The House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday, February 15 about the controversial Able Danger data-mining program, according to informed Congressional sources. The secret intelligence program, which used advanced computerized link and pattern analysis techniques, purportedly identified four 9/11 hijackers a year before the worst terror attacks on American soil.

After intense staff negotiations, it was finally decided that a portion of the Armed Services Committee hearing will be open, but that subsequent discussion of classified aspects of the Able Danger program will move into a closed session. Those expected to testify include military analysts who had been tasked to Able Danger, including Navy Captain Scott Phillpott, who headed the program, and US Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer. (Shaffer is also scheduled to testify in hearings before Representative Christopher Shay’s Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International relations on February 14. The subject of that hearing is national security whistleblowers. After Shaffer began to speak out on Able Danger, his bosses at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) retaliated by gagging him, smearing him, revoking his clearance, and trying to fire him.)

Civilian Able Danger personnel such as program manager JD Smith are also slated to appear before the Armed Service Committee on the 15th, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone may also be asked to testify.

Smith, who worked as a civilian defense contractor, supplied more details about Able Danger activities in an interview this week, including the revelation that the Able Danger program wasn’t “just doing terrorism and Al Qaeda.”

What else did the advanced data mining operation look into? “We ran stuff on Bosnia, Serbia, drug cartels, China, lots of stuff,” Smith told me. “The point was that no one had ever done anything like this program before, and we were demonstrating that it could in fact be effective. So we were given multiple requests, and worked on a tasked basis. Everything was done off-the premises, on a tasked, daily basis, for a low amount of money. We were doing a really good job for very little money very quickly. My company’s number one customer was the DIA.”

Smith was quick to point out that while he worked on it, Able Danger involved “only open source stuff.” Later, however, after the part of the program Smith worked on was shut down, that may have changed. “In spring 2000, we made charts and some other deliverables relative to terrorism that piqued attention from the Army,” Smith said. “Then we were told that the Defense Department freaked out over ‘U.S. persons’ who were named therein. In short order, they shut us down, cancelled the contract, and confiscated everything we had.”

As reported here earlier, the Able Danger program was later reconstituted at a top secret Raytheon “black” facility in Garland, Texas. “Raytheon re-hired most of the personnel,” Smith recalled, “But not me, since I worked for another company. When I worked on it, we had nothing to do with anything classified. But I suspect that they later intermingled classified with open source in Garland.”

Ironically, while Smith was using revolutionary software to “mine” data and uncover links and patterns connecting possible terrorists, the US Army wasn’t. “I was using proprietary software, and they were using COTS (commercial off the shelf) because they were under funded and had no budget for software,” Smith said. “So every time I had to deliver a report, I had to print out everything on paper and bring over literally boxes of printouts.”

Among the materials he delivered was a copy of a photograph of Mohamed Atta. “We had multiple names for him, and for many others,” Smith said. “I didn’t have time to try to confirm any of them. Any name associated with a picture – and any spelling variants thereof – were attached to the picture.” Few of the pictures had only one name attached, according to Smith. “But our focus wasn’t on the names, it was on the pictures. We clicked on a picture, and then all the names and links came up.”

After 9/11 took place, Smith saw Atta’s picture and thought, “We HAD that guy!” he told me. “I remembered his picture because his face was unique. He had that haunting stare, and his facial structure was unique. I was just happy that we had at least one of the attackers. I assumed US intelligence had all this stuff, and the Atta picture would be enough to get them started. We had all this information and we had turned it over to them.”

But that was then, and this is now. As the fifth anniversary of the attacks approaches, Smith says he’s increasingly worried that all the data he and others on the Able Danger team found was destroyed and may never be found again. “Let me just note that Mohamed Atta was a Tier Three guy - not THAT important in the scale of things,” he concluded. “Sure, we had his picture - but we know where he is now – dead and gone. But what about all the Tier Two and Tier One guys we identified? What about all the pictures of the other, more important people we identified? Where are THEY now? To me, that’s the real danger.”