Turning the Tide for 9/11 Truth and Accountability 25 Years Later

Last September in Washington D.C., the International Center For 9/11 Justice (IC911.org) hosted a multi-day conference that publicly documented new and prior 9/11 Truth research results. The 2025 conference ran the gamut from World Trade Building 7 (the 47-story skyscraper that was not hit by a plane but managed to collapse effortlessly into its own footprint around 5:20 p m. on 9/11), to the infamous morning of 9/11 rooftop celebrating Israelis, and their possible foreknowledge of the attacks provided by the U.S.'s CIA counterpart in Israel, the Mossad. 

Last year's speakers included: Wisconsin U.S. Congressman Ron Johnson; former Ohio U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich; former Pennsylvania U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon; former California U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher; and prison-time-serving CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou, among many other experts, insiders, and 9/11 victims' family members.

Last year's International Center for 9/11 Justice's conference was streamed on the “Redacted” YouTube channel.. It was my honor and privilege to be conference emcee for this "Turning the Tide" event on September 10, 2025. The Reader published its editor Kathleen McCarthy's commentary Silence Is Consent. What Have We Learned Since 9/11?, prior to this conference last year. And this year, the Reader has made my article below and its editor's commentary about my prior documentary film efforts regarding 9/11, the cover story in the September print edition with the headline "25 Years of Lazy Lies". Read McCarthy's piece here:25 Years of Lazy Lies About 9/11

This year, on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, the Turn the Tide conference is back, now in New York City from September 10 to 13. Once again, the conference's speakers are the world's foremost 9/11 Truth experts within numerous expertise areas. This year, new speakers include Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, academic Bret Weinstein, and investigative journalist and author Nick Bryant.

Most of this year's speakers have also been working on the Center's "9/11 Truth And Accountability Report" that is slated for submission to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (a.k.a. PSI). This nine-member body is a child of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, currently chaired by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and co-chaired by ranking member U.S. Michigan Senator Gary Peters. The subcommittee on investigations (PSI) that this report will be delivered to is chaired by Wisconsin Senator Johnson and co-chaired by Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal. The origins and history of this Senate oversight committee go back to 1816 and are worth learning about at HSGAC.Senate.gov/about/history.

In the summer of 1999, a new USSOCOM (U.S. Special Operations Command) directive under the command of four-star Army General and Joint Chiefs Staff Chairman from 1997 to 2001, Hugh Shelton began to take shape known as “Able Danger.”

Able Danger: Nothing to See Here

That brings me to my contributions to the report. I have been tasked to look at some of the intelligence ties, failures, and anomalies regarding the 9/11 attacks. One such government program that questions the official narrative of 9/11 was Able Danger led by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who also spoke at the conference last year. Below is an excerpt of my work regarding Able Danger that may be included in the report itself.

In the summer of 1999, a new USSOCOM (U.S. Special Operations Command) directive under the command of four-star Army General and Joint Chiefs Staff Chairman from 1997 to 2001, Hugh Shelton began to take shape known as “Able Danger.” The program has a stated goal of identifying Al-Qaeda members and their connections to one another, however it will cast a much wider net including Bosnia*1. Publicly, it is an intelligence gathering operation that utilizes collected open source material from a wide array of databases including credit reports, court records, news stories, and insurance records. They would also use classified databases that are then mined and interpreted together through private contractors including Raytheon, Battelle, and Orion. The program officially began in October of 1999.

Just prior, in September of that year, General Pete Shoomaker was being briefed by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer on Stratus Ivy*2, a DOD (Department of Defense) counterintelligence unit using cyberwarfare tools against Al-Qaeda. Shaffer*3 was the head of this task force and a long time intelligence operative. He began his career by enlisting in the Army Reserve in 1981 while still in high school. By 1982, he had graduated from officer candidate school, and by 1988, he had graduated first in his class at Camp Peary, more commonly referred to as the CIA’s “The Farm.” Shoomaker takes this opportunity to recruit Shaffer into the Able Danger program and puts him under the command of Navy Captain Scott Phillpott.

Shortly after the program's inception in November/December, Shaffer directs Phillpott to look at the technologies LIWA (Land Information War Activity) had been using. After Phillpott looks, the methods and tech are rapidly integrated into Able Danger. According to Shaffer and Phillpot*4 by February of 2000, four of the alleged hijackers have been identified by private contractor Orion and a chart is produced that identified Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar, and Nawaf Al-Hazmias part of Al-Qaeda. J.D. Smith, the defense contractor at Orion that worked on the program and produced the chart, also backs up the accounts of Shaffer and Phillpott.

