18.10.2007, 00:00
USA sisejulgeolekuministeerium varjab 11. septembri tagamaid
New Yorgi terrorirünnaku ohvrite pered ei leia õiglust väärastunud juriidilises mängus, mille eesmärk on pigem süüdlaste varjamine kui nende kohtulik väljaselgitamine.
PLAHVATUS, MIS MUUTIS MAAILMA: New Yorgi kaksiktornid 11. septembril 2001. Assotiated Press
Maailma-
kaubanduskeskuse kunagisest asukohast Manhattanil vaid paar tänavavahet eemal asuvas uues kohtuhoones pidi tänavu 11. septembril toimuma 41 seni lahendamata, surma ja kehavigastuste kaudset põhjustamist puudutava hagi kohtueelne arutelu hukkunute ja vigastatute pereliikmete osavõtul.
Milline mõistusega inimene kutsuks ohvrite omaksed kohtusse nende lähedaste hukkumise aastapäeval? Tervemõistuslikust vaatepunktist on see jõhker mittearvestamine inimlike tunnetega. Kuus aastat asjaosaliste vastutuselevõtmist oodanud perekondadele võib see tunduda soola hõõrumisena valusale haavale.
kaubanduskeskuse kunagisest asukohast Manhattanil vaid paar tänavavahet eemal asuvas uues kohtuhoones pidi tänavu 11. septembril toimuma 41 seni lahendamata, surma ja kehavigastuste kaudset põhjustamist puudutava hagi kohtueelne arutelu hukkunute ja vigastatute pereliikmete osavõtul.
Milline mõistusega inimene kutsuks ohvrite omaksed kohtusse nende lähedaste hukkumise aastapäeval? Tervemõistuslikust vaatepunktist on see jõhker mittearvestamine inimlike tunnetega. Kuus aastat asjaosaliste vastutuselevõtmist oodanud perekondadele võib see tunduda soola hõõrumisena valusale haavale.
Ohvrite omaksed kohtumajja kutsunud
mees on New Yorgi lõunaringkonna kohtunik Alvin K. Hellerstein. Just
Hellersteini kätte on koondatud kõigi 11. septembri ohvrite hagid,
kaasa arvatud terrorirünnakuga seotud kahjutasunõuded.
Kõikide hagide kohtueelset menetlemist, milles nimetatakse mõne
lennukompanii, lennujaama turvafirma ja/või New Yorgi ja New Jersey
sadamate valitsuse nime, juhib Hellerstein.
Hellersteini mapis on ka
Maailmakaubanduskeskuse varemetes koristustöid teinud
tööliste hagid linna vastu. Kongress eraldas New Yorgi
linnavalitsusele miljard dollarit, sest linnal puudus piisav
kindlustuskate, et kuritahtlikus hooletuses süüdi
jäämise korral kahjutasusid välja maksta. Esimesena
katastroofipaigale tõtanud päästeteenistujad ja
suitsevates varemetes tervise rikkunud töölised aga pole veel saanud
sentigi.
“Meie
eesmärk oli, et seda raha kasutataks vigastatud töölistele
kahjutasude maksmiseks, mitte juristide ja menetlustasude jaoks,”
ütleb New Yorgi kongresmen Carolyn B. Maloney. “Poleks uskunud, et
tekib selline olukord nagu praegu, kus ükski töötaja pole saanud
mingit hüvitist.”
Kontrollitud meediaväljaanded hoiduvad kajastamast 11. septembri kohtumenetluse häbiväärset ummikseisu. Nii ei teagi laiem avalikkus midagi sellest õiguseväänamisest, mida on 11. septembri ohvrid pidanud taluma väärastunud õigusprotsessis, mille eesmärk on lahendada järelejäänud asjad kohtuvälise kokkuleppe teel, selle asemel et võimaldada ohvrite peredele, mida nad kõige enam ootavad – süüdlaste vastutuselevõtmist ja õiglast kohtulikku uurimist.
Kohtunik Hellerstein on juba pikka aega õhutanud hagejaid kohtuväliselt kokku leppima. 25. juuni kohtueelsel arutelul ütles Hellerstein: “Raha on kõigi asjade määre.” 41 peret ja nende advokaadid said kohtuniku suust kuulda soovitust valida “kõige tõhusam” variant: leppida peo peale makstud rahaga ja “edasi elada”.
“Võtke raha ja kaduge”
Üsna ebatavalise liigutusena otsustas Hellerstein tänavu 24. septembril alanud istungitel kõigepealt kindlaks määrata omaste saadaolevate kahjutasude suurused, enne kui asutakse kohtusaalis selgitama, kes on seaduse ees süüdi turvameetmete täitmatajätmises. Sellises praktikas nähakse järjekordset võtet, millega tõugata hagejaid kohtuvälisele leppele.
“Mind teeb väga murelikuks, et selle kohtuasja eestvedaja on muutunud nii küüniliseks,” ütleb Mike Low, kelle tütar Sara töötas stjuardessina American Airlinesi lennul nr 11. “Tema lahendus on dollarid ja sendid. Tema meelest võiksid kõik meist võtta raha ja kaduda.”
Hellersteini k&u uml;lma s pragmatismis pole midagi uut. Omaste inimõigusi jalge alla tallavat õ igusepilastamist on juhtumites, kus kõrgetasemelises kinnimätsimises on osalenud valitsusametnikud, ette tulnud varemgi. Väga sarnaselt on kulgenud menetlus 1994. aastal toimunud reisiparvlaev Estonia huku osas. Euroopa Teise maailmasõja järgse rängima mereõnnetuse uurimine on sumbunud Prantsuse kohtukoridoridesse. 13 aastat pärast laevahukku ei ole Prantsuse kohus jõudnud ühegi siduva järelduseni ja 852 hukkunu omastel puudub vähimgi lootus, et kunagi jõuaksid kohtu ette katastroofi eest vastutajad.
Samas seisus on 11. septembri ohvrite sugulased. Selle asemel, et kohtulikule uurimisele ja süüdlaste leidmisele hoogu anda, soovitab kohtunik Hellerstein neil eluga “edasi minna”.
Tõendite blokeerimine
Õiglane kohtupidamine on üks üleilmselt tunnustatud inimõigusi. Ent alles möödunud aastal, kui mul tuli endal tegemist teha ebaõiglase kallaletungisüüdistusega (selgus, et relvastatud tegelaste kujul oli tegemist mind jälitanud salapolitseiüksusega), hoiatas üks minu toetajatest, et vandekohtus võidab alati see pool, kellel õnnestub blokeerida rohkem tõendusmaterjali.
Nii oligi: minu rohkem kui tosinast ette valmistatud ja dokumenteeritud tõendist keeldus kohtunik enamikku läbi vaatamast, samuti ei lubanud ta tunnistama minu kutsutud eksperti, kes oleks võinud anda kohtule selgitusi politsei tegutsemispraktika kohta.
Täpselt sama toimub 11. septembri kohtuasjadega. Juba ammu enne kohtupidamise algust hoolitsetakse selle eest, et olulised tõendid ega võtmetunnistajad mingi hinna eest protsessile ei jõuaks. Lisaks 11. septembri terroriaktide “ajule” Khalid Sheikh Mohammedile, keda hoitakse kinni Guantanamo koonduslaagris, ei pääse eales kohtusse – isegi kui kahjutasunõuded seal kunagi peaksid arutusele tulema – terve hulk tunnistajaid, tõendeid ja dokumente. Selle eest seisab hea peaaegu tundmatu, kuid mõjuv tsensuurimehhanism, mis peatab nn tundliku julgeolekuinformatsiooni (Sensitive Security Information – SSI) avalikustamise.
2002. aastal määras transpordiminister föderaalse lennuohutuseeskirja (mis hõlmab ka ümberkäimist tundliku julgeolekuinfoga) täitmise eest vastutavaks 11. septembri terrorirünnaku järel loodud Transpordiohutuse ameti. Ameti juht John W. Magaw oli 1999. aasta lõpust Föderaalse Eriolukordade ameti (FEMA) peadirektori nõunik, kelle vastutusalasse kuulus riiklik valmisolek võitluseks siseterrorismiga.
