the Transportation Security Administration, and I’m sure the TSA contracts SAIC were awarded were purely coincidental.
In the mid/late 90’s there was a concerted effort on the part of FAA Security employees to form a union as a balance to the incompetent and vengeful managers we were required to work under. An Administrative Law Judge eventually ruled against us stating that as a national security organization we were not allowed under law to form a union. This was something of a Catch-22 type conundrum. Yes, as a national security apparatus (on paper anyway) we could not legitimately form a union, the problem was that we weren’t functioning as a national security agency should, instead we were just lackeys for the airline industry and lobbyists. So pushing for a union in an effort to form an organization that was specifically prohibited by law from having a union simply didn’t work. The Administrative Law Judge was later promoted to a position within the FAA legal department.
Oh, and let us not forget the really big one, the 9/11 terrorist attacks which directly killed nearly 3,000 innocent people. Starting in the mid-late 1990’s there was a growing concern amongst a group of FAA Security employees of the looming terrorist threat. Attempting to improve the security system through regular bureaucratic channels had long since proved not only to be another pointless exercise but was the kiss of death to one’s career. Merely questioning the prevailing Tombstone Agency method of operations simply wasn’t tolerated.
But there were still those of us who weren’t intimidated. Chief among those is Steve Elson, who was a Red Team Leader in the early 90’s. I replaced him as a Red Team Leader in the late 90’s. The two of us discovered that the problems in aviation security that he documented in the early 90’s were the exact same problems I was documenting in the late 90’s. Absolutely no effort was being made to fix these security loopholes. On top of that we both understood that the terrorist threat was increasing rapidly; based on intelligence that the Tombstone managers completely ignored.
In subsequent meetings we had at the DOT Inspector General’s office, Todd Zinzer, the third highest bureaucrat in the organization, told me, “FAA is so fucked up, I don’t know where to begin”. On another occasion he stated, “Unless you give me a dead body and a smoking gun, there is nothing I can do against the managers in FAA because of the political situation between the FAA and the IG”. This was a direct ding at the former IG Mary Schiavo raising hell with FAA and the new kinder, gentler approach of the IG in its oversite of the FAA failure based bureaucracy. After 9/11 Mr. Zinzer was made acting Inspector General of the DOT, and in 2007 was made THE Inspector General for the Department of Commerce.
Well over a year before the 9/11 attacks I sent a memo through my chain of command to Jane Garvey (the Administrator of FAA) attempting to convince her that there was a “dangerous culture of mismanagement in the Security Division of FAA”, and that the United States faced a potential “tidal wave” of terrorist attacks. Like her immediate subordinate Cathal Flynn, she didn’t even have the courtesy to acknowledge receipt of the memo much less check into my allegations. About this time I thought that FAA should adopt the Ostrich as its mascot, with the proverbial image of it sticking its head in the sand at the approach of danger. The Democratic Party apparently felt that she did such a bang-up job allowing 9/11 to happen and not holding anyone accountable that she was hired as
a security consultant at the 2004 Democratic Convention. And her career continued to flourish.
I also sent a copy of the memo to Rodney Slater (the Secretary of Transportation). He at least had the courtesy to acknowledge receipt of my letter and copied me on a letter that he sent to Garvey – suggesting that she look into my allegations. But there wasn’t any follow-up and no action was taken. It should be noted that Slater has had a lucrative and impressive career (just based on what you can find on the internet) both before and after his tenure as Secretary, not least of which is being on the board of directors of Delta Airlines.
No discussion of this can of worms would be complete without mentioning Linda Daschle who spent four years as the FAA Deputy Administrator during the Clinton/Gore Administration. She is one of the aviation industries biggest lobbyists. Although she wasn’t Deputy on 9/11; what’s even more significant is that her husband, Senator Tom Daschle, was the major player behind the government’s bailout of the aviation industry after 9/11. In an article titled, I’m Linda, Fly Me by Doug Ireland in the LAWEEKLY 16Jan2003; he states, “….just 11 days after the 911 attacks, her husband rushed through the Democratic Senate, which he controlled, the $15 billion bailout for the airline industry, a notorious tax-payer rip-off”.
