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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (2236)	6/17/2003 4:57:38 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793911

This "tempest in a teapot," came out exactly as I predicted. When you run things, decisions like this are made your way. IG Report Says Texas Air Search Was Proper Federal Center Used To Track Legislators By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, June 17, 2003; Page A04 The Homeland Security Department's inspector general concluded yesterday that efforts by a federal "air interdiction" center to track down a plane thought to be carrying Democratic members of the Texas legislature in the midst of a partisan political brawl were "appropriate" under the center's guidelines and did not squander important federal resources. The California-based center's search lasted about 40 minutes on May 12 and came at the request of Texas police, who were pursuing the plane under instructions from the state's Republican leadership. The Republicans wanted to arrest Democratic state House members who had fled to Oklahoma in order to block a House quorum that would have allowed Republicans to enact a congressional redistricting plan benefiting the GOP. Democratic members of Congress subsequently accused the Bush administration of improperly using federal anti-terrorism assets to intervene on behalf of Texas Republicans. Not all of the inspector general's seven-page report was released yesterday. But a news release accompanying it concluded that "this was a nominal use of [Homeland Security] resources." An officer of the air interdiction center, which normally searches U.S. skies for drug smugglers and terrorists, made eight phone calls on May 12 to help find the plane, which is owned by a Democratic lawmaker. The officer also discussed the matter with his supervisors, according to the report. Identifying himself as an agent of "U.S. Customs" or "Customs radar," he phoned the Federal Aviation Administration, two Texas airports and a travel service for government-related aircraft in the region. A Homeland Security spokesman previously said the officer believed "the aircraft may have crashed or be lost." According to the inspector general's report, the training and operations manual for the center permits employees to assist law enforcement agencies "for humanitarian purposes," and that is what the officer thought he was doing. Such law enforcement requests are routine, an unnamed center official told the inspectors. Transcripts of the center's phone calls during the search, released with the report, indicate that the center's employee was confused about who was aboard the plane and made no real effort to determine the grounds for the Texas police's interest. He appeared at first to believe the plane was carrying Oklahoma, not Texas, officials. At one point, he told a Texas airport employee that "these people up in Oklahoma, they said that these people were like government officials, and they're trying to find them." When the airport worker responded that, "yeah, I'm kind of familiar with that whole deal" -- because the political controversy had been in that day's newspapers -- the customs officer said, "I don't know what's going on. I'm just trying to find the people, that's all." A Texas police officer, called back by the center, was evasive about the aim of the search during at least one of the calls. "We're trying to do some checking down here on" the plane, he said. "I guess I'm really not at liberty to go too much further than that." When the center's officer replied that he could help arrange a "search and rescue," the Texas police officer said, "No, that's okay. . . . We don't want to go that far." The names of those involved in the calls were deleted from the report. A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department expressed satisfaction with the report. But Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.) called it "an attempt to filter the truth," and said it "does not offer any reassurance that resources dedicated to the war on terrorism cannot be exploited for personal or political purposes." washingtonpost.com