A decade after the attacks, at least two of them are still trying to make change in public policy. In doing so, they’ve broadened their focus from post-attack truth-finding, the cause that brought them together nearly 10 years ago.
Lorie Van Auken is now a beekeeper who is pressing the federal Environmental Protection Agency to ban a pesticide that some blame for Colony Collapse Disorder, which has been killing honeybees.

Kristen Breitweiser blogs on politics and national security. Though those are issues tied to 9/11, she doesn’t write just about the attacks.

“I think a lot of times when people suffer tragedy or go through something in their own life, they feel compelled to turn it into something better,” Breitweiser said.

Many of the spouses, parents and children of those killed in the terrorist attacks did that.

They set up foundations to honor the best traits of their lost loved ones. They lobbied for tax breaks for the victims, fair deals from the Victims’ Compensation Fund and a burial site at ground zero.

The four stay-at-home moms who lived relatively carefree lives in suburban Monmouth County became some of the most visible faces of the families of the dead and their main cause at the time: pushing the federal government to study the attacks — whether there was intelligence that could have prevented them, and whether the response once they began was adequate. They were subjects of scores of articles, multiple books — including a memoir Breitweiser published in 2006 — and a documentary film, “9/11: Press for Truth.”

The fame and the civic engagement, born of tragedy, came fast.

“I had a very complacent life: we voted, we paid taxes, we volunteered. That was it,” Breitweiser said. “That was the extent of our contribution.”

Two of the Jersey Girls, Patty Casazza and Mindy Kleinberg, did not respond to requests for interviews for this article and have not granted any interviews for the last few years.

All four had husbands working in the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

After 9/11, they united over their mounting frustration that the whole story wasn’t being told.

For more than a year, they parked their children with family and drove to Washington in Breitweiser’s SUV — dubbed the “widowmobile.”

Armed with thick binders of documents, they met with members of Congress and held rallies asking for a full government inquiry. They gave interviews by the score. They recognized that journalists were hungry for stories about the real people affected by the attacks. They could offer that, but they also talked about their policy agenda.

Finally, in November 2002 — 14 months after their husbands and nearly 3,000 other people were killed — President George W. Bush signed the law to create the commission.

One of their champions in Congress was U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey. He said they did their research and came prepared in small ways. They knew he had a sweet tooth and were sure to bring him candy when they stopped by.
“The Jersey Girls were, in my opinion, the reason the commission came into being,” Smith said.

For Breitweiser and Van Auken, the result of the main government inquiry and another on intelligence before the attacks were disappointing, leaving them with many unanswered questions.

For one, a section of a report that appeared to deal with al-Qaeda funding was redacted from one government report.
They’re also not satisfied that the planes involved in the attack could not have been intercepted after the first one crashed into the World Trade Center.

“You want to say the first attack was a surprise? OK, the first attack was a surprise,” Van Auken said. “If we have a group of people that are in charge of our defense and they can’t manage to intercept an airplane for two hours?”
Breitweiser, a former Republican who campaigned for John Kerry during his 2004 run for president, said she’s not satisfied that the country is safe enough now. “I wish the billions of dollars we spent on wars overseas could have been used at home,” she said.

The women triggered a backlash from those who thought they were too partisan as they bashed Bush and supported Kerry. The apex came in 2006 when conservative commenter Ann Coulter, in a book, dubbed them the “Witches of East Brunswick.” ”I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much,” Coulter wrote.

Hillary Clinton, then a U.S. senator, was among those who came to their defense.

Smith said the criticism was hard for him to accept. They were grassroots activists, he said, doing what they thought was right.

Both Breitweiser and Van Auken say their activism was the right thing to do, though they’re not happy with the results.
“I only have regrets about the outcome,” Van Auken said. “I have regrets that nobody was held accountable.”
Van Auken, now 56, is in the same home where she lived with her children — now in their 20s — and husband, Kenneth, before he was killed.

Since 9/11 Van Auken has taken up beekeeping. As colonies have died off mysteriously, she’s tried to rally other beekeepers to fight for a federal ban of the pesticide clothianidin.

Unlike a decade ago, she’s now savvy about how government works.

So far, the EPA has not been willing to ban the pesticide. Van Auken says she’s not surprised, “We know from 9/11 that the EPA is not above bending to political will when they said the air was safe to breathe and all those people got sick,” she said.