Tundlik julgeolekuinfo, mida föderaalaktide register määratleb kui teavet “turvaprogrammidest, ohuhinnangutest, turvakontrolliseadmete tehnilistest spetsifikatsioonidest ja turvakontrolliseadmete testimiseks kasutatavatest objektidest --- ning muud informatsiooni”, puudutab otseselt reisijate turvakontrolli, mida teostati või ei teostatud 11. septembri terrorirünnakuga seostatud kolme välismaise turvafirma poolt. Just nende turvafirmade suutmatust peatada 19 nugadega relvastatud lennukiröövlit peavad paljud ohvrite sugulased peamiseks terroriakti toimepanekule kaasa aidanud asjaoluks.
Mängu tuleb sisejulgeolekuministeerium
2002. aasta novembris läks Transpordiohutuse amet üle sisejulgeolekuministeeriumi koosseisu. 2005. aastast juhib kõnealust ministeeriumi Iisraeli päritolu Michael Chertoff. Sestpeale kuulub järelevalve selle üle, millist 11. septembri sündmustega seotud materjali lubatakse kahjutasusid puudutavas kohtumenetluses kasutada, Chertoffile.
Siiani on kahtlane, kas surma ja kehavigastuste kaudset põhjustamist puudutavad kahjutasun& otil de;uded kunagi arutlusele tulevad. “Ma ei usu,” ütleb sellest rääkides üks lennufirmasid esindav advokaat, kes ei soovinud oma nime avalikustada. “Tõenäoliselt lepitakse kohtuväliselt kokku.” Hoolimata sellest, et suur osa ohvrite sugulasi on juba kokkuleppele läinud, leidub siiski ka neid, kelle silmis maksumaksja rahaga opereeriv riiklik hüvitusfond lõhnab vaikimistasu järele.
Sisejulgeolekuministri Chertoffi ema Livia Eisen oli Iisraeli luureametnik, kes osales omal ajal mitmes ülisalajases rahvusvahelises missioonis, nagu operatsioon “Lendav vaip”, mille käigus 1940. aastate lõpul toimetati Jeemenist õhusilla kaudu Iisraeli tuhandeid juute. Asjaolu, et üks 11. septembri kahjunõuetes figureerivaid turvafirmasid on oma tütarettevõtte Huntleigh USA Corp kaudu Iisraeli ettevõte ICTS International NV, tõstatab USA-Iisraeli topeltkodakondsusega Chertoffi puhul silmanähtava huvide konflikti. ICTS on ka lähedalt seotud Iisraeli sõjaväeluurega. Just Huntleigh USA oli 11. septembril 2000 vastutav Bostoni ja Newarki lennujaamade turvakontrolli eest. SSI programmi saab ilmselgelt kasutada selleks, et varjata välismaise turvafirma ametisaladusi ja toiminguid ning blokeerida vastavate tõendite pääs kohtusaali.
Kes on õieti Andrew Colsky?
Michael Chertoffi otsene alluv sisejulgeolekuministeeriumis on SSI programmi eest vastutav Florida jurist Andrew E. Colsky. Tegelikkuses peab kogu info, mida juristid seoses 11. septembri kahjutasunõuetega küsivad, läbi käima Colsky kontorist. 810 ajalehe arhiivi internetiotsingu tulemusel leiame Colsky kohta ainult seitse artiklit. Miks näitab “vaba ajakirjandusega” uhkustavas riigis peavoolumeedia üles säärast ükskõiksust mehe vastu, kes valvab USA ajaloo kohutavaima terrorirünnaku kohtuliku uurimise seisukohalt üliolulist teavet?
Google’i otsingu järgi selgub, et Andrew E. Colsky oli või on ka Miamis baseeruva, “ettevõtlusteenuseid” pakkuva firma Coral Way Partners Inc. direktor. Kummalisel kombel on USA rahandusministeerium tänavu 7. märtsil kandnud üpris sarnase nimega Miami firma Salman Coral Way Partners musta nimekirja kui Colombia North Valle uimastikartelli variettevõtte. On tõepoolest kummaline, et Transpordiohutuse ameti tundliku julgeolekuinfo peatsensor Colsky juhib ühtlasi firmat, millel on sama nimi ja mille kontor asub aadressiraamatu järgi Miamis üsna lähestikku firmaga, mida seostatakse Colombia narkokartelliga.
Kokkuvõtteks
Need kolm meest – Hellerstein, Chertoff ja Colsky – ongi kolm peamist väravavalvurit, kes seisavad risti ees 11. septembri ohvrite õigluspüüdlustel. Oma juurdlust, tõendite kättesaadavust ja kahjutasumenetlust mõjutava tegevusega takistavad nad üliolulise info avalikustamist 11. septembri tegelike sündmuste kohta.
2001. aastal, justiitsministri asetäitjana kriminaalõiguse alal, oli Chertoffil võimalik kontrollida juurdluse käiku ja ligipääsu otsustava tähtsusega materjalidele. Otseliinis Chertoffile allunud FBI konfiskeeris olulisemad tõendid ega võimaldanud teistel uurimisasutustel kuriteopaikadel juurdlust teostada.
Seejärel sisejulgeoleku “paruniks” saanud Chertoffi alluvuses toimib ka Transpordiohutuse ameti tundliku julgeolekuinfo (SSI) programm, mida kureerib Colsky. Colsky on ülemtsensor kõigi infopäringute küsimuses, mida esitavad Hellersteini käes olevate kohtuasjadega seoses kannatanute ja nende omaste advokaadid.
Kohtunik Hellerstein, kelle kätte on k oondatud kõik 11. septembri kahjutasunõuded seoses kehavigastuste ja surma kaudse põhjustamisega, pole lubanud ühtki asja kohtusaali, kus tuleks välja selgitada tegelikud vastutajad. Protsessi venitades ja omakseid kohtuvälisele kokkuleppele õhutades seisab Hellerstein selle eest, et senini blokeeritud tõendid kunagi kohtu ette ei jõuakski.
Tingitult säärastest “valvuritest” ja õiguse teele veeretatud takistustest ei pruugi 96 ohvri omaksed, kes pole nõustunud väljamaksega riiklikust hüvitusfondist, kunagi näha süüdlaste vastutusele võtmist ja õiglust, mida nad kohtu kaudu taotlesid.
Kontrollitud meediaväljaanded hoiduvad kajastamast 11. septembri kohtumenetluse häbiväärset ummikseisu. Nii ei teagi laiem avalikkus midagi sellest õiguseväänamisest, mida on 11. septembri ohvrid pidanud taluma väärastunud õigusprotsessis, mille eesmärk on lahendada järelejäänud asjad kohtuvälise kokkuleppe teel, selle asemel et võimaldada ohvrite peredele, mida nad kõige enam ootavad – süüdlaste vastutuselevõtmist ja õiglast kohtulikku uurimist.
Kohtunik Hellerstein on juba pikka aega õhutanud hagejaid kohtuväliselt kokku leppima. 25. juuni kohtueelsel arutelul ütles Hellerstein: “Raha on kõigi asjade määre.” 41 peret ja nende advokaadid said kohtuniku suust kuulda soovitust valida “kõige tõhusam” variant: leppida peo peale makstud rahaga ja “edasi elada”.
“Võtke raha ja kaduge”
Üsna ebatavalise liigutusena otsustas Hellerstein tänavu 24. septembril alanud istungitel kõigepealt kindlaks määrata omaste saadaolevate kahjutasude suurused, enne kui asutakse kohtusaalis selgitama, kes on seaduse ees süüdi turvameetmete täitmatajätmises. Sellises praktikas nähakse järjekordset võtet, millega tõugata hagejaid kohtuvälisele leppele.
“Mind teeb väga murelikuks, et selle kohtuasja eestvedaja on muutunud nii küüniliseks,” ütleb Mike Low, kelle tütar Sara töötas stjuardessina American Airlinesi lennul nr 11. “Tema lahendus on dollarid ja sendid. Tema meelest võiksid kõik meist võtta raha ja kaduda.”
