AP: Oklahoma City Bombing Tapes Appear Edited

An FBI agent comforts a weeping man whose loved one was still trapped in the rubble of the bombed Murrah Federal Building (Reuters)

I found an interesting article from the Associated Press regarding the Oklahoma City bombing video tapes released by the FBI.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Long-secret security tapes showing the chaos immediately after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building are blank in the minutes before the blast and appear to have been edited, an attorney who obtained the recordings said Sunday.

“The real story is what’s missing,” said Jesse Trentadue, a Salt Lake City attorney who obtained the recordings through the federal Freedom of Information Act as part of an unofficial inquiry he is conducting into the April 19, 1995, bombing that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

Trentadue gave copies of the tapes to The Oklahoman newspaper, which posted them online and provided copies to The Associated Press.

The tapes turned over by the FBI came from security cameras various companies had mounted outside office buildings near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. They are blank at points before 9:02 a.m., when a truck bomb carrying a 4,000 pound fertilizer-and-fuel-oil bomb detonated in front of the building, Trentadue said.

“Four cameras in four different locations going blank at basically the same time on the morning of April 19, 1995. There ain’t no such thing as a coincidence,” Trentadue said.

He said government officials claim the security cameras did not record the minutes before the bombing because “they had run out of tape” or “the tape was being replaced.”

“The interesting thing is they spring back on after 9:02,” he said. “The absence of footage from these crucial time intervals is evidence that there is something there that the FBI doesn’t want anybody to see.”

A spokesman for the FBI in Oklahoma City, Gary Johnson, declined to comment and referred inquiries about the tapes to FBI officials in Washington, who were not immediately available for comment Sunday.

This is sure to set off the conspiracy blogs! The question is: what is the FBI hiding and why? I’m certainly not trying to make any specific allegations, but I really am curious as to why the FBI would edit out the most important minutes in each of the videos.

Source: Associated Press

Obama to Extend Patriot Act Provisions

Big Brother is watching you

President Obama has once again let down civil rights activists during his first year as president. Not content with still enforcing national cannabis laws in states that have made them legal; not content with continuing military tribunals and keeping Gitmo; not content with expanding the war in Afghanistan and killing more civilians;  Obama has decided to extend three key provisions of the Patriot Act.

The three “anti-liberty” provisions:

1. The Lone Wolf Provision – Created to conduct surveillance on suspects with no known link to foreign governments or terrorist groups.
2. The Roving Wiretaps Provision – Designed to allow investigators to quickly monitor the communications of a suspects who change their cell phone or communication device, without investigators having to go back to court for a new court authorization.
3. The Business Records Provision -  Allows for your financial, library, travel, video rental, phone, medical, church, synagogue, and mosque records to be searched without your knowledge or consent, providing the government says it’s trying to protect against terrorism.

But it’s OK, because he’s going to change Washington! Give me a break!

Source: Yahoo! News