Breitweiser, now 40 and living in New York, is the Jersey Girl with the highest profile.

A lawyer by training, though she never practiced, she was often the spokeswoman, and she was the one who campaigned extensively for Kerry, wrote a memoir focusing on her political education and now blogs occasionally for the Huffington Post.

She still writes about 9/11 but also about other national security issues. She is particularly concerned that chemical plants are not safe enough.

Her main job, she said, is raising her daughter, Caroline.

Caroline is 12 now and was a toddler when her father, Ron, died. Caroline, she says, doesn’t have a memory of a dad. Breitweiser said that makes raising her alone easier but also sadder. Breitweiser says she knows that her husband would have continued to be a great father.

Breitweiser has been trying to expose Caroline to Muslim people and their beliefs. They’ve traveled to Morocco and are planning to go to Turkey and Egypt in the next year.

It’s all part of a lesson she didn’t imagine needing to teach her daughter 10 years ago. “It’s OK if women have a veil over their face. It doesn’t mean that they’re bad people,” she said. “I don’t want her growing up with any sort of hatred or rage inside of her.”

On Sept. 11, she intends to do what she always does on the anniversary: take a walk with her daughter and their dogs — currently three undisciplined Golden Retrievers — on a beach or in the woods.

She wants to stay far away from the solemn commemorations in New York City and elsewhere.

Van Auken will be in New York, but not at the ground zero ceremony. She’ll be there to see her daughter Sarah, now 22, act in a play.

The post Jersey Girls Who Emerged After 9/11 Stay Activists appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

The agency is one of the most prominent issuers in the $2.9 trillion municipal market. Its finances have been strained by the costly rebuilding of the World Trade Center complex.

The lawsuit centers on 7 World Trade Center, which was built just north of the World Trade Center site, above an existing Con Edison base station, the appeals court decision said.

Consolidated Edison Inc and its insurers had sued the Port Authority, owner of 7 World Trade Center, after the building collapsed in a maelstrom of fire on the afternoon of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The order by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially overturned a decision by Manhattan federal court Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who has been handling much of the litigation following the deadly air attacks.

Hellerstein had granted summary judgment to the Port Authority, finding that under the terms of its lease to Con Edison, it could not be held responsible for the tower’s speedy destruction.

“The district court interpreted the lease to preclude Con Edison from maintaining an action against Port Authority based on Port Authority’s negligence in connection with construction or maintenance of 7WTC,” Circuit Judges Roger Miner, Pierre Leval and Richard Wesley wrote. “This was error.”

In a September 2002 lawsuit, Con Edison claimed the Port Authority had improperly allowed its tenants to place diesel fuel tanks used for back-up power, and that the burning tanks had accelerated the collapse of the building late in the afternoon of September 11.

Con Edison also claimed in its lawsuit that the Port Authority could be found negligent in the tower’s design and construction.

“In short, we conclude it was error to read the parties’ lease as precluding claims by Con Edison against Port Authority premised on Port Authority’s negligence in connection with the construction of 7WTC or the installation of the diesel fuel tanks in the building,” the appeals court order said.

But the order upholds the lower court judge on the more general negligence claim, saying Con Edison had not properly notified the Port Authority of its intention to sue on those grounds.

“Claims of negligent design and construction of 7WTC, of which Port Authority was not reasonably notified by the June 2002 Notice, must be dismissed,” the decision said.

In 2006, the same address was the scene of a newly completed 42-story tower, the first new building in the reconstruction of the World Trade Center complex.

The post Lawsuit To Proceed Over WTC Tower Collapse appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

The indictment charging self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others was unsealed when US Attorney General Eric Holder referred the case to the Defense Department for military trials instead of trials at a US federal court in New York.

Holder said Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi could have been prosecuted in federal court and blamed Congress for imposing measures blocking civilian trials of Guantanamo Bay inmates.

They will be tried in military courts in the US naval base in southeastern Cuba.

The now-public details show that the United States, nearly 10 years after hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, reconstructed step by step the logistics of the five accused men.

They compiled bank transactions, flight records, visa applications, and dozens of telephone conversations to create the most comprehensive account of the chain of events before the attacks.

Implementation of the plan began in 1999, when Sheikh Mohammed (referred to as “KSM” by US officials) proposed to Osama bin Laden to use commercial airliners as missiles against US targets.