Hellersteini k&u uml;lma s pragmatismis pole midagi uut. Omaste inimõigusi jalge alla tallavat õ igusepilastamist on juhtumites, kus kõrgetasemelises kinnimätsimises on osalenud valitsusametnikud, ette tulnud varemgi. Väga sarnaselt on kulgenud menetlus 1994. aastal toimunud reisiparvlaev Estonia huku osas. Euroopa Teise maailmasõja järgse rängima mereõnnetuse uurimine on sumbunud Prantsuse kohtukoridoridesse. 13 aastat pärast laevahukku ei ole Prantsuse kohus jõudnud ühegi siduva järelduseni ja 852 hukkunu omastel puudub vähimgi lootus, et kunagi jõuaksid kohtu ette katastroofi eest vastutajad.
Samas seisus on 11. septembri ohvrite sugulased. Selle asemel, et kohtulikule uurimisele ja süüdlaste leidmisele hoogu anda, soovitab kohtunik Hellerstein neil eluga “edasi minna”.
Tõendite blokeerimine
Õiglane kohtupidamine on üks üleilmselt tunnustatud inimõigusi. Ent alles möödunud aastal, kui mul tuli endal tegemist teha ebaõiglase kallaletungisüüdistusega (selgus, et relvastatud tegelaste kujul oli tegemist mind jälitanud salapolitseiüksusega), hoiatas üks minu toetajatest, et vandekohtus võidab alati see pool, kellel õnnestub blokeerida rohkem tõendusmaterjali.
Nii oligi: minu rohkem kui tosinast ette valmistatud ja dokumenteeritud tõendist keeldus kohtunik enamikku läbi vaatamast, samuti ei lubanud ta tunnistama minu kutsutud eksperti, kes oleks võinud anda kohtule selgitusi politsei tegutsemispraktika kohta.
Täpselt sama toimub 11. septembri kohtuasjadega. Juba ammu enne kohtupidamise algust hoolitsetakse selle eest, et olulised tõendid ega võtmetunnistajad mingi hinna eest protsessile ei jõuaks. Lisaks 11. septembri terroriaktide “ajule” Khalid Sheikh Mohammedile, keda hoitakse kinni Guantanamo koonduslaagris, ei pääse eales kohtusse – isegi kui kahjutasunõuded seal kunagi peaksid arutusele tulema – terve hulk tunnistajaid, tõendeid ja dokumente. Selle eest seisab hea peaaegu tundmatu, kuid mõjuv tsensuurimehhanism, mis peatab nn tundliku julgeolekuinformatsiooni (Sensitive Security Information – SSI) avalikustamise.
2002. aastal määras transpordiminister föderaalse lennuohutuseeskirja (mis hõlmab ka ümberkäimist tundliku julgeolekuinfoga) täitmise eest vastutavaks 11. septembri terrorirünnaku järel loodud Transpordiohutuse ameti. Ameti juht John W. Magaw oli 1999. aasta lõpust Föderaalse Eriolukordade ameti (FEMA) peadirektori nõunik, kelle vastutusalasse kuulus riiklik valmisolek võitluseks siseterrorismiga.
Tundlik julgeolekuinfo, mida föderaalaktide register määratleb kui teavet “turvaprogrammidest, ohuhinnangutest, turvakontrolliseadmete tehnilistest spetsifikatsioonidest ja turvakontrolliseadmete testimiseks kasutatavatest objektidest --- ning muud informatsiooni”, puudutab otseselt reisijate turvakontrolli, mida teostati või ei teostatud 11. septembri terrorirünnakuga seostatud kolme välismaise turvafirma poolt. Just nende turvafirmade suutmatust peatada 19 nugadega relvastatud lennukiröövlit peavad paljud ohvrite sugulased peamiseks terroriakti toimepanekule kaasa aidanud asjaoluks.
Mängu tuleb sisejulgeolekuministeerium
2002. aasta novembris läks Transpordiohutuse amet üle sisejulgeolekuministeeriumi koosseisu. 2005. aastast juhib kõnealust ministeeriumi Iisraeli päritolu Michael Chertoff. Sestpeale kuulub järelevalve selle üle, millist 11. septembri sündmustega seotud materjali lubatakse kahjutasusid puudutavas kohtumenetluses kasutada, Chertoffile.
Siiani on kahtlane, kas surma ja kehavigastuste kaudset põhjustamist puudutavad kahjutasun& otil de;uded kunagi arutlusele tulevad. “Ma ei usu,” ütleb sellest rääkides üks lennufirmasid esindav advokaat, kes ei soovinud oma nime avalikustada. “Tõenäoliselt lepitakse kohtuväliselt kokku.” Hoolimata sellest, et suur osa ohvrite sugulasi on juba kokkuleppele läinud, leidub siiski ka neid, kelle silmis maksumaksja rahaga opereeriv riiklik hüvitusfond lõhnab vaikimistasu järele.
Sisejulgeolekuministri Chertoffi ema Livia Eisen oli Iisraeli luureametnik, kes osales omal ajal mitmes ülisalajases rahvusvahelises missioonis, nagu operatsioon “Lendav vaip”, mille käigus 1940. aastate lõpul toimetati Jeemenist õhusilla kaudu Iisraeli tuhandeid juute. Asjaolu, et üks 11. septembri kahjunõuetes figureerivaid turvafirmasid on oma tütarettevõtte Huntleigh USA Corp kaudu Iisraeli ettevõte ICTS International NV, tõstatab USA-Iisraeli topeltkodakondsusega Chertoffi puhul silmanähtava huvide konflikti. ICTS on ka lähedalt seotud Iisraeli sõjaväeluurega. Just Huntleigh USA oli 11. septembril 2000 vastutav Bostoni ja Newarki lennujaamade turvakontrolli eest. SSI programmi saab ilmselgelt kasutada selleks, et varjata välismaise turvafirma ametisaladusi ja toiminguid ning blokeerida vastavate tõendite pääs kohtusaali.
Kes on õieti Andrew Colsky?
Michael Chertoffi otsene alluv sisejulgeolekuministeeriumis on SSI programmi eest vastutav Florida jurist Andrew E. Colsky. Tegelikkuses peab kogu info, mida juristid seoses 11. septembri kahjutasunõuetega küsivad, läbi käima Colsky kontorist. 810 ajalehe arhiivi internetiotsingu tulemusel leiame Colsky kohta ainult seitse artiklit. Miks näitab “vaba ajakirjandusega” uhkustavas riigis peavoolumeedia üles säärast ükskõiksust mehe vastu, kes valvab USA ajaloo kohutavaima terrorirünnaku kohtuliku uurimise seisukohalt üliolulist teavet?
Google’i otsingu järgi selgub, et Andrew E. Colsky oli või on ka Miamis baseeruva, “ettevõtlusteenuseid” pakkuva firma Coral Way Partners Inc. direktor. Kummalisel kombel on USA rahandusministeerium tänavu 7. märtsil kandnud üpris sarnase nimega Miami firma Salman Coral Way Partners musta nimekirja kui Colombia North Valle uimastikartelli variettevõtte. On tõepoolest kummaline, et Transpordiohutuse ameti tundliku julgeolekuinfo peatsensor Colsky juhib ühtlasi firmat, millel on sama nimi ja mille kontor asub aadressiraamatu järgi Miamis üsna lähestikku firmaga, mida seostatakse Colombia narkokartelliga.
Kokkuvõtteks
Need kolm meest – Hellerstein, Chertoff ja Colsky – ongi kolm peamist väravavalvurit, kes seisavad risti ees 11. septembri ohvrite õigluspüüdlustel. Oma juurdlust, tõendite kättesaadavust ja kahjutasumenetlust mõjutava tegevusega takistavad nad üliolulise info avalikustamist 11. septembri tegelike sündmuste kohta.
