Paul Davis On Crime: Secrets of the FBI

Showing posts with label Secrets of the FBI. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Former FBI Official Says Trip Wires Are Foiling Terrorist Plots

Ronald Kessler, the veteran journalist and author of several books on the CIA, the Secret Service and the FBI, including his latest, The Secrets of the FBI, offers an interview with former assitant FBI director Dr. Vahid Majidi (seen in the above FBI photo) in his newsmax.com column.

Trip wires developed by the FBI to warn of threats are rolling up terrorist plots and saving lives, Dr. Vahid Majidi, the former assistant FBI director in charge of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, tells Newsmax.

To devise trip wires, the FBI in effect reverse-engineered a terrorist operation. It looked at a potential terrorist incident and then worked backwards to pinpoint all the elements a terrorist might require to achieve his goal. The FBI then had a roadmap of possible clues to an impending plot.
As an example, the FBI asked companies or laboratories that supply certain chemicals or biological materials to report any suspicious purchases to the FBI or police.

Trip wires led to the arrest of Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, a 20-year-old college student from Saudi Arabia who allegedly was planning to blow up the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush. In another case, a nursery notified the FBI of large purchases of castor plants. The FBI found that the purchaser was planning to make ricin from castor beans and send it to a judge.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/FBI-counter-terrorism-trip-wires/2012/08/21/id/449258

You can also read my interview with Ronald Kessler about his book The Secrets of the FBI that appeared in Counterterrorism magazine via the below link:

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Saturday, October 1, 2011

Al-Awlaki Killing Is U.S. Intel Community Triumph

As Ronald Kessler notes correctly in his Newsmax.com column, the killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki was a major triumph for the U.S. intelligence community.

The intel community, made up of civilian and military intelligence agencies, has come under fierce criticism, but one has to give the intel officers and Special Operations operators thier due for the recent successes in eliminating public enemies Osama bin Laden and Al-Awlaki.

Kessler, the author of several books on the FBI, the CIA and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies, including his latest, The Secrets of the FBI, responds to critics of the intel community in his column.

Unfortunately, many Americans fail to connect the fact that we have been safe since 9/11 with the efforts of the intelligence community. Every few months, the FBI announces new arrests of terrorists, the latest being a Massachusetts man who allegedly plotted to bomb the Pentagon and Capitol with remote-controlled planes. Often, leads from the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) contribute to the arrests.

You can read the rest of the column via the beow link:

http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/Awlaki-CIA-Hasan-Shahzad/2011/09/30/id/412869

I interviewed Ronald Kessler a while back for Counterterrorism magazine. You can read the interview via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/KesslerTerroristWatch1.jpg

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Thursday, August 11, 2011

FBI Has Mixed Views of Obama Administration

Ronald Kessler, a columnist for Newsmax.com and the author of a good number of books on the FBI, the CIA and the Secret Service, wrote an interesting column about what the FBI thinks of the Obama administration.

For his new book, The Secrets of the FBI, Kessler interviewed Arthur M. "Art" Cummings II, who oversaw the FBI's counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations until he retired last year. He offers Cummings' candid views of the Obama administrations in his most recent column.

You can read Ronald Kessler's column via the below link:

http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/fbi-Khalid-Sheikh-Mohammed/2011/08/10/id/406824

I interviewed Ronald Kessler a while back and you can read my interview via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/KesslerTerroristWatch1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/KesslerTerroristWatch2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/KesslerTerroristWatch3.jpg

Paul Davis

Paul Davis is a writer who covers crime. He has written extensively about organized crime, cybercrime, street crime, white collar crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, the military, espionage and terrorism. His 'Crime Beat' column, which covers crime news, crime issues and crime prevention in South Philadelphia, appears weekly in the South Philly Review, and his 'On Crime' column, which covers crime in the Greater Philadelphia region, appears weekly at Philly Daily and Broad and Liberty. He is also a longtime contributor to Counterterrorism magazine and writes their online 'Threatcon' column, which covers crime, espionage and terrorism. Paul Davis' crime fiction appears in American Crime Magazine. His work has also appeared in the Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Weekly and other publications. As a writer, he has attended police academy training, gone out on patrol with police officers, accompanied detectives as they worked cases, accompanied narcotics officers on drug raids, observed criminal court proceedings, visited jails and prisons, and covered street riots, mob wars and murder investigations. He has interviewed police commissioners and chiefs, FBI, DEA, HSI and other federal special agents, prosecutors, judges, public officials, WWII UDT frogmen, Navy SEALs, Army Delta operators, Israeli commandos, military intelligence officers, Scotland Yard detectives, CIA officers, former KGB officers, film and TV actors, film writers, directors and producers, journalists, novelists and true crime authors, gamblers, outlaw bikers, and Cosa Nostra organized crime bosses. Paul Davis has been a student of crime since he was a 12-year-old aspiring writer growing up in South Philadelphia. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy when he was 17 in 1970. He served aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk during the Vietnam War and he later served two years aboard the Navy harbor tugboat U.S.S. Saugus at the U.S. floating nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland. He went on to become the civilian administrative officer of a Defense Department command in Philadelphia, where he oversaw security, safety and other programs for the command's military and civilian employees, and served as an investigating officer, while working part-time as a newspaper crime reporter and columnist. He retired in 2007 after more than 37 Navy/DOD years of service and became a full-time writer. From 1991 to 2005 he was a producer and on-air host of "Inside Government," a public affairs interview radio program that aired on Sunday mornings on WPEN AM and WMGK FM in the Philadelphia area. You can read Paul Davis' crime columns, crime fiction, book reviews and news and feature articles on this website. You can read his full bio by clicking on the above photo (by Brittany Davis-Pearson). And you can contact Paul Davis at pauldavisoncrime@aol.com.

Paul Davis On Crime