In the count-down to 9/11, Steve Elson and I visited the offices of a number of US Congressmen, attempting to alert them to the fact not only of the rising tide of the terrorist threat but that the Tombstone methodology of aviation security wasn’t up to the task of preventing an attack. We spoke face to face with a few no-name congressmen but most of the time we dealt directly with their staffers. With some minor exceptions, we could barely hold their attention.
On March 6, 2000 we had a session with the Chief Legal Counsel for Senator John McCain. She politely listened to our briefing and when we were finished stated, “This is all very interesting but what do you expect us to do about it?” Apparently, I thought at the time, she’s being a bit remise in her duties; as a chief legal counsel she apparently never read Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution. There’s more to being a Congressman than paying lip service to the ignorant public, getting re-elected, and accepting lobbying bribe money. McCain, of course, went on to become a major presidential contender.
We also attempted to brief Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. He was the first Congressmen that wouldn’t have anything to do with us since neither Elson or myself were one of his constituents. But we were later joined by one of his constituents Brian Sullivan, a former FAA Security employee who was doing his own fighting trying to prevent the 9/11 attacks. On May 7, 2001 Sullivan sent a letter to Senator Kerry accurately describing the likely probability of multiple airplane hijackings and crashing the planes into selected targets – among other things. Kerry did the usual Congressional swamp dance which essentially mounted to nothing. Kerry, of course, was a major presidential contender and later served as Secretary of State under the Obama/Biden administration. I always wondered if he only accepted lobbying money just from his constituents.
About two weeks after 9/11 I had two separate meetings on Capitol Hill with my senior congressional staff member contacts from both the House and Senate and from both parties. At the end of these meetings I asked them when they expect to open an investigation into all the failures that contributed to the ease of the terrorists executing their attacks. Both groups said exactly the same thing (like it was rehearsed ahead of time): “Our bosses (meaning the congressmen themselves) will do every thing they can to prevent an investigation into 9/11 as it’s a big can of worms that they don’t won’t to open”. I didn’t realize at the time how big a can it was and how slimy it turned out to be. It was then I decided to file a whistleblower case.
Following all the rules to the letter I filed a formal Whistleblower Disclosure with the United States Office of Special Counsel, which is an independent agency that reports directly to the President. They eventually agreed with the gist of my disclosure stating that FAA executed its civil aviation security mission in a manner that was, “a substantial and specific danger to public safety”. The report was deposited on the desk of the Bush/Cheney Whitehouse where it was immediately dropped into the ‘first’ circular file - never to see the light of day again.
I testified in front of the whitewash of the 9/11 Commission but none of my testimony or our offered documentation is included in their best-selling book. This shouldn’t have been any surprise given that most of the Commission members have some strong connection with the airline industry. In an article by Jaime Holguin of CBS News March 5, 2003 she quotes a former federal prosecutor Terry Brunner, who names commission members and their close association with the airline industry: “Fred Fielding, Spirit Airlines, United Airlines; Slade Gordon represents Delta Airlines; Sen. Max Cleland - $300,000 from the airline industry; Jim Thompson represents American Airlines; Richard BenVinesta represents Boeing and United Airlines; and Rep. Tim Roemer – Boeing and Lockheed Martin.”
In my research for this editorial I couldn’t find any airline association of commission member Jamie Gorelick but when she was Deputy Attorney General (1994-97) for the United States during the Clinton/Gore years she was accused of being instrumental in forming the “wall” between the CIA and the FBI prohibiting them from communicating with each other on such mundane topics as known terrorists running amok within the United States. She’s had a glorious and blessed career since 9/11.