Despite this information being produced in a rather short period of time, the program ran into major obstacles. Able Danger member Erik Kleinsmith*6, a former Army Major and Chief Intelligence of LIWA testified “In approximately April of 2000 our support to Able Danger became severely restricted and ultimately shut down due to intelligence oversight concerns … In the midst of this shutdown, I along with CW3 Terri Stephens were forced to destroy all the data, charts, and other analytical products that we had not already passed on to SOCOM related to Able Danger.” According to records over 2.5 terabytes of data were destroyed. *7 Contrary to this the private contractor who produced the charts, J.D. Smith has consistently stated he had the chart with Atta on it hanging on his office wall at Andrews Air Force Base until 2004. *8 His attorney Mark Zaid testified this was possible because “They never obtained his data or his charts because given that it was unclassified, they actually were in the trunk of his car, and so that is why he was able to maintain these charts.”

Shaffer*5 claims he attempted to set up several meetings to formally brief the FBI on the findings of Able Danger in September of 2000 through his liaison at the FBI, analyst Xanthe Mangum. The first meeting was scheduled for 9/15/00 with Shaffer, Phillpott, and Mangum. This meeting was halted when SOCOM lawyers stepped in with a "cease and desist" order citing possible Posse Comitatus violations. The second incident occurred on 9/18/00 when Shaffer and Mangum were set to meet under separate "investigative leads" parameters, this time both INSCOM (United States Army Intelligence and Security Command and SOCOM lawyers intervened "physically ordering" Shaffer not to attend as well as ordering him not to send the charts and information over to the agents. The third attempt occurred on 9/25/00 when Shaffer was set to informally "hand off" the charts and information to an unknown FBI agent who was a personal contact of Shaffer. Shaffer states this information was intercepted by superiors in which he was given direct orders to "cease all contact" with the FBI and from there forward the FBI would have to "formally request" through a lengthy and difficult bureaucratic process. All of these attempts take place almost a full year before the September 11 attacks.

The program was ultimately shut down in January of 2001, lasting only 15 months. The public would only begin to hear about the Able Danger in June of 2005 when The Times Herald, a local Pennsylvania paper, would break the story. Long time Republican Pennsylvania Congressman Curt Weldon would be the first government official to speak about the program to the press. Weldon was vice-chair of the Armed Services Committee at the time, as well as being on the House Homeland Security Committee. Shortly following the report Weldon would take to the floor of Congress and present a replica of a chart he claimed was produced prior to 9/11 showing the global Al Qaeda network. In the center of the chart was “Mohamed Atta” head of the “Brooklyn Cell.” This would be the first time Able Danger would be discussed on the floor of the House of Representatives. Weldon would question why the 9/11 Commission made no mention of Able Danger in their report.

Despite the fact the 9/11 commission would not mention Able Danger in their report, and several members would deny any knowledge of the program, Shaffer claimed that he had relayed the information to Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the commission, in October of 2003 *10. The meeting would take place at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and Shaffer would claim Zelikow personally approached him stating “What you said today is very important. I need you to get in touch with me as soon as you return from your deployment here in Afghanistan.” When Shaffer returned to the states and contacted the commission he was told they were no longer interested. Shaffer would document this encounter in his memoir “Operation Dark Heart”, which would receive approval for publication by the Army, however the Defense Intelligence Agency was not happy with the Zelikow information and obtained and “burned” the initial run of 9,500 copies prior to release.*11

Within months of the meeting with Zelikow, Shaffer was put on administrative leave in March of 2004, his security clearance was then suspended, and in September of 2005 his clearance was permanently revoked. This revocation would coincide with the Pentagon ordering five witnesses, including Shaffer, not to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 21 to discuss what the Able Danger unit had discovered*12. Along with Shaffer, J.D. Smith, Scott Philpot, Eileen Preisser, and Geoff Lambert were also ordered not to testify before the committee. Instead Erik Kleinsmith was the only member that was permitted to testify, along with Representative Curt Weldon and attorney Mark Zaid who represented both Anthony Shaffer and J.D. Smith. To this day, the closed door testimonies of all of these individuals as well as FBI agent Mangum (who was also ordered not to testify by her superiors) are classified and unavailable to the public.