Until the last minute, according to the indictment, Sheikh Mohammed controlled the entire operation.

“From in or about December 1999, through in or about June 2000, Al-Qaeda selected operatives to pilot the airplanes to be hijacked and dispatched the operatives to the United States to obtain flight training and otherwise carry out the plot,” the indictment said.

Walid bin Attash, born in Saudi Arabia in 1979, traveled in first-class between Bangkok and Hong Kong, with a knife in his pocket “and approached the cockpit to test security measures.” He then took several other international flights, each time with his penknife undetected.

Meanwhile, Ramzi Binalshibh in Hamburg became friends with future hijacker Mohamed Atta. Binalshibh, a 38-year-old Yemeni, applied four times for a visa to the United States in 2000 but was denied each time.

So, at the request of KSM, Binalshibh became and intermediary between KSM and the future hijackers.

At the same time, from Dubai, KSM nephew Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, of Pakistan, provided flight simulation software to the hijackers and began transferring money to US accounts. Between January and June 2000, US investigators pinpointed 35 telephone calls between him and the hijackers.

Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a 42-year-old from Saudi Arabia, was accused of being the principal financier of the attacks.

Bank transfers were made in small amounts so as not to arouse suspicion and different names were used each time. Tens of thousands of dollars arrived in US accounts, including for Zacarias Moussaoui, who was involved in the plot but was arrested a month before the attacks.

In the United Arab Emirates, al-Hawsawi monitored the operations and discusses them with KSM.

Between July 9-16, 2001, Ramzi Binalshibh met with Mohamed Atta in Spain. The two men “discussed, among other aspects of the plot, potential targets for the hijacking attacks.”

On July 23, KSM filed a visa application for the United States which was refused. At the end of August, he told bin Laden of the date for the attacks.

Between September 4-10, the men made their way from the UAE to Pakistan.

Walid bin Attash was with bin Laden on September 11, after which the Al-Qaeda leader ordered him to Tora Bora in Afghanistan to prepare for an offensive.

The five men, all of whom were arrested in Pakistan, could face the death penalty if convicted.

One year after the attacks, Pakistani police arrested Binalshibh at a home in a chic Karachi suburb. He was alone and didn’t put up a fight.

In March 2003, al-Hawsawi and Sheikh Mohammed were picked up by Pakistani special forces in a raid in Rawalpindi.

The indictment said the two men were “at a safe house where they possessed false identification and materials related to Al-Qaeda and the planning and execution of the September 11, 2001, attacks.”

Bin Attash and al-Aziz Ali were arrested by Pakistani police in April 2003.

All five men disappeared into secret prisons until September 2006, when they reappeared at Guantanamo.

Sheikh Mohammed is known to have been “waterboarded” or subjected to simulated drowning 183 times during his years in US custody, a method widely recognized as torture.

After his arrest in 2003 he was handed over to American agents who held him in secret prisons before sending him to Guantanamo.

Sheikh Mohammed also claims to have personally beheaded US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 with his “blessed right hand” and to have helped in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people.

The post US Reveals Evidence Against Alleged 9/11 Plotters appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

The post Kristen Breitweiser on The CIA Cover-Up appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

Architects, engineers say they have proof 9/11 was a ‘lie’
By Andrew Moran, digitaljournal.com

New York – The group Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth say they have important evidence that proves the official story of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks was “a lie” and “a fraud.”

On Saturday, the United States remembers the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, which killed 3,000 Americans and was the basis for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Ceremonies will occur all over the country.

However, one group says they have found recent evidence, which proves the official story of what happened on that devastating day is a “lie,” according to Press TV. The proof, says Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, shows pre-set explosives that were used in the demolition of the World Trade Center.

The group further adds that molten metal was found after the 9/11 inquiry.

“Jet fuel and office fires cannot melt iron or steel. They don’t even get half as hot as that and so something else was there, very energetic material that had to be placed throughout the buildings,” said Greg Roberts of the non-profit organization.

Meanwhile, Richard Gage, founder of the organization who has toured the globe speaking at conferences, said: “Once we take the blinders off, we can see. There are very few people in America who have taken the blinders off. So we are assisting people by showing them the evidence.”

Gage further explained that more than 600 architects are more concerned over the collapse of World Trade Center building 7, which was not hit by an airplane and was destroyed in 6.5 seconds.