And if you think that the passage of time, retirements, and worms dying off, has ended this phase of nefarious government service – think again. The recent Boeing crashes are a perfect symptom that this disease continues to thrive. The Tombstone torch has been passed to the next generation. But there is more: Instead of doling out appropriate discipline and condemnation, almost all the Tombstone Managers and employees were transferred to the new Transportation Security Administration with promotions. Those who wanted to stay with FAA could do so and finish out their useless careers till retirement. Most of the new employees and managers that TSA hired have absolutely no back-ground in security at all. Together they opened up new frontiers of waste, fraud and abuse that the former FAA managers could only dream about. During the first official week of TSA’s existence they terminated the Red Team which was the only organizational unit in the entire federal government which accurately predicted the 9/11 attacks.
On 9/11, there were approximately 150 FAA Security employees assigned to headquarters in Washington, DC with about another 1,000 scattered around the country. At it’s peak TSA exploded to between 5,000 and 7,000 employees just at its headquarters and unknown thousands more scattered around the country – apparently this number is a big secret, this includes air marshals, special agents, admin staff etc. This doesn’t even include the 50,000 or so screeners. Most of these jobs are bureaucracy maintenance type jobs which wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the existence of the unnecessary bureaucracy in the first place. The tax payer spends nearly a billion dollars a year just on the FAM program, but the entire FAM cadre could be scrapped if they just made double-hulled cockpit doors (both doors can’t be opened at the same time) mandatory on commercial aircraft at a fraction of the cost of just one year’s operating budget of the FAM program. The single hulled doors are just another sloppy fix.
This disease has permeated other aspects of the aviation community, and continues to do so. Mark Estabrook, a retired cargo pilot and whistleblower states: “Apparently, ‘if you see something, say something’ is a shallow DHS marketing tool to lull citizens into an opium-induced coma while they travel,” Captain Estabrook said. “DHS doesn’t really want to irritate the airline lobby if and when they actually do something about security. It’s much easier to get the passengers and crewmembers to believe they’re doing something to keep them safe. Even better, we make the country feel like they are part of the team!”
In reality, Estabrook spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to keep FedEx from firing him on trumped-up accusations. His real mistake was reporting a security issue regarding the company’s publishing of real-time aircraft and package position on the internet. First, they grounded him from flying or jumpseating and then accused him of having experienced a stroke. When they couldn’t get him to admit that, they accused him of being crazy and ordered him to a shrink.
Mark hired an attorney and sued FedEx to keep his job. He fought the case for seven years all the way to the 5th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals (5TH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS CASTRATES "IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING”) where the Court decided in favor of adopting Soviet tactics in lieu of defending employees right “to see something, and say something.” In the end, Estabrook ran out of money and his appeals ended.
It’s a big mistake to equate the lack of a terrorist attack with effective security. There are only two ways to determine if one’s security is effective. The first way is the success or failure of an actual attack and the second is by the assessments of a real Red Team. TSA has proven it would rather not know, preferring instead to rely on the oft tested Tombstone Agency method of operations. In my testimony to the 9/11 Commission I stated that what TSA has should more appropriately be called a “Pink Team” as it is not operating the way a real Red Team should. And what’s worse, is that the single biggest deterrent against aviation related terrorism which doesn’t cost a cent is that flight crews and passengers are more alert to the threat. When one’s life is at stake, political correctness is thrown out the window.
On top of all of this, the Congress still allows government bureaucrats to treat whistleblowers with impunity. As a whistleblower during the Bush/Cheney years, I would describe my government service as a type of purgatory. Under the Obama/Biden years we were banging on the gates of hell itself. Obama/Biden formerly prosecuted more government whistleblowers than every other Presidential Administration combined – in the entire history of the United States.
In this spirit of the Halloween Season, now would be an appropriate time for the American people to conduct an exorcism of career politicians who have long since forgotten to abide by the spirit of our Constitution, of the lobbyist which pull the strings of the politician puppets, and of government bureaucrats who have sold their souls to the devil.
