Friday September 11, 2009, 10:29 am
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard set off a security scare on Friday with a training exercise in the heart of the U.S. capital on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Police and federal law enforcement officials said the incident on the Potomac River near the Pentagon, was a training exercise and no shots had been fired despite early reports that several rounds had been fired at a suspicious boat.

The Coast Guard said the reports were based on overheard radio calls made over a training frequency.

"We are still gathering information of how this training event might have been misconstrued as an actual incident. We will conduct a thorough review of this incident," the Coast Guard said in a statement.

President Barack Obama had just returned from a September 11 memorial at the Pentagon on the south side of the river in Virginia. During the 2001 attacks, a jetliner slammed into the side of the Pentagon killing 184 people.

"They're in a training exercise and we didn't know it. Somebody reported that they had shot at somebody. That was part of the training exercise," said Lt. Mike Libby of the U.S. Park Police, who was by the river near the 14th Street Bridge.

Departures from Washington National Airport were halted for 20 minutes because of the incident, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Arrivals were not affected at the airport which borders the Potomac River.

The incident is the latest gaffe by the military to set off a short-lived scare. Earlier this year, one of the jumbo jets that is used as Air Force One to carry the president buzzed the New York City skyline for a photo shoot.

The Air Force was updating its photo library of the 747 jumbo jet with the Statue of Liberty in the background but it sparked fears among some New Yorkers who recalled airliners crashing into the World Trade Center twin towers in the September 11 attacks.

The military admitted it failed to properly coordinate with relevant authorities about the flyover, which led to a White House military aide who authorized the flyover to resign.

The Coast Guard promised to review how and when the training exercise was conducted.

"The best way that we in the Coast Guard can remember September 11 and our security obligations to the nation is to be always ready and this requires constant training and exercise," the Coast Guard statement said.

Sandra Rus, a bus driver visiting Washington from Georgia, said that she was not bothered that a training exercise occurred on the September 11 anniversary.

"Someone might be upset but I'm not. I just feel more safe," she said. "It's good they practiced so people are aware somebody is watching really carefully over us."

In all, about 3,000 people were killed in the September 11 attacks in which Al Qaeda hijackers crashed two planes into the World Trade Center in New York and a third into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers and crew tried to retake control of the plane.

(additional reporting by Christopher Doering)

(Writing by Jeremy Pelofsky, Editing by Jackie Frank)

Saturday September 12, 2009, 12:00 pm
My son a computer engineer in the Navy is currently visiting and he told me hold easy it is to hack into maritime radio links. I think something should be done to make the radio links more secure.

Saturday September 12, 2009, 9:07 pm
I am not surprized at all by CNN doing some more of its fear monger journalism in an attempt to make the Obama Administration look bad on National Security matters. Does CNN have recordings to prove that they were misinformed, or has the Coast Guard admitted that they misinformed CNN? And face the facts there is no better day than the Aniversary of 9/11, when the Republican team of Bush and Cheney allowed the wort terrorist attack on American soil to happen on their watch, for a security execise to be done or for that matter no better day for another terrorist attack. I find it a remakably convienient political coincidence that CNN should chose to treat a security exercise that has happend several times a week for over a year outside their very same windows they were so terrified to see it out of this time, broadcast on the very same open radio frequency as such a news story of such earth shattering consequence, more like a politically motivated stunt. And to be honest when the smug protectors of American security Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the White House for the same amount of time in 2001 they not only allowed the single most costly, in lives and money, terrorist attack on multiple targets,but used it to gut our Bill of Rights by killing the writ of habeas corpus, none of the other admemndments are valid if you have no means to get in front of a judge and execise them,not to mention the vast number of crimes that were committed under both US and International laws and begin the now clearly apparent, chain of lies to start a war in Iraq for oil, now admitted, and corporate profiteering,largely by Bush and Cheneys friends at Texas based Haliburton and KBR. So despite the press, I am very glad that President Obama and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are not running the same kind of security operations as the Bushies did to get us in to the messes we are in now, we can not afford another Republican style disasterous mistake.

Sunday September 13, 2009, 2:20 am
Fox News reports on ill-timed Coast Guard drill spread panic on 9/11
Phoney "Drill", Fox News spread panic on 9/11:

well, it could be EXPECTED on this day!

WASHINGTON — - The Coast Guard promised a full investigation Friday after a training exercise on the Potomac River grounded flights at Reagan National Airport amid media-fueled fears of another Sept. 11 incident.

False TV reports about machine gun-equipped Coast Guard vessels firing on a suspicious craft in a security zone not far from a 9/11 commemoration at the Pentagon prompted sharp criticism of the government for staging the drill at such a sensitive moment. In turn, the White House pushed back against cable TV networks for erroneous "breaking news" reports.

Vice Adm. John P. Currier said the Coast Guard would conduct "a top-to-bottom review" of the exercise, which had been authorized by its commander in Baltimore.

Democratic Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, chairman of a House subcommittee that oversees the Coast Guard, said he could not understand why the service would be simulating an incident on the Potomac "when the nation was on high alert, when families of 9/11 victims were nearby and when the president was either in the vicinity or had just left," without at least notifying relevant authorities in advance.