2001. aastal, justiitsministri asetäitjana kriminaalõiguse alal, oli Chertoffil võimalik kontrollida juurdluse käiku ja ligipääsu otsustava tähtsusega materjalidele. Otseliinis Chertoffile allunud FBI konfiskeeris olulisemad tõendid ega võimaldanud teistel uurimisasutustel kuriteopaikadel juurdlust teostada.
Seejärel sisejulgeoleku “paruniks” saanud Chertoffi alluvuses toimib ka Transpordiohutuse ameti tundliku julgeolekuinfo (SSI) programm, mida kureerib Colsky. Colsky on ülemtsensor kõigi infopäringute küsimuses, mida esitavad Hellersteini käes olevate kohtuasjadega seoses kannatanute ja nende omaste advokaadid.
Kohtunik Hellerstein, kelle kätte on k oondatud kõik 11. septembri kahjutasunõuded seoses kehavigastuste ja surma kaudse põhjustamisega, pole lubanud ühtki asja kohtusaali, kus tuleks välja selgitada tegelikud vastutajad. Protsessi venitades ja omakseid kohtuvälisele kokkuleppele õhutades seisab Hellerstein selle eest, et senini blokeeritud tõendid kunagi kohtu ette ei jõuakski.
Tingitult säärastest “valvuritest” ja õiguse teele veeretatud takistustest ei pruugi 96 ohvri omaksed, kes pole nõustunud väljamaksega riiklikust hüvitusfondist, kunagi näha süüdlaste vastutusele võtmist ja õiglust, mida nad kohtu kaudu taotlesid.
HOMELAND SECURITY USES "SENSITIVE SECURITY INFORMATION" REGULATIONS
TO BLOCK DISCOVERY
The families of the victims of 9-11 have been, and continue to be abused by the corrupt judicial process that is clearly more concerned about covering up for those responsible than delivering justice and accountability through discovery.
The manner in which the grieving relatives of 9-11 have been treated is nothing short of scandalous. The people who are obstructing the relatives' quest for justice through discovery are complicit in a high-level cover-up and are violating the human rights of the people affected by the terror attacks of 9-11. The people who are part of the 9-11 cover-up have names and faces and need to be held accountable.
Just a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, in the new Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse in lower Manhattan, a pre-trial conference for the 41 remaining wrongful death and personal injury cases brought by the families of those killed and injured on 9-11 was scheduled for the afternoon of September 11, 2007.
Who in their right mind would schedule a pre-trial conference for the relatives of 9-11 on the anniversary of the day they lost their loved ones? To a sensible person, this would seem extremely insensitive and inconsiderate of the feelings of the victims' families. For the families seeking accountability after 6 years, it might feel more like insult added to injury.
The person who scheduled the conference is Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, the U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Hellerstein presides over all the lawsuits for the victims of 9-11 involving claims related to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. All cases naming an airline, an airport security company, and/or the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have been consolidated for discovery and other pre-trial proceedings with Judge Hellerstein.
Hellerstein also oversees the lawsuits brought by Ground Zero workers against the city. Congress allocated New York $1 billion because the city could not find sufficient insurance against negligence suits. Gravely ill first responders and workers from the smoking pile of rubble have yet to receive any compensation.
"It was our intent that the money be used to protect injured workers and not swallowed up by lawyers and legal fees," said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY). "I never could have imagined we would end up where we are now, without one single worker compensated."
The disgraceful lack of progress in the proceedings of the 9-11 litigation is a subject that the controlled media avoids leaving the public unaware of the judicial abuse the relatives of the victims of 9-11 have had to endure at the hands of a corrupt legal system that is more interested in settling the remaining cases out of court than delivering what the remaining families want most of all - accountability and justice through discovery.
Judge Hellerstein has long been urging the plaintiffs and their lawyers to settle out of court. In comments he made in a pre-trial conference on June 25, which he admitted could be seen as "very crass," Hellerstein said, "Money is the universal lubricant." The presiding judge urged the lawyers and the remaining 41 families to take the "most efficient" way, meaning settle for the money and "get on" with their lives:
I learned long ago as a lawyer that many cases of principle stop being cases of principle when there are elements of expense or recovery that are presented.
I have had clients come to me and say look, I want you to defend me, it is a case of principle. Then when I presented my first bill, it stopped being a case of principle. I think it is common experience.
Similarly on the other side, people say I don't care what the recovery is, I want my day in court until someone gives them a check.
It is very crass and it probably will come back to be critical of me, but there is an expression that is sometimes very useful, "Money is the universal lubricant." It makes it easier to go on with one's life.
Out of the mundane, you can fashion something that makes a great deal of sense. We are coming on six years from the terrible event of September 11th, 2001. The public life is 4 score and 10, if it is correct. There is a great value in living out those years that God has allotted to each of us in a way that is most productive for the individual and for society.
What happened on September 11th, 2001 is now a memory with different degrees of pain for different people, for some degree of pain for each and every American and perhaps beyond the United States of America. Each of us has a choice either to never forget that pain and have it ever present in our lives or to fashion a life beyond the pain. If one looks at the issue in that way -- and I suggest that it is the only way to look at it -- the question then becomes what's the fairest, the most efficient, what is the best way to get on with the rest of our lives.
"TAKE THE MONEY AND GO AWAY"
In a move that is seen as very unusual, Hellerstein has scheduled trials to begin September 24 to determine the size of payments the families could receive before holding liability trials to establish who is legally responsible for the security breakdowns. This is seen as a move to hasten out of court settlements.
"It bothers me a great deal that someone in charge of this trial has become so cynical," Mike Low, the father of Sara, a flight attendant aboard American Airlines Flight 11, said about the judge's comments.
"He can't understand our loss. He sees the solution in a very cold and pragmatic way - in dollars and cents. He thinks everybody should take the money and go away."
"Sara was murdered on 9-11," Low said. "Her voice is silent, so I must speak for my daughter."
JUSTICE THROUGH DISCOVERY
Brian Sullivan, a former FAA security official at Boston's Logan Airport, said: "We are a country founded on principles. The remaining 9-11 plaintiffs seek justice through discovery and a trial. To assume that compensation can dissipate their principles, and ease their pain, is an assumption the judge shouldn't make."
Hellerstein's "cold and pragmatic" approach is not new. Abusing the relatives' human rights by denying them the justice and trials that they deserve has happened before in similar cases in which government officials are involved in high-level cover-ups. I am aware of a very similar case in Europe that has not moved an inch in 11 years.
The litigation concerning the 1994 Estonia catastrophe, the largest martime disaster in Europe since World War II, has been stuck in a legal quagmire in a French court since September 1996. Thirteen years after the sinking of Estonia, the relatives of the 852 souls lost, still have not had their day in court and it doesn't look like they will ever get it. There has been no discovery in the French court and there is no hope that there will ever be a trial to determine who was responsible for the catastrophe.
In August 2006, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg registered the Estonia case in which relatives of the deceased are suing the governments of Sweden and France for violating their human rights by denying them the fair and open trial they deserve.
The relatives accuse the two countries, the judges, the defendants, and the insurance companies with having conspired to block the legal process, which they expect would result in discovery and determine accountability for the catastrophe.
The 9-11 relatives are in a very similar predicament. Rather than pushing for discovery and liability trials, Judge Hellerstein wants the relatives to "get past" 9-11 and "get on with the rest" of their lives.
"Somehow we need to get past September 11, 2001 as a country and individually for all clients," he said, "and I would like to bring about that possibility as best I can, as efficiently as I can in a short a period of time as I can."
EXCLUDING EVIDENCE
The right to a fair trial is a universally recognized human right. Thinking I could get a fair trial is why I chose a jury trial when I was falsely charged with assaulting and resisting three heavily-armed and armor-clad men who were prowling around my house in August 2006. The men were an undercover tactical unit who had been watching me for several days.
As I prepared for my trial last spring, a supporter warned me that the side that wins in a trial is the side that gets the most evidence excluded. When I went to trial, I had made more than a dozen exhibits with documented evidence of a police conspiracy, but the judge, Hyman I. Riebman, wouldn't allow most of the evidence to be admitted and simply refused to let my expert witness testify about police procedures.