A few years after 9/11 I happened to bump into a senior congressional staffer who looked completely exhausted and burned out. He explained that the real reason Congress doesn’t pass meaningful whistleblower protection legislation for government employees is that they are afraid their own staff members will eventually demand the same type of protections.
what did julian assange have to do with 9-11?
Photos and Editorial By Bogdan Dzakovic, jetPilots.com, 13MAY2020
I was rummaging through some of my old photographs recently and stumbled across this one. It dredged up a lot of old emotions and memories: From the mid-eighties to just a few days before the 9/11 terror attacks, I made quite a few trips to New York City on various security assignments for the government as well as personal trips.
I wouldn’t necessarily call it a premonition, but………..in a city dominated by sky-scrappers, the World Trade Center buildings were in a class by themselves, they gave me the creeps. There was something unnatural and foreboding about them. Nevertheless, having a tendency to confront my fears, one day I built up my nerve, climbed to the top of one of the buildings, quickly took four photographs (one in each direction) and as rapidly as possible left the building and returned to terra firma.
As I reflected on this, I started to ask myself a lot of ‘what if’ questions. There were so many pivotal points in which the attacks could have been diminished in their severity if not outright prevented. But it was not to be.
The federal government goes way out of its way to silence any employee (from the lowest to the highest paygrade) that dares to upset the status quo; and it doesn’t make any difference how foul that status is or how many die as a consequence. So I started thinking – what if Wikileaks had existed prior to the 9/11 attacks?
I worked with a number of other good folks in the Security Division of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the lead up to the attacks.
What if we explained in Wikileaks that in spite of the entire intelligence and federal law enforcement’s apparent ignorance on anything to do with terrorism that we knew the United States was going to be hit hard by terrorism and had a pretty good idea on how this was to be accomplished. Months before the attacks, one of my colleagues in this effort sent a letter to his Senator accurately describing the likely probability of multiple airplane hijackings and crashing the planes into selected targets. Perhaps, upon reading this in Wikileaks, Osama and friends would have realized that their gig was up and would have postponed the attacks (giving the good guys more time to get their act together) or simply terminated it. But this was not to be.
Then I started thinking: What if we published the names in Wikileaks of all the bureaucrats in FAA that deliberately thwarted all improvements needed in aviation security to discourage any such attacks. Perhaps, after reading this in Wikileaks, they would be embarrassed enough at that point to actually do the job that they were being paid to do. But this was not to be.
Then I started thinking: What if we identified in Wikileaks the high-level bureaucrat in the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General that actually told me, “FAA is so f--ked up, I don’t know where to begin”, this after we explained the whole situation to him. And later stated, “Unless you give me a dead body and a smoking gun, there is nothing I can do against FAA because of the political situation between the Inspector General’s Office and the FAA”. Perhaps, upon reading this in Wikileaks, the Secretary of Transportation might have been forced to initiate an investigation into this “f--ked up” status of FAA and fix the problems we identified as well as this political situation which prevented the IG from doing its job. But this was not to be.
Then I started thinking: What if we published in Wikileaks that after we approached the General Accounting Office (GAO) with this same information, and later discovered that they had their own long history of documenting this “f—cked up” culture in FAA, that perhaps Congress, after reading this in Wikileaks, would take an interest in this disaster in the making and fix the problems in FAA before the attacks occurred. But this was not to be.
Then I started thinking: What if we published in Wikileaks the names of all the Congressmen that we spoke to in the lead up to the attacks, providing them overwhelming documentation of FAA’s long history of malfeasance combined with the ever-growing terrorist threat – and document that they did absolutely nothing. Then perhaps Congress, after reading this in Wikileaks, might actually be compelled to get off their fat a--, I mean high horse, and do the job
that they are being paid to do and fix this “f--cked up” culture in FAA
before lots of people die horribly. But this was not to be.