The group is now calling upon United States Attorney General Eric Holder to request a federal grand jury investigation into the “largest crime of the century.”

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Can a thousand architects be wrong?
By Bob Boldt, Friday, 10 September 2010, MWC News

This anniversary of the tragic attacks on the World Center complex, the Pentagon and a deserted field in Shanksville, PA looks like it is not passing gently. There seems to be a renewed interest in the 9/11 Truth movement as well as a call by former Senator Mike Gravel and American Institute of Architects member, Richard Gage to reopen the 9/11 investigation.

At a press conference at the National Press club in Washington yesterday, Richard Gage called for the indictment of the officers of NITS (and presumaby FEMA) who filed the standing reports on the collapse of the WTC buildings. I have just spent the past half hour attempting to Google information or a transcript of the press conference, without success. It seems to have disappeared from the ADD press.

I have been conducting a lively conversation with many members and supporters of both the 9/11 Truth movement and Richard Gage’s AE9/11 group (that boasts over a thousand architects and engineers as members who support a “controlled demolition” theory). You can follow my initial essay and subsequent comments at MWCNews.

I must warn you the conversation with the 9/11 Truthers generated far more heat than light. Many seem abysmally ignorant of elementary rules of empirical evidence gathering and logic, as well as universally accepted principles of debate procedures.

Here is the last response to my article at MWC News followed by my answer:

Dr. Brian Horsfield (one of the more civil and intelligent responses I received):

Bob, I am glad you agree there are unexplained causes connected with the collapse of WTC7. This is why Senator Gravel and Richard Gage yesterday (Thursday Sept. 9) asked for a new investigation. They suggest the evidence indicates controlled demolition. But for you to say that’s not “proof” is a facile argument. Nobody has said it is “proof”. What we are asking for is a new investigation. There are 100?s of thousands of Afghani and Iraqi citizens killed as well as the 3,000 victims on 9-11, and all the allied soldiers killed and injured. To all of these we owe a proper investigation of 9-11.

Dear Dr. Horsfield:

I think that one thing all independent observers can agree on is the need to re-open the whole 9/11 investigation.

“Unlike the first investigation, this commission should be granted subpoena power and full access to all governmental files and personnel,” Gravel wrote. “George Bush should be forced to testify ALONE.”—Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel.

(Former) Senator Gravel here indicated where I think the major thrust of the investigation should focus, which is the involvement of the Bush administration in all the events that occurred in the build up to the 9/11 events, his and other administration operatives behavior on the day of the disaster, subsequent actions in the cover up 9/11 related events.

“The official FEMA and NIST reports provide insufficient, contradictory, and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers’ destruction,” Gage said. “We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials.” American Institute of Architects, Richard Gage.

I would really like to see page and line references to this allegation that NIST (and FEMA?) reports were “fraudulent” or “insufficient.”

Even though I am still confident a reinvestigation of the destruction of the three WTC buildings will not result in any reversing of the original conclusion (that it was planes that were responsible for ALL the damage). If a new comprehensive investigation by truly objective, credentialed investigators will finally shut up the Truthers, once and for all, I am all for it. All this focus on the so-called “controlled demolitions” (as well as a grand jury attempt to indict FEMA and NIST officers) is, as I said in my initial comments, a real distraction from Bush’s real crimes—a distraction that only serves the dirty little rat and his cronies.

Frankly, I would not hold your breath waiting for the government or anyone else to properly investigate all the horrors of the Bush Administration, least of all Obama. Our current Nobel President stands too much to lose by a revelation of how Bush used 9/11 to lay the foundation of an Imperial Presidency with rights and powers resembling more the Divine Right of Kings than the checked and balanced executive enshrined in our Constitution. Powers acquired by government officers are rarely voluntarily surrendered. Such is the case with our latest little black tyrant, Obama. I use “black” here to describe the content of his character, not the color of his skin.

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‘Evidence proves 9/11 story is a lie’
Fri Sep 10, 2010 6:44PM, Press TV

Important evidence has emerged showing the official story the American public has been fed about the 9/11 attacks is a ‘lie,’ a group of architects and engineers say.

A day before the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth say evidence regarding the destruction of the World Trade Center towers has emerged that show pre-set explosives were used in the demolition of the buildings.

Gregg Roberts, who is a member of the non-profit organization disputing the results of official investigations into the September 11 attacks, says the “official story is a lie, it is a fraud.”

