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Memory: ICTS International guarded Logan Airport, Boston on 9/11, was controlled and managed by Menachem Atzmon, who was also convicted of money laundering for his and Netanyahu’s and Ehud Olmert’s Likud Party.
Odds are the United States and President Obama had a narrow escape from a would-be bomber that should have been intercepted by Israeli security in place at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. The Logan Airport security breach always stood out as an irrational event on 9/11. Shoebomber Reid’s flight from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport in 2002 was also through ICTS security. Heads should roll.
The ICTS daughter company, I-SEC, has another daughter company – called PI (Pro-Check International). The firms provide security services to airports: consultation, instruction, training, inspection and supervision.
Two decades ago, ICTS adopted the system used in Israel, namely of profiling and assessing the degree to which a passenger is a potential threat on the basis of a number indicators (including age, name, origin and behavior during questioning). At the same time, a decade ago, the company developed a technological system called APS (Advanced Passenger Screening).
This system is based on a computerized algorithm, and is fed passenger information from the airline company. The system was offered to the Israel Airports Authority and the Shin Bet in the past, but rejected. According to the company’s Web site, most of the large airlines in the United States use the system.
However – in real time – the system of ICTS failed. Even if U.S. intelligence failed and the name of the Nigerian passenger was not pinpointed as a suspect for the airline, he should have stirred the suspicion of the security officers. His age, name, illogical travel route, high-priced ticket purchased at the last minute, his boarding without luggage (only a carry on) and many other signs should have been sufficient to alert the security officers and warrant further examination of the suspect.
However, the security supervisor representing I-SEC and PI allowed him to get on the flight.
ICTS was established in 1982 by former members of the Shin Bet and El Al security. Menachem Atzmon, who has been chairman of the board of directors since 2004, holds the controlling shares in the firm.
The ICTS headquarters are in the Netherlands and the company is traded in the New York Stock Exchange. Some senior managers are Israeli, including the joint managing director Ran Langer.
Another important figure is Doron Zicher, general manager of I-SEC. Zicher has been in charge of operations in the Netherlands for more than two decades and has served as adviser to the Dutch Justice Ministry, which is responsible for setting guidelines for airport security.
Atzmon and his business partner Ezra Harel are the majority owners (57%) of ICTS–International Consultants on Targeted Security, run by “former [Israeli] military commanding officers and veterans of government intelligence and security agencies” according its Web site. In 1999, Atzmon’s Netherlands-based firm took over management of security at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, through ICTS’ subsidiary Huntleigh USA.
This convicted Likud criminal’s firm was in charge of security at Logan Airport–inspecting the validity of passports and visas, searching cargo, screening passengers–when two airliners were hijacked from there on Sept. 11, 2001, and demolished the World Trade Center towers in New York.
Airport Security Firm, Huntleigh USA, Asks Federal Court to Order Compensation for Lost Business
A Philadelphia lawyer, Steven L. Friedman was the general counsel in the United States for the Likud party of Israel from 1984 (or, officially, 1988) to 1999. Friedman is a close friend of the Netanyahu family; he grew up in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, around the corner from Benjamin and his father Benzion Netanyahu, the senior aide to avowed fascist Vladimir Jabotinsky.
Israeli plutocrat Menachem Atzmon was co-treasurer of the Likud, along with Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, during and after the 1988 Israeli elections. In August 1988, Atzmon worked with Olmert and two other men to collect illegal contributions for the Likud from corporations, against Israel’s party funding law, by providing fictitious advertising services to the contributors. Atzmon was later convicted in that campaign finance fraud, while Olmert was acquitted.
Up until his 1996 conviction, Atzmon was president of the Israel Development Fund (IDF), a U.S. tax-exempt foundation funneling money illegally to the Likud. IDF is one entity in a cluster of such false-front Likud money spigots, all run by Philadelphia attorney Steven L. Friedman, a partner in the Dilworth, Paxson Duane Morris firm.
Friedman has overseen the Likud’s U.S. fundraising since 1984, when he began arranging Netanyahu’s broadcasts and meetings with American leaders. Netanyahu first met Mervyn Adelson at that time, and brought him into his inner circle along with Friedman and Ron Lauder.
Menachem Atzmon resigned as president of Friedman’s IDF following his 1996 conviction for Israeli election campaign finance fraud. But his later U.S. activities would prove to be much more disturbing.
Ex-Likud figure suspected of laundering money for global drug ring
[Update 2010-01-11 06:26 AM PST by Oui]:
Lessons from the Israeli Experience: Shoe Bomber Richard Reid
In addition to searching government watch lists, interviewers ask each traveler a detailed set of questions that takes several minutes. Based on this initial screening, the great majority of El Al passengers are classified as low risk and subjected to a routine level of security. About 1%, however, are flagged as high risk because they are on a government watch list or appear nervous at the checkpoint, or because their answers or behavior arouse suspicion. These individuals are diverted into a more intensive screening that takes an average of 57 minutes per person. The process involves a lengthy personal interview, a complete search of all carry-on bags, and the use of sophisticated explosives detection equipment.
For example, when Richard Reid (the future “shoe bomber”) decided to fly in July 2001 with El Al from Schiphol to Tel Aviv, allegedly to check out terrorist targets, El Al security personnel selected him for profiling and subjected him to a full security check from head to toe (including an X-ray scan of his shoes) that showed he carried no bomb or weapon. Although Reid was allowed to board the plane, El Al remained suspicious and made sure he was sitting near an armed sky marshal, who was instructed to keep a close watch on him. [Shin Bet] American Airlines was not as careful, however, and allowed Reid to board a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001. This time the al-Qaeda operative carried an explosive device, concealed in a shoe, and he attempted to detonate the explosive in mid-flight. Only timely intervention by the other passengers and crew prevented a major disaster.
Shin Beth and Shoe Bomber Reid
(Rense) – The security company that allowed Reid to board American Airlines 63 at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris was ICTS (International Consultants on Targeted Security) International. ICTS’s senior management are all ex-Israeli security officials, many of whom worked for El Al security.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."