Then I started thinking: What if we documented in Wikileaks how this whole system works. That the airline industry gave Congress tons of money over the years for the express purpose of ensuring that the FAA would not impose any security requirements that would negatively impact their lucrative income or inconvenience them. That the Congress was only too willing to accept their bribe money and abide by their conditions. That Congress ensured that the political appointees they selected to run FAA would prance around to the tune of the Washington DC swamp dance. That the pin-headed bureaucrats that implemented these policies were only too happy to lick the dirt off the Congressional hand that fed them and ensure that the FAA maintained its moniker of “Tombstone Agency” – meaning they never did anything to improve aviation safety or security until people got killed first. (Check that term on the internet and you will be overwhelmed by hits on FAA, all before 9/11). Then perhaps the American people, upon reading this in Wikileaks, would at least start to scratch their heads and realize that there’s something not quite right in Washington. But this was not to be.
And so, the attacks occurred:
Then I started thinking: What if we published in Wikileaks that the underlying reason for Congress’ bailing out the airline industry shortly after the attacks with tons of our tax dollars due to lost revenue they suffered after the attacks, was that they were so in-bed with them that this was necessary for Congress to continue their defalcated relationship with the industry, rather than let the industry take their share of the blame for allowing the attacks to occur. Then perhaps the American people, upon reading this in Wikileaks, would at least start to think twice about whom they selected to represent them in Congress. But this was not to be.
Then I started thinking: What if we published in Wikileaks, that the underlying reason the Congress used tons more of our tax dollars to bribe the 9/11 victim’s families in lucrative buy outs in exchange for them not engaging in any law suits was to make sure that none of the above made it to the public spot light in any civil litigation. Then perhaps the American people, upon reading this in Wikileaks, would understand that we elect the members of Congress so they can do the bidding of whomever pays them the most. And maybe start holding them to a higher standard of conduct and force them to adhere to their oath to abide by the Constitution. But this was not to be.
Then I started thinking: We could go through this entire exercise all over again with every other failure prone agency that bore some responsibility over allowing 9/11 to occur, do it to the current Transportation Security Administration which Congress formed by forcing the oh so willing FAA bureaucrats to copulate with the newly hired bureaucrats that they found under the slimiest rocks in the Washington DC swamp, and especially the sad joke of the 9/11 Commission whose major contribution was stating that the 9/11 attacks were allowed to occur because of a, “failure of imagination”. And then, upon reading this in Wikileaks, the American people would say that enough is enough already. But this was not to be.
And then I started thinking, since our mainstream press has pretty much abrogated its responsibilities for being the unofficial “fourth branch of government”; that the one man that might have had a chance at preventing the 9/11 attacks was Julian Assange, simply by providing the means to expose the internal mechanics of an unaccountable government. These problems haven’t gone away. (A quick search of the term “aviation security” on Wikileaks in mid-May 2020 revealed it has collected 29,410 documents – everything from internal emails to “restricted” documents; a treasure trove of information for anyone that cares to look. In fact, if the government had any sense, it would use the free Wikileaks service in its own efforts to police itself especially sense it apparently is incapable of doing so on its own.)
Whatever legalese(d) transgressions Mr. Assange may have committed, the poor man has suffered enough. President Trump should remember his pledge to “drain the swamp” in Washington DC and recognize Mr. Assange’s efforts in that regard. Especially in light of his own problems in dealing with THE swamp.
Julian Assange deserves a full pardon – with honors!
the forging of a damn good federal air marshal:
(or the chaos thing hard at work in the swamp)
By Bogdan Dzakovic, jetPilots.com, 25APR2020
Modesty has always been a problem of mine. But, there’s a time and place for everything.
You’ve probably heard about the chaos theory of physics, a basic premise of which is that the flapping of the wings of a butterfly could initiate a succession of events that could eventually lead to the formation of a tornado – however unlikely that may be. Essentially this means that a series of interdependent causes could eventually lead to a logical series of events or conclusions. The federal government sort of operates the same way except without the logical part.