As I had been warned, the side that gets the most evidence excluded wins. So it was.
This is exactly what is happening with the 9-11 cases as well. Crucial evidence and key witnesses are being excluded from the process long before any trial begins.
The first person one would naturally expect to see in a U.S. criminal court in connection to 9-11 would be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged "mastermind" of the terror attacks. Why is Mohammed, who has confessed to being the mastermind behind 9-11, still sitting in the U.S. military's off-shore gulag in Guantanamo, Cuba?
SENSITIVE SECURITY INFORMATION
Besides Mr. Mohammed, there are a host of witnesses and piles of evidence, documents, and depositions that have been excluded from the 9-11 tort litigation cases through the use of a little-known but wide-ranging censorship mechanism known as Sensitive Security Information (SSI).
On November 16, 2001, Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA), which the President signed into law on November 19, 2001.
Under ATSA, Congress created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and authorized the agency to make improvements in the country’s transportation security. Based on this authority, John W. Magaw, the Under Secretary of Transportation, transferred authority for the existing Federal Aviation Administration regulations, which include SSI, to the TSA on February 22, 2002.
Magaw was nominated by President George W. Bush to serve as the Under Secretary of the Transportation Security Administration in January 2002. As the head of TSA, Magaw oversaw the start-up of the TSA. He served in this position until June 2002, when he resigned.
Previously, Magaw served as head of the presidential protective division since March 1990 and the 24-year veteran of the Secret Service served as director from 1992 to 1993. He served as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) from October 1993 to 1999, when the agency came under intense criticism of the disastrous Waco Texas tragedy. He was appointed as the Senior Advisor to the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for terrorism preparedness in December 1999 where he was responsible for FEMA's domestic terrorism preparedness efforts.
The SSI are part of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and are spelled out in 49 C.F.R. 1520.7, which is summarized below. The CFR is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government. It is important to note that these are not laws or executive orders, but regulations.
The Federal Register notice on the regulations describes SSI as including “information about security programs, vulnerability assessments, technical specifications of certain screening equipment and objects used to test screening equipment ... and other information.”
Clearly the SSI censorship program has everything to do with the passenger screening procedures that were, or were not used by the three foreign-owned airline security firms involved on 9-11. The failure of these security firms to stop the 19 knife-wielding hijackers is seen by many relatives as the main contributing factor to the terror crimes of 9-11.
These are some of the key SSI restrictions:
Section 1520.7(a) protects any security program “that relates to United States mail to be transported by air.”
Section 1520.7(b) through (d) covers security directives and information circulars, selection criteria used in the security screening process, and security contingency plans and/or instructions pertaining to those plans.
Section 1520.7(e) through (g) relates to any technical specification of any device or equipment used for security communications, screening, or “detecting deadly or dangerous weapons,” including an “explosive, incendiary, or destructive substance.”
Section 1520.7(h) covers the release of information that TSA “has determined may reveal a systemic vulnerability of the aviation system, or a vulnerability of aviation facilities, to attack.”
Section 1520.7(i) protects “information [released by TSA] concerning threats against transportation.”
Section 1520.7(j) protects “details of aviation security measures.”
Section 1520.7(k) and (l) relates to any “information” TSA has prohibited from disclosure under the criteria of 49 U.S.C. 40119, or any draft, proposed, or recommended change to the information or records identified in this section.
Section 1520.7(m) through (p) covers locations, tests, and scores of tests on all screening methods or equipment.
Section 1520.7(q) protects “images and descriptions of threat images for threat projection systems.”
Section 1520.7(r) relates to all Department of Transportation information on “vulnerability assessment ... irrespective of mode of transportation.”
Source: "SSI and Transportation Security: Background and Controversies" by Mitchel A. Sollenberger, Congressional Research Service
CHERTOFF IN CHARGE
When the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established in November 2002, the TSA became a branch of the new security department. Michael Chertoff, the U.S. Assistant Attorney General with Israeli roots, became DHS secretary on February 15, 2005, when he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn in.
When 9-11 occurred, Asst. Attorney General Chertoff was responsible for the criminal division of the Dept. of Justice. This made him the top official for the law enforcement and investigation process surrounding the terror attacks.
When Chertoff was made secretary of DHS, he became the responsible official for controlling what evidence would be released to the court involved in the 9-11 litigation. This makes Chertoff the person who has been continuously responsible for controlling the investigation and access to the evidence of 9-11.
Many of the 9-11 lawsuits are from families who hold the aviation industry responsible for the security lapses they believe led to the death of their loved ones.
"Absolutely there could have been more security," Margaret Ogonowski of Dracut, Mass. told Evan Lehman of the Bennington Banner (N.H.). Ogonowski was an airline attendant whose husband, John, was killed when captaining American Flight 11. "It was just a façade of security," she said.
"It was about pushing for some answers and pushing for accountability," Ogonowski said. "I was on that front line too," she said, but the lawsuit was "painfully slow."
"You get to the point where some people can continue forward and others just have to drop out of the race," Ogonowski said. "It's like any kind of race. You're always going to have some who can see it to the end, and others who can't. I just reached my limit."
"It's six years. We have no accountability. We have more questions that we have answers," another Massachusetts woman, who settled her case and asked that her name not be used, told Lehman.
The woman, who lost her husband on American Flight 11, described the Victim Compensation Fund as "government money" that smacked of a payoff.
An airline attorney who spoke on the condition that their name not be used told the Banner that cause-of-guilt trials are at least two or three years away - if they ever come.
"I don't think there'll be a trial of wrongful death and personal injuries," the attorney said. "I think at some point they (the families) will settle."
CHERTOFF AND SSI
As Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff oversees the TSA and the "responsible official" of the SSI Program Office, a Florida lawyer named Andrew E. Colsky.
Chertoff's mother, Livia Eisen, was an Israeli intelligence operative who was involved in top-secret international missions, such as the operation known as "Magic Carpet," which airlifted thousands of Yemenite Jews to Israel in the late 1940s.
The fact that one of the defendants in the 9-11 tort litigation is the Israeli company ICTS International NV and its wholly owned subsidiary Huntleigh USA Corp. raises obvious conflict of interest questions for the Israeli dual-national Chertoff. ICTS is closely linked with Israeli military intelligence.
Huntleigh USA was involved in airport security and passenger screening operations at Boston and Newark airports on 9-11 and the SSI censorship program is clearly designed to protect the secrets and activities of the foreign-owned security company. The SSI censorship effectively prevents essential information about Huntleigh and the other two foreign security companies from getting anywhere near the 9-11 litigation process.
In some places Colsky is called the chief, the director, or the expert on SSI, but what he really does is to act as the TSA's chief information gatekeeper, or censor, to prevent "sensitive" information from coming to the court. All the information that the lawyers for the 9-11 litigation request has to pass the censors in the office of Andrew Colsky.
"The Sensitive Security Information designator is supposed to be used to protect information in the interests of national security, not as a shield to cloud government and/or airline negligence and incompetence," Sullivan said. "This has complicated and obfuscated the process, as the plaintiffs continue to battle for information in disovery, and has been the main reason liability trials have been delayed for going on six years."
WHO IS ANDREW COLSKY?
Although Colsky is the key person responsible for SSI, the gatekeeping and censoring process that is "the main reason" the 9-11 liability trials have been delayed, there is virtually no mention of him in the U.S. print media. How odd.
A database for lawyers has Andrew Evan Colsky working at 8220 SW 52nd Ave. in Miami. He is listed as having studied law at the University of Florida and admitted to the bar on June 11, 1990.
The Virginia Directory of Divorce Mediation and Mediators has an Andrew E. Colsky on its website. It lists him as the "senior mediator" of the American Conflict Management Institute, located at 1200 Ridge Road, in Arlington, Va. The phone number it provides, however, is a Miami number with a 305 area code.
It says that Colsky "mediates employment disputes including complex multi-party disputes" and that he is "an ADR [Alternative Dispute Resolution] program/system designer who served as an integral part of developing the world's largest employment mediation program at the U.S. Postal Service.
