Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

ODENTON, Md. - Two people have been killed in a plane crash at Tipton Airport near Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County. Fire Department Spokesman Frank Fennell says it happened around 3:45 p.m. Thursday. The single engine Piper Malibu Meridian crashed just off the runway and burst into flames. "The fire was quickly knocked down with water and foam from units from Anne Arundel County as well as the Fort Meade Fire Department --there were two fatalities on board." (emphasis added)

On October 20 (8:40am), WTOP republished the story, and this time excluded all mention of the Fort Meade Fire Department. That day, the Baltimore Sun published these statements from eye-witnesses.

Scott Ainsworth and Chuck Kimmel were hunting deer in tree stands near the airport when they heard the plane take off and then crash moments later. "I heard it take off, and that sounded right," said Ainsworth, 36, a Prince George's County police officer.

"There should have been a fading noise. Then all of a sudden it stopped, followed by a muffled bang." The two men rushed to the scene, but the fire was already out. "There was nothing anyone could have done to save them," Ainsworth said.

Sabotage is not out of the question. According to the Sun,"Officials said the plane originated in Illinois and was parked at Tipton Airport for three days." The strip's proximity to Meade and its neighbor, the National Security Agency, makes Tipton a potential target.

Response to the fire accompanying the crash was swift and effective.

Anne Arundel County firefighters extinguished the blaze in about 15 minutes, but the victims were badly burned and will have to be identified using dental records, said 1st Sgt. Russell Newell, a spokesman for the Maryland State Police. (Baltimore Sun)

In contrast, it took roughly five hours, six fire units and 69 firefighters to control a fire that broke out in a building at Fort Meade the following day. The Baltimore Sun reports:  

The fire broke out sometime after 3 p.m. and produced billowing smoke that could be seen for miles. The blaze was brought under control by 8 p.m., officials said.

The Fort Meade website states that its fire department is centrally located on the post and has two engine companies and a truck company. A list maintained by Firedepartments.net shows Meade with 25 firefighters on call. Even on a reportedly windy day, one is tempted to wonder what took so long.  Possibly, Fort Meade's fire equipment was inadequate for the task. A press release issued by Maryland Senator Barabara Mikuslki on September 7 stated that projects approved by the Senate in the 2007 Defense spending bill included "$1.3 million for Fort Meade Fire Department to purchase new fire fighting vehicles." Although the fire burned for hours, authorities claimed no damage occurred to the structure itself.

The building, Nathan Hale Hall, at 4554 Llewellyn Ave., is reported to be the headquarters of the 902nd Military Intelligence Group that "conducts counterintelligence, including the search for foreign spies and terrorists, according to the Associated Press. (Baltimore Sun)"  Also, writes the Sun, the building "houses an office that adjudicates security clearances, as well as a defense printing office."

The Capital (Annapolis, Maryland) informs us that "the 902nd is the Army's largest counter-intelligence unit," and "conducts counter-intelligence activities in support of Army commanders and to protect Army forces, secrets and technologies by detecting, identifying, neutralizing and exploiting foreign intelligence services and international terrorist threats."

An April 27, 2006, article by the Wall Street Journal included this description of the 902nd:

Many computer programs and techniques developed during the Total Information Awareness project quietly survived. Some were taken up by the Army's 902nd Military Intelligence Group. The 902nd, established during World War II and known as the "Deuce," is part of the Army command structure and separate from CIFA at Pentagon headquarters. Nonetheless, the 902nd plays an important military-wide role because it is the military's largest counter-intelligence unit and has hundreds of soldiers stationed around the country.

The 902nd's activities included monitoring peaceful activist groups, reported the Journal.

According to documents seen by The Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon has monitored more than 20 antiwar groups' activities around the country over the past three years. It has reviewed photographs and records of vehicles and protesters at marches to see if different activities were being organized by the same instigators. Cmdr. Hicks says the point of this monitoring is to keep military personnel away from places where they might provoke demonstrators, not to interfere with anyone's right to protest. (Wall Street Journal)

According to The Capital (October 21), journalists inquiring about the fire encountered a wall of official silence and, in some cases, more aggressive responses.

Jennifer Downing, a Fort Meade Spokesman, would only confirm a fire was burning at 4554 Llewellyn Ave., deep inside the west county Army post. She directed calls to a spokesman with the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, who did not respond to two telephone messages. Fort Meade's fire chief also did not return calls for comment. Later, a public affairs officer told The Capital to file a Freedom of Information Act request for information. Ms. Downing told The Associated Press a firefighter suffered a minor leg injury. Army CID representatives forced a reporter and photographer from The Capital to leave the base about 30 minutes after they were allowed in. Officials told the photographer to erase all photos from his digital camera, and started ordering dozens of onlookers to clear the scene by about 5 p.m.

The Fort Meade Fire Department's official news release offers little information and no clues to the fire's cause.

Importantly, the ACLU filed a February 1, 2006, Freedom of Information Act request for information on Defense Department monitoring of activist groups. NBC news had already obtained some evidence of improper surveillance from Defense Department databases in the format of Excel spreadsheets. NBC news analyst William Arkin described the findings on Democracy Now! (December 15, 2005).

"In the case of the meeting which NBC highlighted in its show on Tuesday night, the Ft. Worth, Florida anti-military protesters at a Quaker meetinghouse, we can see that the incident occurred. We can see on the date, and clearly those activists, who I understand might be on your show today, are going -- you know, we're able to say, yes, we met on this date. It gives reference to a report, with a report number of the 902nd Military Intelligence Group, which is the Army's military intelligence organization that is responsible for both counterterrorism, counter-intelligence and force protection in the United States. My guess would be that when we obtain that report, and eventually some patriot will either leak it to us or we'll get it under the Freedom of Information Act, we'll see that they did record the names of the people at meeting and that they did check those names against watch lists and databases and did their jobs, but I'm just -- in the database itself, what we see is only a sliver of insight into what it is that the military is actually up to.

The cause and impacts of the Fort Meade fire have yet to be determined.  But, the federal government's record of protecting evidence from "accidental" destruction is hardly stellar. Understandably, some bloggers are proposing that administration officials may have been trying to destroy evidence of illegal surveillance, fearing Congressional investigations if Democrats win back the majority in November. It's an interesting theory, but impossible to prove without a thorough and impartial investigation. The chances of that happening are remote, indeed.