According to experts, the Twin Towers suffered total destruction within 10-14 seconds in near free fall accelerations which can only occur as a result of pre-set demolition explosives.

“There had to be explosives, there is no other way for the building to come symmetrically straight down… like a tree if you cut into the tree it falls to the side, that you cut,” said Steven Dusterwald, another member of the truth seeking organization.
The group also asserts that molten metal was found after the 9/11 inquiry.

“Jet fuel and office fires cannot melt iron or steel. They don’t even get half as hot as that and so something else was there, very energetic material that had to be placed throughout the buildings,” Roberts said.

“Once we take the blinders off, we can see. There are very few people in America who have taken the blinders off. So we are assisting people by showing them the evidence,” said founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth Richard Gage.

“The 600 architects I represent are most concerned about the freefall collapse of [World Trade Center] Building 7, the third skyscraper [that was] not hit by an airplane to fall on the afternoon of 9/11…the whole building is destroyed in 6.5 seconds,” the American Free Press quoted Gage as saying.

World Trade Center 7 reportedly collapsed about eight hours after the main World Trade Center towers fell.

The new evidence makes void the official story line that 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners and crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

The Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth group is calling on US Attorney General Eric Holder to request a federal grand jury investigation into this alleged cover-up, which Gage calls the “largest crime of the century.”

“If there is a responsible party,” former US Senator Mike Gravel told Press TV, “it ends with [former US President George W.] Bush and it comes down to [Former Vice President Dick] Cheney and then it comes down to the military and the various bureaucracies. No question that this kind of activity goes to the very top.”

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Were Twin Towers downed by demolitions? Group thinks so
Architects and engineers group to share findings on Sept. 11, 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center.
Staff Report, Updated 10:58 AM Thursday, September 9, 2010 , Dayton Daily News

DAYTON — As the anniversary of the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, approaches, members of the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth are focusing their attention on the World Trade Center Twin Towers.

Thursday, Sept. 9, Tim Lingg, the Ohio representative for the national architects and engineers group, will be at the local office of U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, to share findings that he says prove “all three of the skyscrapers that fell on Sept. 11, 2001, in New York City were destroyed by controlled demolitions.”

Lingg will address the public at noon at 120 W. Third St.

Lingg’s local address will precede a press conference that Richard Gage, founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, will have at 2 p.m. eastern at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The group’s members will be holding similar press conferences across the country today, according to press release issued by Lingg earlier this week.

In a press statement, Gage said, “Our findings corroborate the determination by more than 1,270 architects & engineers who have closely examined the characteristic features of the destruction and who are calling for a new investigation.”

The National Press Club conference will be web cast at http://www.AE911Truth.org.

For more information about today’s press conferences or the group’s findings, contact Congressional Outreach Team at http://www.AE911Truth.org. For information about the local event, call 367-1126.

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Gatherings concern Sept. 11 probe
Staff Reports, 09/08/2010 12:16:29 AM PDT, ChicoER

CHICO — Local members of an organization called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth will gather three times in Chico this week.

At noon Thursday, they will gather in Children’s Park. Then from 1:30 to 2 p.m. that day they will assemble outside the Chico office of Rep. Wally Herger, R-Chico.

From 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Friday, they will again be at Children’s Park.

At these events, a letter by architect Richard Gage and other members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth will be read. Local members of the group plan to answer questions from the public.

Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth wants Congress to order “a truly independent investigation” of the Sept. 11 events. The organization believes, according to its website, that the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed “not by jet impact and fires but by controlled demolition with explosives.”

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9 years later, Sept. 11 questions linger
By Trevor Warner, 09/11/2010 01:00:00 AM PDT, Paradise Post

World Trade Center Building 7 was the third high-rise building that collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001 – nine years ago today. It was not hit by a plane, was about 100 feet away from the Twin Towers and sustained minor to moderate office fires.

At 5:20 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the building fell vertically into its own footprint in a matter of seconds – commonly referred to as “free-fall speed.” The collapse mimicked the earlier collapse of the Twin Towers, which also came down in a matter of seconds. Chico resident Bill Donnelly, a member of Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth, said the collapses have the same characteristics of a controlled demolition.

This is one reason why more than 1,270 architects and engineers have signed a petition requesting an independent investigation into the events of Sept. 11, 2001. This is one reason why millions of people across the United States question the government’s official version of those events, say members of AE911Truth.