The Baltimore congressman said that he was listening, with alarm, to CNN's live coverage on his car's satellite radio, "and I was wondering, 'Do we have another terrorist-type situation where they want to commemorate 9/11?' " He said his committee would look into the incident.

During the exercise, which began about 9:30 a.m., four 25-foot patrol craft churned up the surface of the river while a Coast Guard helicopter zoomed low overhead.

Unaware that it was only a simulated confrontation, CNN, which was monitoring police radio frequencies, relayed the Coast Guard conversations to its audience. Within minutes, Reuters news agency and Fox News Channel picked up the CNN story.

FBI and local police vehicles rushed to the scene, apparently in response to the CNN report. The Federal Aviation Administration halted takeoffs at National Airport, whose flight paths follow the river, for about 20 minutes.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs harshly criticized the news coverage.

"Before we report things like this, checking would be good," he said.

CNN said it called the Coast Guard public affairs office in Washington before airing its initial report and was told by a spokeswoman that she was unaware of anything happening on the Potomac. It took about 30 minutes before the network let viewers know that it had raised a false alarm.

"Given the circumstances, it would have been irresponsible not to report on what we were hearing and seeing," the network said in a statement.

At a hastily called noon news conference, Currier, the Coast Guard's chief of staff, said there had been "really no reason" to provide any advance warning to other law enforcement agencies or the public about the drill, which he called an "everyday exercise."

Public advisories are routinely issued in advance about exercises involving military flights over the Washington area, to help avoid unnecessary confusion.

President Barack Obama, who attended the Pentagon ceremony with his wife, Michelle, crossed a Potomac bridge close to the scene around the time that the exercise was under way.

Currier said the exercise had been authorized by the Coast Guard unit in Baltimore that is responsible for operations in the national capital region. The Baltimore office is commanded by Captain Mark P. O'Malley, a 28-year Coast Guard veteran. A call to O'Malley's office was not returned.

The incident "sounds very much like the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing," Sen. George V. Voinovich of Ohio said in a statement.

Voinovich, senior Republican on a homeland security subcommittee, said that the "anxiety caused by this situation on such a solemn day is extremely disturbing."

A military families' advocacy group that has been critical of Obama administration policies, including its handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, issued a statement deploring the training exercise as "absolutely inexcusable." It called on the government to hold accountable those responsible for authorizing the Coast Guard training.

"This training exercise not only caused unwarranted stress for [9/11] families but it was a distraction from the purpose of today," the group Military Families United said in a prepared statement.

The incident had echoes of a White House photo shoot last spring, in which two fighter planes and an Air Force jumbo jet from the presidential fleet flew low over New York harbor, panicking residents who feared a repeat of the 9/11 attack. A White House aide who authorized the flight subsequently resigned.

[This is from the Baltimore Sun.]
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As we ALL can figure out, if we have half a brain, THIS WAS NO CO-INCIDENCE OR "MISTAKE"! SOMEBODY had CLOSE CONNECTIONS WITH FOX/FAUX NEWS.

As far as I am concerned, BOTH THE PERSON IN CHARGE OF THIS SCARE DECEPTION, AND FOX/FAUX NEWS, ARE GUILTY OF HIGH TREASON. For which we have the DEATH PENALTY.

Not that that's going to happen. But they DESERVE it. What stunt are those trying to undermine what's left of our govt, going to pull next??? Trying to stir up "popular support" for a Far-Right-Wing out-and-out Fascist coup???

At least this time, they didn't kill anybody.......

Sunday September 13, 2009, 2:39 am
An answer to someone on a different thread who thinks "President Obama is responsible for this, and is thereby trying to 'soften up' Americans for his Socialist agenda' {I am paraphrasing}:

By the way, I AM SURE IT WAS NOT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S IDEA. President Obama is not in control of EVERYTHING that goes on in Washington DC; and he is certainly NOT IN CONTROL OF FOX NEWS. Just as President Kennedy was not in control of those forces in and out of the government that wanted to kill him.

There are as you know, strong forces in and out of the government that want to UNDERMINE EVERYTHING PRESIDENT OBAMA DOES. These include nearly all the Repukelicans in the House and Senate; and all the Fascistic, lying talk-radio hosts. Also probably elements in the Military.

I believe that what happened with the "terrorist scares", this latest one and the others, the "photo op" flyover and all the rest, represent
A CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE PRESIDENT AND AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Just like the Conspiracy that succeeded in assassinating President Kennedy {and most probably consisting of most of the same people}.

The President CONDEMNED the flyover. He is being THREATENED just like WE are being threatened, by the same people. The "terrorists" ARE NOT SOME "FOREIGNERS"; they are DOMESTIC and have some relatively secure places in govt, the Military, the CIA, corporations, etc.
Obama is OPPOSED TO THESE; and may yet, like President Kennedy, become their victim.
WE MUST NOT LET OURSELVES BY FOOLED BY FOX/FAUX NEWS.