A search of 810 newspapers in the United States yields only 7 articles or notices in which "Andrew Colsky" is mentioned, and only 6 in which he is mentioned with his middle initial. Not one newspaper even mentions the fact that he directs the SSI program.
Why would the journalists and editors of the mainstream media show no interest at all in the person who is controlling and censoring the information that is crucial to the discovery process in the worst terror attacks in U.S. history? Why is Colsky and the SSI censorship and obstruction of the discovery process not even discussed in a land that supposedly cherishes its "free press?"
A Google search for "Andrew E. Colsky" produces only 20 results. Besides a few mentions of SSI related material, the results connect Colsky with dispute resolution for the U.S. Postal Service and as the author of a book on the famous Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida.
CORAL WAY PARTNERS, INC.
There is also a very peculiar business listing indicating that an "Andrew E. Colsky" is, or was director of a company called Coral Way Partners, Inc. The listing is from a database called Manta at www.manta.com. The information provided on Manta's website comes from Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). Oddly, there are only two listings in Google for Colsky and "Coral Way Partners."
The business listing says that "Andrew E. Colsky" is, or was the Director of Coral Way Partners, Inc., which is, or was located at 8220 SW 52nd Ave. in Miami, Florida. Colsky's business, which is described as providing "business services," is listed with the phone number (305) 669-4724.
"Andrew Colsky" is listed in D&B and Manta as being the President of another company, Mediation Associates, Inc. or American Mediation Institute, at the same address on SW 52nd Ave. in Miami. Mediation Associates, with one employee, and Coral Way Partners, Inc. apparently shared the same office and phone number.
D&B has only one company listed with the name Coral Way Partners, which is listed as having 2 employees with yearly sales of $120,000. The name of Colsky's "partner" in Coral Way Partners is not provided, nor is the year of the listing.
Metrobot, however, has a 2005 listing for Coral Way Partners at the SW 52nd Ave. address. A doctor named Arthur S. Colsky is also listed at the same address along with Andrew Colsky's Mediation Associates. Dr. Colsky's mother, Irene Colsky, is listed as self-employed at the same address.
Coral Way is the historic scenic road that runs East and West between downtown Miami and Coral Gables. It is somewhat odd that Colsky would have a business called Coral Way Partners located in an office nearly 5 miles south of the famous ficus and banyan tree-lined Coral Way.
It is also odd that in March 2007, a Miami business with a very similar name, Salman Coral Way Partners, was designated by the U.S. Treasury as a "front" acting for Colombia’s North Valle Drug Cartel.
Salman Coral Way Partners is listed at 2731 Coral Way, about 6 miles northeast of the Coral Way Partners office at 8220 SW 52nd Ave.
On March 7, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added two U.S. companies, C.W. Salman Partners and Salman Coral Way Partners, to its list of Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers (SDNTs) for their ties to Colombia's drug cartel.
While it appears that Salman Coral Way Partners and Coral Way Partners are two separate companies, there is virtually no information about Colsky's company, why he started it, or what it did - or does.
It seems very odd that Colsky, the director of the SSI program for TSA, would be the director of a company with the same name, in the same part of Miami, as a company linked to the Colombian drug cartel. Of course, it may be just a coincidence, but it seems to be quite an odd coincidence.
If, however, the two Coral Way Partners companies in South Miami are connected in some way, it would be a very interesting development in the 9-11 cover-up.
Conclusion
These three men, Hellerstein, Chertoff, and Colsky are
three of the key gatekeepers who have obstructed the
9-11 victims' pursuit of justice. Their actions
regarding the investigation, access to the evidence,
and the litigation, have effectively blocked discovery
of the essential information about what really
occurred on 9-11.
Chertoff, as the assistant attorney general
responsible for the criminal division of the Dept. of
Justice in 2001, was in position to control the
investigation and access to the crucial evidence. The
FBI, which was under Chertoff's direct command,
confiscated critical evidence and prevented other
agencies from investigating the crime scenes.
Chertoff later became the Homeland Security "czar" and
oversees the Sensitive Security Information (SSI)
Program of the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) headed by Colsky. Colsky functions as the chief
censor of all information requested by the lawyers of
the victims and families in the court of Judge
Hellerstein.
Hellerstein, as the judge who presides over all 9-11
litigation involving injury and wrongful death
lawsuits, has prevented any of the cases going to
trial to determine who was accountable for the loss of
life. By delaying the process and pushing the
relatives to settle out-of-court, Hellerstein is
ensuring that none of the evidence, which is being
blocked, will ever be needed in court.
In this way, with so many gatekeepers and obstacles,
the relatives of the 96 victims who chose not to take
the government compensation fund, may never obtain the
accountability and justice they have sought through
the courts.
Christopher Bollyn is an independent journalist and 9-11 researcher
TO BLOCK DISCOVERY
The families of the victims of 9-11 have been, and continue to be abused by the corrupt judicial process that is clearly more concerned about covering up for those responsible than delivering justice and accountability through discovery.
The manner in which the grieving relatives of 9-11 have been treated is nothing short of scandalous. The people who are obstructing the relatives' quest for justice through discovery are complicit in a high-level cover-up and are violating the human rights of the people affected by the terror attacks of 9-11. The people who are part of the 9-11 cover-up have names and faces and need to be held accountable.
Just a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, in the new Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse in lower Manhattan, a pre-trial conference for the 41 remaining wrongful death and personal injury cases brought by the families of those killed and injured on 9-11 was scheduled for the afternoon of September 11, 2007.
Who in their right mind would schedule a pre-trial conference for the relatives of 9-11 on the anniversary of the day they lost their loved ones? To a sensible person, this would seem extremely insensitive and inconsiderate of the feelings of the victims' families. For the families seeking accountability after 6 years, it might feel more like insult added to injury.
The person who scheduled the conference is Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, the U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Hellerstein presides over all the lawsuits for the victims of 9-11 involving claims related to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. All cases naming an airline, an airport security company, and/or the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have been consolidated for discovery and other pre-trial proceedings with Judge Hellerstein.
Hellerstein also oversees the lawsuits brought by Ground Zero workers against the city. Congress allocated New York $1 billion because the city could not find sufficient insurance against negligence suits. Gravely ill first responders and workers from the smoking pile of rubble have yet to receive any compensation.
"It was our intent that the money be used to protect injured workers and not swallowed up by lawyers and legal fees," said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY). "I never could have imagined we would end up where we are now, without one single worker compensated."
The disgraceful lack of progress in the proceedings of the 9-11 litigation is a subject that the controlled media avoids leaving the public unaware of the judicial abuse the relatives of the victims of 9-11 have had to endure at the hands of a corrupt legal system that is more interested in settling the remaining cases out of court than delivering what the remaining families want most of all - accountability and justice through discovery.
Judge Hellerstein has long been urging the plaintiffs and their lawyers to settle out of court. In comments he made in a pre-trial conference on June 25, which he admitted could be seen as "very crass," Hellerstein said, "Money is the universal lubricant." The presiding judge urged the lawyers and the remaining 41 families to take the "most efficient" way, meaning settle for the money and "get on" with their lives:
I learned long ago as a lawyer that many cases of principle stop being cases of principle when there are elements of expense or recovery that are presented.
I have had clients come to me and say look, I want you to defend me, it is a case of principle. Then when I presented my first bill, it stopped being a case of principle. I think it is common experience.
Similarly on the other side, people say I don't care what the recovery is, I want my day in court until someone gives them a check.
It is very crass and it probably will come back to be critical of me, but there is an expression that is sometimes very useful, "Money is the universal lubricant." It makes it easier to go on with one's life.
Out of the mundane, you can fashion something that makes a great deal of sense. We are coming on six years from the terrible event of September 11th, 2001. The public life is 4 score and 10, if it is correct. There is a great value in living out those years that God has allotted to each of us in a way that is most productive for the individual and for society.