“There is no way in physical science on this planet that what the (9/11 Commission) found could be true according to these (architects and engineers) who deal with these materials daily,” said Betty Credit, a retired teacher from Paradise.

Donnelly, Credit and a handful of others gathered at Congressman Wally Herger’s office in Chico Thursday to express their desire for a new investigation. The gathering was part of a nationwide effort to present “evidence that the official investigations into what happened to the World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9/11 were deeply flawed, or worse.”

This statement was repeated Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. by Richard Gage, Bay Area architect and founder of AE911 Truth.

A similar press conference was held in “65 locations around the world including 30 states and four countries” according to the statement. Herger was not in his office Thursday to hear the statement, though his district director Fran Peace received the statement and said she would give the material to the Congressman.

Popular Mechanics released a book in 2006 on the subject called “Debunking 9/11 Myths,” which aims to answer the alternative Sept. 11 theories. However, Donnelly said that book has itself been debunked, most notably by theologian David Ray Griffin, who has written several books on the subject including “Debunking 9/11 Debunking.”

He added that an interview of Popular Mechanics Research Editor Davin Coburn by radio host Charles Goyette further cast doubt on the information given in “Debunking 9/11 Myths.”

“A lot of debunkers quit referring to Popular Mechanics after that,” he said.

Before the group arrived at Herger’s office, the group gathered at the corner of 1st Street and Broadway in Chico waving signs and handing out flyers promoting their cause.

“The truth of 9/11 should be investigated,” said Chico resident and teacher Marla Crites. “It’s a cover up. It was a crime scene but they didn’t treat it like a normal crime scene. You don’t cart away evidence before you look at it. They didn’t listen to eyewitnesses that reported explosives.”

Crites referenced WTC7 and said the fires inside weren’t enough to turn the building into powder.

“It had to be pre-rigged with explosives,” she said.

Alan Jones of Paradise is a retired engineer who worked in the field of nuclear power.

“My mind works like an engineer,” he said. “I deal with facts and the laws of nature.”

When he saw the buildings come down, “I knew something stunk,” he said.

“It looked phony,” he said. “The buildings came down at gravity speed and didn’t slow down.”

Robert Bowman, a retired music professor with Chico State University, said the most compelling evidence is a scientific study by former Brigham Young University Professor Steven Jones, a physicist who found residue from “military grade explosives” in dust samples from the World Trade Center site.

The information was confirmed by scientist Niels Harrit of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, he said. Jones was fired from BYU in 2006 amongst the controversy generated by his findings, Bowman said.

Joanne Alden of Paradise said she attended the gathering because of her “continuing belief that the 911 Commission didn’t tell the truth.” She said she believed the government’s story for a couple of years, but after hearing alternative theories she felt she needed to “find out what these people are talking about.”

Like the others she encourages people to investigate the anomaly of WTC7.

“Do your own research,” she said. “God gave everybody a mind – use it. Get your own data, check your own facts and don’t believe anything anyone tells you – about anything.”

Manual Rivera of Chico found it suspicious that only $10 million was spent on the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks while $37 million was spent on the Monica Lewinsky incident.

Herger released a statement regarding Thursday’s meeting that read “On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists unleashed a lethal attack on the American people. They succeeded in turning airplanes into missiles but failed to achieve their goal of destroying the American way of life. Our nation responded with strength and resolve, upending al-Qaeda’s sanctuary in Afghanistan and crippling their network through targeted strikes in Pakistan and Africa. While we have disrupted their deadly agenda, our nation must remain determined to completely dismantle al-Qaeda and like-minded networks of terror. These jihadists long to strike America again, and we must take every possible action to prevent that.”

For more information visit AE911Truth.org, WTC7.net, popular mechanics.com and debunking 911.com.

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9/11 Truthers Taking Action Today
9:34 AM September 9th, 2010 by James Pitkin , blogsw.week.com

As the nine-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approaches, local 9/11 Truthers are taking action.

According to a news release, Clackamas County resident Tim Titrud of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth is holding a press conference at the Portland office of U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) today at at 1:30 p.m.

Titrud will present findings “by more than 1,270 architects and engineers” that “all three of the skyscrapers that fell on September 11, 2001, in New York City were destroyed by controlled demolitions,” the news release says.

(Recall that the 7 World Trade Center building also collapsed around 5:20 p.m. that day.)

