This story goes back several years, in the wake of the 9/11 Commission report and a topic that got considerable play in the blogosphere in 2005. Did a database-mining operation, jointly conducted by the military and intelligence communities, identify Mohammed Atta as a member of al-Qaeda and a potential threat to the US? Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer insisted that it did, and has spent the years since writing a book about the data mining and the denials from the Department of Defense. Now, Fox News exclusively reports that the DoD materially altered witness testimony in its investigation:

A document obtained and witnesses interviewed by Fox News raise new questions over whether there was an effort by the Defense Department to cover up a pre-9/11 military intelligence program known as “Able Danger.”

At least five witnesses questioned by the Defense Department’s Inspector General told Fox News that their statements were distorted by investigators in the final IG’s report — or it left out key information, backing up assertions that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta was identified a year before 9/11. …

Fox News, as part of an ongoing investigation, exclusively obtained a clean copy of the report and spoke to several principal witnesses, including an intelligence and data collector who asked that she not be named.

The witness told Fox News she was interviewed twice by a Defense Department investigator. She said she told the investigator that it was highly likely a department database included the picture of Atta, whom she knew under an alias, Mohammed el-Sayed.

“When it came to the picture, (the investigator) he was fairly hostile,” the witness told Fox News. She said it seemed the investigator just didn’t want to hear it. “Meaning that he’d ask the same question over and over again, and, you know, you get to the point you go, well, you know… it’s the same question, it’s the same answer.”

If you’re wondering where to buy Shaffer’s book to find out more about Able Danger, well, don’t run to the local bookstore or check your Kindles yet — even though you’ve already paid for it:

Last month, the Defense Department took the highly unusual step of buying and destroying 9,500 copies of Shaffer’s book “Operation Dark Heart” at a cost of $47,000 to U.S. taxpayers.

Andy McCarthy wonders what it will take to get a good, objective look at Able Danger. Apparently not a book contract:

Five years ago, I called for an investigation of “Able Danger” and the 9/11 Commission. Able Danger was a military intelligence program members of which have stated that the program identified Mohammed Atta (and perhaps other 9/11 hijackers) long before the 9/11 attacks — directly contradicting the 9/11 Commission’s conclusion that the government was unaware of Atta before he struck. The 9/11 Commission knew about Able Danger but did not include any information about it from the commission’s ballyhooed Final Report. The Defense Department, meanwhile, purged goo-gobs of Able Danger documents. The whole thing was handled in what I’ll charitably call a most peculiar manner. And I’m not the only one who thought so — former FBI director Louie Freeh said as much in a 2005 op-ed that is quoted at length in my NRO essay. …

There has never been any appetite to pursue this story. Like the strange matter of Sandy Berger’s filching of classified documents regarding the Clinton administration’s counterterrorism preparedness, it has been ignored. I’m glad Fox is on the not case, even if I’m not holding my breath that we’ll actually get to the bottom of it.

The destruction of Shaffer’s book is disturbing.  It has been five years since the 9/11 Commission report and the public airing of Able Danger, five years since the DoD revoked Shaffer’s clearance (under unusual circumstances, and almost certainly as a retaliation), and ten years since Able Danger was in operation.  What national-security data could that censorship have protected?  Or was it intended to protect the careers of people who blew off the warning signals from Able Danger?

Update: A couple of e-mailers have written to tell me that a second printing of Operation Dark Heart is under way — but it’s heavily redacted in some areas. The redactions have to do with intelligence-gathering techniques in the Af-Pak theater, although that seems a little odd, since Shaffer hasn’t had a clearance for that information for at least five years.