Eventually Shaffer would be allowed to testify at a National Security Whistleblowers hearing in February of 2006 where he would be permitted to discuss his meeting with Zelikow and the perceived retaliation against him following that meeting*14. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence would release their report in December of 2006 and conclude “Able Danger did not identify Mohammed Atta or any other 9/11 hijacker at any time prior to September 11, 2001 … and the former employee who created the charts with the photographs of Al-Qa'eda associates were emphatic that no charts produced by the defense contractor included the name or photograph of Mohammed Atta, or any of the other 9/11 hijackers, prior to the 9/11.*13”

Just prior to the release of the report in October, the FBI will begin to investigate Representative Curt Weldon in a corruption probe involving him helping his daughter obtain contracts for her lobbying firm. Four locations were raided and searched including the home of Weldon’s daughter Karen. No criminal charges were ever filed against the pair.

Although Shaffer has always maintained his story over the years, and even become a media pundit and personality in his own right, mainstream news has largely ignored the story over the past couple of decades – until recently, when Shaffer did an in-depth interview with Catherine Herridge and the LA Times. The piece, titled “Straight to the Point: Operation Able Danger 25 Years Later,” continuously maintains Shaffer’s original position but adds even more context where Shaffer declares that there was not one chart but many. He stated: “Think about this for a second, why are they trying to convince the public this is the chart when there’s dozens of other charts out there? To me this is them trying to sell a narrative not to get to the truth.”

Although Able Danger is just one small portion to 9/11 truth, it is certainly a significant one, and the question remains if the public will ever learn the truth about this highly classified program or so much else regarding 9/11. Until then, people like myself and the International Center for 9/11 Justice will continue to put pressure on those in government to release all the documents regarding 9/11, as well as conduct a new truly independent investigation into the events that day that would change the world forever.

Jason Bermas is a researchist, content creator, activist, and documentary filmmaker behind such films as Loose Change Final Cut, Fabled Enemies, Invisible Empire: A New World Order Defined, and Shade: The Motion Picture. Bermas has a YouTube channel "Making Sense of the Madness" with nearly daily live broadcasts that are also streamed as podcasts. Bermas also co-hosts WQUD 107.7 FM's weekly Friday morning show from 9 to 10 a.m., going Deep In The Weeds with WQUD's Aaron Dail. One can also watch Jason frequently hosting AlexJonesLive.com's 4th hour. Independently broadcasting for more than 15 years, Bernas encourages people to do their own research and be their own hero. To learn more, visit JasonBermas.net.

1) Patience Wait – Bosnia Route-fifty.com/digital-government/2005/10/data-mining-offensive-in-the-works/306900/

2) Stratus Ivy Archive.org/details/dirtywarsworldis0000scah_v8d3/page/138/mode/2up?q=%22Stratus+Ivy%22

3) Shaffer early Career IRP.fas.org/congress/2011_cr/shaffer.pdf

4) Atta identified FoxNews.com/story/third-source-backs-able-danger-claims-about-atta

5) Shaffer FBI Timeline - Operation Dark Heart: Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan – and the Path to Victory Archive.org/details/operationdarkhea0000shaf_g3o1

6) Kleinsmith testimony

Judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/kleinsmith_testimony_09_21_05.pdf

7) Kleainsmith 2.5 terabytes GovInfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-109shrg25409/html/CHRG-109shrg25409.htm

8) Zaid Charts - GovInfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-109shrg25409/html/CHRG-109shrg25409.htm

9) Weldon Congress – C-Span.org/program/house-proceeding/house-session/143483; C-Span.org/clip/house-proceeding/user-clip-curt-weldon-able-danger/4989960

10) Shaffer Zelikow meeting - KKC.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/shaffer-v.-dia.pdf

11) Operation Dark heart book destroyed - FoxNews.com/politics/pentagon-destroys-copies-of-controversial-memoir-written-by-army-officer

12) Shaffer clearance revoked - FoxNews.com/story/pentagon-revokes-able-danger-officers-clearance

13) Senate Judiciary Committee findings - Intelligence.Senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-filesations-abledanger.pdf

14) Shaffer Whistleblower hearing - C-Span.org/program/house-committee/national-security-whistleblowers/154957