Titrud’s event coincides with another press conference today with former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) and Richard Gage of the American Institute of Architects at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the news release says.

Blumenauer’s office is at 830 NE Holladay St., suite 105.

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Vancouver truth seekers question 9/11
By Carlito Pablo, September 9, 2010, Straight.com

Darren Pearson makes a point of being at Vancouver’s Robson Square on the 11th of every month.

He and his colleagues have been setting up shop at the downtown plaza for more than three years to distribute leaflets and DVDs commemorating an event that changed the world: the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S.

But more than just remembering the almost 3,000 people who perished, including 24 Canadians, Pearson’s group is asking the question that refuses to die in the minds of many: was 9/11 an inside job?

According to the founding member of the Vancouver 9/11 Truth Society, being involved in such a cause involves some serious challenges.

“I guess alienating myself from some people that may have been friends at one time—that certainly becomes a part,” Pearson told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “And even family members, for that matter.”

But it has its rewards. According to Pearson, he has received notes from people who feel that they’ve been enlightened. “I feel that I have been recognized by individuals who have said that I have changed their lives,” he said.

Largely ignored by media and shunned by other activist groups, 9/11 truth societies have managed to keep their crusade alive. That’s largely because of the Internet and social media, according to Mario Canseco, vice president of communications with Angus Reid Public Opinion.

“We need to remember that it’s easier now to tell a story than it ever was because of social media, because of blogs, because of Twitter,” Canseco told the Straight in a phone interview. “It’s never been as easy as it is now to deal with ways to get your message across. Not only that, it’s not just putting something out there but actually connecting with people who feel the same way you do.”

About two years ago, Canseco’s company conducted a survey on public perceptions of 9/11. The results showed that 34 percent of Canadians believed that the U.S. government “let” the attacks happen. While 29 percent thought that the administration of then–American president George W. Bush had no prior knowledge, 16 percent of Canadians believed that the U.S. “made” the attacks, and 21 percent were undecided.

“We’re basically talking about almost one in four Canadians who think that the collapse of the World Trade Center was a result of a controlled demolition,” Canseco said.

According to SFU history professor Mark Leier, it’s a “natural human thing” to have theories that events like 9/11 or the 1963 assassination of then–U.S. president John F. Kennedy or even the car accident that caused the death of Princess Diana in Paris in 1997 are the handiwork of powerful people in government.

“They are so out of the ordinary and so surprising that they push people to try to find explanations that make the whole thing somehow fit into a pattern that they can get their hands around,” Leier told the Straight by phone. “And so for a lot of people, the idea that, say, George Bush would engineer the attacks on the World Trade Center is somehow more plausible to them than the idea that people could be extremely angry at America for its actions in other parts of the world.”

Lee Moller of the B.C. Society for Skeptical Enquiry has one quick response to claims that 9/11 was perpetrated by the American government.

“The government is made up of tens of thousands of people, and they’ve all got different motivations, so it’s almost impossible to imagine that the government could pull off something like this and have nobody find out about it,” Moller told the Straight by phone.

But for Pearson, looking for alternative answers is a quest for “justice, I suppose, on some level”.

On Saturday (September 11), Pearson’s group won’t just be giving out leaflets and DVDs. They’ll have a full-day event starting at 10 a.m. in Room C225 at UBC Robson Square, featuring live speakers, conversations via Skype with famous 9/11 truth seekers like American architect Richard Gage, film showings, music, question-and-answer sessions, a raffle, and a silent auction.

The post September 11th Ninth Anniversary News Coverage appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

The newspaper’s investigation found that nine years after the tragedy, the bureaucracy has become “so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.”

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See also:

“Top Secret America” Washington Post Investigation Reveals Massive, Unmanageable, Outsourced US Intelligence System
Democracy Now, Tues, Jul 20, 2010

America’s secret army: how the ‘war on terror’ created a new industry
The Guardian, Mon Jul 19, 2010
Since 9/11, US intelligence numbers have gone through the roof – and the budget is three times as high

Shadow government
Daily Kos, Mon Jul 19, 2010
Commentary on the Washington Post stories

A hidden world, growing beyond control
The Washington Post, Mon Jul 19, 2010
Part 1 of the series, Top Secret America, a Washington Post Investigation

The post 9/11 Attacks Spawned Big US Government appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.