What happened on September 11th, 2001 is now a memory with different degrees of pain for different people, for some degree of pain for each and every American and perhaps beyond the United States of America. Each of us has a choice either to never forget that pain and have it ever present in our lives or to fashion a life beyond the pain. If one looks at the issue in that way -- and I suggest that it is the only way to look at it -- the question then becomes what's the fairest, the most efficient, what is the best way to get on with the rest of our lives.
"TAKE THE MONEY AND GO AWAY"
In a move that is seen as very unusual, Hellerstein has scheduled trials to begin September 24 to determine the size of payments the families could receive before holding liability trials to establish who is legally responsible for the security breakdowns. This is seen as a move to hasten out of court settlements.
"It bothers me a great deal that someone in charge of this trial has become so cynical," Mike Low, the father of Sara, a flight attendant aboard American Airlines Flight 11, said about the judge's comments.
"He can't understand our loss. He sees the solution in a very cold and pragmatic way - in dollars and cents. He thinks everybody should take the money and go away."
"Sara was murdered on 9-11," Low said. "Her voice is silent, so I must speak for my daughter."
JUSTICE THROUGH DISCOVERY
Brian Sullivan, a former FAA security official at Boston's Logan Airport, said: "We are a country founded on principles. The remaining 9-11 plaintiffs seek justice through discovery and a trial. To assume that compensation can dissipate their principles, and ease their pain, is an assumption the judge shouldn't make."
Hellerstein's "cold and pragmatic" approach is not new. Abusing the relatives' human rights by denying them the justice and trials that they deserve has happened before in similar cases in which government officials are involved in high-level cover-ups. I am aware of a very similar case in Europe that has not moved an inch in 11 years.
The litigation concerning the 1994 Estonia catastrophe, the largest martime disaster in Europe since World War II, has been stuck in a legal quagmire in a French court since September 1996. Thirteen years after the sinking of Estonia, the relatives of the 852 souls lost, still have not had their day in court and it doesn't look like they will ever get it. There has been no discovery in the French court and there is no hope that there will ever be a trial to determine who was responsible for the catastrophe.
In August 2006, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg registered the Estonia case in which relatives of the deceased are suing the governments of Sweden and France for violating their human rights by denying them the fair and open trial they deserve.
The relatives accuse the two countries, the judges, the defendants, and the insurance companies with having conspired to block the legal process, which they expect would result in discovery and determine accountability for the catastrophe.
The 9-11 relatives are in a very similar predicament. Rather than pushing for discovery and liability trials, Judge Hellerstein wants the relatives to "get past" 9-11 and "get on with the rest" of their lives.
"Somehow we need to get past September 11, 2001 as a country and individually for all clients," he said, "and I would like to bring about that possibility as best I can, as efficiently as I can in a short a period of time as I can."
EXCLUDING EVIDENCE
The right to a fair trial is a universally recognized human right. Thinking I could get a fair trial is why I chose a jury trial when I was falsely charged with assaulting and resisting three heavily-armed and armor-clad men who were prowling around my house in August 2006. The men were an undercover tactical unit who had been watching me for several days.
As I prepared for my trial last spring, a supporter warned me that the side that wins in a trial is the side that gets the most evidence excluded. When I went to trial, I had made more than a dozen exhibits with documented evidence of a police conspiracy, but the judge, Hyman I. Riebman, wouldn't allow most of the evidence to be admitted and simply refused to let my expert witness testify about police procedures.
As I had been warned, the side that gets the most evidence excluded wins. So it was.
This is exactly what is happening with the 9-11 cases as well. Crucial evidence and key witnesses are being excluded from the process long before any trial begins.
The first person one would naturally expect to see in a U.S. criminal court in connection to 9-11 would be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged "mastermind" of the terror attacks. Why is Mohammed, who has confessed to being the mastermind behind 9-11, still sitting in the U.S. military's off-shore gulag in Guantanamo, Cuba?
SENSITIVE SECURITY INFORMATION
Besides Mr. Mohammed, there are a host of witnesses and piles of evidence, documents, and depositions that have been excluded from the 9-11 tort litigation cases through the use of a little-known but wide-ranging censorship mechanism known as Sensitive Security Information (SSI).
On November 16, 2001, Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA), which the President signed into law on November 19, 2001.
Under ATSA, Congress created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and authorized the agency to make improvements in the country’s transportation security. Based on this authority, John W. Magaw, the Under Secretary of Transportation, transferred authority for the existing Federal Aviation Administration regulations, which include SSI, to the TSA on February 22, 2002.
Magaw was nominated by President George W. Bush to serve as the Under Secretary of the Transportation Security Administration in January 2002. As the head of TSA, Magaw oversaw the start-up of the TSA. He served in this position until June 2002, when he resigned.
Previously, Magaw served as head of the presidential protective division since March 1990 and the 24-year veteran of the Secret Service served as director from 1992 to 1993. He served as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) from October 1993 to 1999, when the agency came under intense criticism of the disastrous Waco Texas tragedy. He was appointed as the Senior Advisor to the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for terrorism preparedness in December 1999 where he was responsible for FEMA's domestic terrorism preparedness efforts.
The SSI are part of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and are spelled out in 49 C.F.R. 1520.7, which is summarized below. The CFR is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government. It is important to note that these are not laws or executive orders, but regulations.
The Federal Register notice on the regulations describes SSI as including “information about security programs, vulnerability assessments, technical specifications of certain screening equipment and objects used to test screening equipment ... and other information.”
Clearly the SSI censorship program has everything to do with the passenger screening procedures that were, or were not used by the three foreign-owned airline security firms involved on 9-11. The failure of these security firms to stop the 19 knife-wielding hijackers is seen by many relatives as the main contributing factor to the terror crimes of 9-11.
These are some of the key SSI restrictions:
Section 1520.7(a) protects any security program “that relates to United States mail to be transported by air.”
Section 1520.7(b) through (d) covers security directives and information circulars, selection criteria used in the security screening process, and security contingency plans and/or instructions pertaining to those plans.
Section 1520.7(e) through (g) relates to any technical specification of any device or equipment used for security communications, screening, or “detecting deadly or dangerous weapons,” including an “explosive, incendiary, or destructive substance.”
Section 1520.7(h) covers the release of information that TSA “has determined may reveal a systemic vulnerability of the aviation system, or a vulnerability of aviation facilities, to attack.”
Section 1520.7(i) protects “information [released by TSA] concerning threats against transportation.”
Section 1520.7(j) protects “details of aviation security measures.”
Section 1520.7(k) and (l) relates to any “information” TSA has prohibited from disclosure under the criteria of 49 U.S.C. 40119, or any draft, proposed, or recommended change to the information or records identified in this section.
Section 1520.7(m) through (p) covers locations, tests, and scores of tests on all screening methods or equipment.
Section 1520.7(q) protects “images and descriptions of threat images for threat projection systems.”
Section 1520.7(r) relates to all Department of Transportation information on “vulnerability assessment ... irrespective of mode of transportation.”
Source: "SSI and Transportation Security: Background and Controversies" by Mitchel A. Sollenberger, Congressional Research Service
CHERTOFF IN CHARGE
When the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established in November 2002, the TSA became a branch of the new security department. Michael Chertoff, the U.S. Assistant Attorney General with Israeli roots, became DHS secretary on February 15, 2005, when he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn in.
When 9-11 occurred, Asst. Attorney General Chertoff was responsible for the criminal division of the Dept. of Justice. This made him the top official for the law enforcement and investigation process surrounding the terror attacks.
When Chertoff was made secretary of DHS, he became the responsible official for controlling what evidence would be released to the court involved in the 9-11 litigation. This makes Chertoff the person who has been continuously responsible for controlling the investigation and access to the evidence of 9-11.
Many of the 9-11 lawsuits are from families who hold the aviation industry responsible for the security lapses they believe led to the death of their loved ones.
"Absolutely there could have been more security," Margaret Ogonowski of Dracut, Mass. told Evan Lehman of the Bennington Banner (N.H.). Ogonowski was an airline attendant whose husband, John, was killed when captaining American Flight 11. "It was just a façade of security," she said.