Starting my career in the federal government in 1980 as an officer in the military I learned very quickly that good intelligence is at least half the battle in any given operation. I also learned that this same intelligence is utterly useless if its not applied correctly. There were a small group of us FAA Security folks, in the latter half of the 1990’s that knew, as it turned out, not only that the US was going to be hit hard by terrorists but also exactly how it was to be conducted. What the rest of the intelligence and law enforcement alphabet agencies were doing??????? Beats me; apparently lost in the self-imposed bureaucratic chaos.
After a couple of tours of duty I resigned from the military and switched to federal law enforcement. (As a student of early American history I was enthralled by some of the gifted insight and words of our founding fathers. As it applied to the conduct of my career, Ben Franklin’s adage of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” was always foremost in my mind.)
While entrenched in federal law enforcement, I stumbled across yet another anomaly of the federal chaos swamp. I attempted to develop a program that would have minimized certain types of criminal behavior only to be chastised for it and nearly fired: “Your job isn’t to prevent crime, its to investigate it!”, was the mantra that they tried beating into my head. I quit before that happened.
In the late 80’s, I found my dream job as a Federal Air Marshal (FAM) with the Security Division of the Federal Aviation Administration. Graduating from basic training tied with two other gung-ho types for first place in the tactical shooting course and tied again with four other individuals for first place in the physical fitness program; but I didn’t consider excelling in the physical aspects of the FAM profession to be the only parameters of what constituted a “good” FAM. One also had to have some working knowledge about what is going on in the world, ie: having good intelligence.
The US government may very well have the best intelligence in the world, but due to its unflinching devotion to the chaos theory of governing, by the time the intelligence was watered down, filtered and
given to the troops on the front line, it was utterly useless.
As a consequence, early in my FAM career I developed my own intelligence data base that I accrued from entirely open sources such as books, magazines, newspapers etc., as well as my own observations while operating as a FAM and later as a Red Team Leader. I organized, collated, cross-indexed, and evaluated this information (intelligence) on a continuous basis and filed in a simple computer word document. As history would demonstrate, the “intelligence” I developed in my spare time proved to be a much greater predictor of major acts of terrorism than the billions of dollars we wasted on the entire official governments intelligence apparatus which is itself governed by the chaos theory – spend billions flapping their little butterfly wings collecting world-wide intelligence with enormous bureaucracies and hope that it predicts a terrorism tornado – however unlikely that may be.
In the latter half of the 1990’s I started working with other like-minded folks in the security division of the FAA in an effort to prevent the 9/11 calamity. Unfortunately, we learned the hard way by working through the entire chain of command going all the way to the US Congress that the primary mission of the federal government is to maintain itself and to continue growing like a cancer on the tax-payer’s dime – the stench of the swamp if there ever was one. And that is exactly what happened after the attacks. Note the unnecessary creation of the TSA and DHS just for starters. The governments application of the chaos theory at its best. (In the months before the attacks, one of my colleagues sent a letter to his Senator accurately describing the likely probability of multiple airplane hijackings and crashing the planes into selected targets.)
I cannot emphasize enough, that for any entity potentially targeted by terrorists (which includes the entire aviation community) that it is a big mistake to rely on government handouts of information to keep yourself and your business safe. It is crucial to develop one’s own intelligence data base, collected entirely from open sources and ESPECIALLY from the personal observations of its front-line employees out in the field.
These problems in the swamp haven’t dried up and blown away. Witness the evolution of the on-going, as I write this, Covid-19 pandemic and its striking parallels to the pre and post 9/11 attacks, repeating the same drama in the federal government.
And that, my friends, is how I became a damn good FAM (my favorite job ever); at least until the FAM program itself became infected with the same swamp fever as most of the rest of the federal government. So I quit.