"It was about pushing for some answers and pushing for accountability," Ogonowski said. "I was on that front line too," she said, but the lawsuit was "painfully slow."
"You get to the point where some people can continue forward and others just have to drop out of the race," Ogonowski said. "It's like any kind of race. You're always going to have some who can see it to the end, and others who can't. I just reached my limit."
"It's six years. We have no accountability. We have more questions that we have answers," another Massachusetts woman, who settled her case and asked that her name not be used, told Lehman.
The woman, who lost her husband on American Flight 11, described the Victim Compensation Fund as "government money" that smacked of a payoff.
An airline attorney who spoke on the condition that their name not be used told the Banner that cause-of-guilt trials are at least two or three years away - if they ever come.
"I don't think there'll be a trial of wrongful death and personal injuries," the attorney said. "I think at some point they (the families) will settle."
CHERTOFF AND SSI
As Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff oversees the TSA and the "responsible official" of the SSI Program Office, a Florida lawyer named Andrew E. Colsky.
Chertoff's mother, Livia Eisen, was an Israeli intelligence operative who was involved in top-secret international missions, such as the operation known as "Magic Carpet," which airlifted thousands of Yemenite Jews to Israel in the late 1940s.
The fact that one of the defendants in the 9-11 tort litigation is the Israeli company ICTS International NV and its wholly owned subsidiary Huntleigh USA Corp. raises obvious conflict of interest questions for the Israeli dual-national Chertoff. ICTS is closely linked with Israeli military intelligence.
Huntleigh USA was involved in airport security and passenger screening operations at Boston and Newark airports on 9-11 and the SSI censorship program is clearly designed to protect the secrets and activities of the foreign-owned security company. The SSI censorship effectively prevents essential information about Huntleigh and the other two foreign security companies from getting anywhere near the 9-11 litigation process.
In some places Colsky is called the chief, the director, or the expert on SSI, but what he really does is to act as the TSA's chief information gatekeeper, or censor, to prevent "sensitive" information from coming to the court. All the information that the lawyers for the 9-11 litigation request has to pass the censors in the office of Andrew Colsky.
"The Sensitive Security Information designator is supposed to be used to protect information in the interests of national security, not as a shield to cloud government and/or airline negligence and incompetence," Sullivan said. "This has complicated and obfuscated the process, as the plaintiffs continue to battle for information in disovery, and has been the main reason liability trials have been delayed for going on six years."
WHO IS ANDREW COLSKY?
Although Colsky is the key person responsible for SSI, the gatekeeping and censoring process that is "the main reason" the 9-11 liability trials have been delayed, there is virtually no mention of him in the U.S. print media. How odd.
A database for lawyers has Andrew Evan Colsky working at 8220 SW 52nd Ave. in Miami. He is listed as having studied law at the University of Florida and admitted to the bar on June 11, 1990.
The Virginia Directory of Divorce Mediation and Mediators has an Andrew E. Colsky on its website. It lists him as the "senior mediator" of the American Conflict Management Institute, located at 1200 Ridge Road, in Arlington, Va. The phone number it provides, however, is a Miami number with a 305 area code.
It says that Colsky "mediates employment disputes including complex multi-party disputes" and that he is "an ADR [Alternative Dispute Resolution] program/system designer who served as an integral part of developing the world's largest employment mediation program at the U.S. Postal Service.
A search of 810 newspapers in the United States yields only 7 articles or notices in which "Andrew Colsky" is mentioned, and only 6 in which he is mentioned with his middle initial. Not one newspaper even mentions the fact that he directs the SSI program.
Why would the journalists and editors of the mainstream media show no interest at all in the person who is controlling and censoring the information that is crucial to the discovery process in the worst terror attacks in U.S. history? Why is Colsky and the SSI censorship and obstruction of the discovery process not even discussed in a land that supposedly cherishes its "free press?"
A Google search for "Andrew E. Colsky" produces only 20 results. Besides a few mentions of SSI related material, the results connect Colsky with dispute resolution for the U.S. Postal Service and as the author of a book on the famous Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida.
CORAL WAY PARTNERS, INC.
There is also a very peculiar business listing indicating that an "Andrew E. Colsky" is, or was director of a company called Coral Way Partners, Inc. The listing is from a database called Manta at www.manta.com. The information provided on Manta's website comes from Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). Oddly, there are only two listings in Google for Colsky and "Coral Way Partners."
The business listing says that "Andrew E. Colsky" is, or was the Director of Coral Way Partners, Inc., which is, or was located at 8220 SW 52nd Ave. in Miami, Florida. Colsky's business, which is described as providing "business services," is listed with the phone number (305) 669-4724.
"Andrew Colsky" is listed in D&B and Manta as being the President of another company, Mediation Associates, Inc. or American Mediation Institute, at the same address on SW 52nd Ave. in Miami. Mediation Associates, with one employee, and Coral Way Partners, Inc. apparently shared the same office and phone number.
D&B has only one company listed with the name Coral Way Partners, which is listed as having 2 employees with yearly sales of $120,000. The name of Colsky's "partner" in Coral Way Partners is not provided, nor is the year of the listing.
Metrobot, however, has a 2005 listing for Coral Way Partners at the SW 52nd Ave. address. A doctor named Arthur S. Colsky is also listed at the same address along with Andrew Colsky's Mediation Associates. Dr. Colsky's mother, Irene Colsky, is listed as self-employed at the same address.
Coral Way is the historic scenic road that runs East and West between downtown Miami and Coral Gables. It is somewhat odd that Colsky would have a business called Coral Way Partners located in an office nearly 5 miles south of the famous ficus and banyan tree-lined Coral Way.
It is also odd that in March 2007, a Miami business with a very similar name, Salman Coral Way Partners, was designated by the U.S. Treasury as a "front" acting for Colombia’s North Valle Drug Cartel.
Salman Coral Way Partners is listed at 2731 Coral Way, about 6 miles northeast of the Coral Way Partners office at 8220 SW 52nd Ave.
On March 7, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added two U.S. companies, C.W. Salman Partners and Salman Coral Way Partners, to its list of Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers (SDNTs) for their ties to Colombia's drug cartel.
While it appears that Salman Coral Way Partners and Coral Way Partners are two separate companies, there is virtually no information about Colsky's company, why he started it, or what it did - or does.
It seems very odd that Colsky, the director of the SSI program for TSA, would be the director of a company with the same name, in the same part of Miami, as a company linked to the Colombian drug cartel. Of course, it may be just a coincidence, but it seems to be quite an odd coincidence.
If, however, the two Coral Way Partners companies in South Miami are connected in some way, it would be a very interesting development in the 9-11 cover-up.
Conclusion
These three men, Hellerstein, Chertoff, and Colsky are
three of the key gatekeepers who have obstructed the
9-11 victims' pursuit of justice. Their actions
regarding the investigation, access to the evidence,
and the litigation, have effectively blocked discovery
of the essential information about what really
occurred on 9-11.
Chertoff, as the assistant attorney general
responsible for the criminal division of the Dept. of
Justice in 2001, was in position to control the
investigation and access to the crucial evidence. The
FBI, which was under Chertoff's direct command,
confiscated critical evidence and prevented other
agencies from investigating the crime scenes.
Chertoff later became the Homeland Security "czar" and
oversees the Sensitive Security Information (SSI)
Program of the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) headed by Colsky. Colsky functions as the chief
censor of all information requested by the lawyers of
the victims and families in the court of Judge
Hellerstein.
Hellerstein, as the judge who presides over all 9-11
litigation involving injury and wrongful death
lawsuits, has prevented any of the cases going to
trial to determine who was accountable for the loss of
life. By delaying the process and pushing the
relatives to settle out-of-court, Hellerstein is
ensuring that none of the evidence, which is being
blocked, will ever be needed in court.
In this way, with so many gatekeepers and obstacles,
the relatives of the 96 victims who chose not to take
the government compensation fund, may never obtain the
accountability and justice they have sought through
the courts.
Christopher Bollyn is an independent journalist and 9-11 researcher
