Mastermind of 9/11 Attacks Designs a Secret Vacuum Cleaner

HonorPoncaCityDotCom writes "AP reports that while confined to the basement of a CIA secret prison in Romania about a decade ago, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, asked his jailers whether he could design a vacuum cleaner. After all KSM earned his bachelor's in mechanical engineering, the agency had no long-term plan for him, but might thought he might someday prove useful and might even stand trial one day and for that, he'd need to be sane. They were concerned that his long imprisonment might do so much psychological damage that he would no longer be useful as source for information. "We didn't want them to go nuts," said a former senior CIA official. So, using schematics from the Internet as his guide, Mohammed began re-engineering one of the most mundane of household appliances. It remains a mystery how far Mohammed got with his designs or whether the plans still exist and even Mohammed's military lawyer, Jason Wright, says he is prohibited from discussing his client's interest in vacuums. 'It sounds ridiculous, but answering this question, or confirming or denying the very existence of a vacuum cleaner design, a Swiffer design, or even a design for a better hand towel would apparently expose the U.S. government and its citizens to exceptionally grave danger,' says Wright. So now, says Doug Mataconis, if you happen to start seeing ads for the CIA's revolutionary new home cleaning device, you'll know where it came from." Sounds perfect for In-Q-Tel.

Comments

admitted?

[Anonymous Coward]

He was tortured in order to obtain the confession, I don't know what good it is.

Re:admitted?

[artor3]

He admitted to his role in 9/11 several months before being captured, in an interview with Al Jazeera.

That in no way excuses torture, nor does it mean he's guilty of the dozens of other crimes that they tortured him into confessing to, but he was responsible for 9/11.

Re:admitted?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you don't torture people who you think are criminals -- it does nothing but contribute doubt to your case. Society learned long ago that a torture-free imprisonment, followed by a fair and impartial trial, was the most effective way to ensure that an admission of guilt (or conviction) was credible and final.

Re:admitted?

[Anonymous Coward]

He admitted to his role in 9/11 several months before being captured, in an interview with Al Jazeera.

9/11 and that interview were clearly an amazing publicity stunt to generate hype for his vacuum cleaner design. Slashvertisement was just the next step in his plan. Next week, he'll open up the kickstarter project and the money will start rolling in like an avalanche.

Call me pessimistic, but I expect delays in any delivery date he sets.

All in all, it seems like the ???????????? before PROFIT was "get waterboarded". Who knew?

captcha: gigawatt

Re:admitted?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

nor does it mean he's guilty of the dozens of other crimes that they tortured him into confessing to

To the best of my knowledge he didn't give them jack shit despite being waterboarded around 180 times. For a while there was this pro-torture narrative going around that he "broke" after ~30 seconds of waterboarding when later it turned out that the real story was closer to the CIA gave up waterboarding him after ~30 days of doing it to him 5 times a day and getting nothing.

Re:admitted?

[erikkemperman]

Really? Care to give examples? Because I thought that torture will only get people to tell you what they think you want to hear. Truth doesn't figure into it.

Unless the aim of torture of one guy is actually to frighten and discourage a bunch of other guys not yet residing in your secret lair dungeons. Maybe that would work. But that would be, you know, terrorism.

Re:admitted?

[mysidia]

followed by a fair and impartial trial, was the most effective way to ensure that an admission of guilt (or conviction) was credible and final.

And then they went and screwed it up, by letting interrogators lie -- imply that they had enough evidence to put 'em away for life, and coax the prisoner into confessing under a false pretense that they'll get off with less prison time, than they'd be certain to have if they insisted upon exercising their right to a trial.

Re:admitted?

[Omestes]

Yup, the sad fact is that torture actually works and it can save lives when executed properly.

I doubt the truthfulness of this statement, on the basis of numerous studies, history, and a basic understanding of human psychology. But even if it was true, it is irrelevant, since it switches the argument against torture into and ethical and humanitarian one, which is also pretty solid. There also is the matter of hypocracy, since we can never actually condemn torture (of the so-called "good-guys"), as long as we advocate it.

The fact that there is a debate about the merits of torture is absolutely astounding to to me. Astounding and abhorrent.

Re:admitted?

[Charliemopps]

You see, right there is your problem. You're arguing it wrong. Don't argue that it leads to better trials, better convictions, yada yada, then they can argue back against you about it. They can disagree. This isn't something that should be a debatable issue.

Argue: "Torture is evil. If we administer it, WE are evil people. It is all about hate, revenge and there is no excuse, no justification for it, ever. If a man were guarding the knowledge that would cure all mortal illness and the only way to get the cure from him were torture, it would STILL be wrong to commit it. We cannot give up our very souls for security because all we'll truely be secure in is our own shame."

Re:admitted?

[dbIII]

No, it just gets you something else to use in a show trial once you've already decided the person is guilty. In the USSR they were well aware that torture was utterly useless as a means of gaining information when they did things like get someone to confess to blowing up more railway locomotives than existed in the USSR at the time. Torture is only good if you want to put on a show that makes it look like punishment is being carried out for crimes and catching the actual criminals instead of whoever is convenient is a lucky accident.
As for costing in other ways, guess who tried to kill off the President of France some years ago? It was a group of returned soldiers from Algeria that had tortured doctors, priests and plenty of others that they had seen as authority figures so they didn't see why they shouldn't kill off their President. This sort of stuff has a way of following people home, which may be when some torture was outsourced to Egypt and Syria (two we know about) as part of the "extraordinary rendition" that had large numbers of suspects being flown to places where US law does not apply with people that won't be setting foot in the USA committing the atrocities.
In my view it's another thing to add to the list, not just having atrocities committed but being cowardly weasels about it.

Re:admitted?

[drinkypoo]

US Soldiers are more likely to engage in spousal abuse, whether that's rape or pugilism. This distinction doesn't even involve combatants; there's enough brainwashing and rape to achieve this goal even for a non-com. I presume it's the same elsewhere. You teach people to solve problems with violence and that they are better than other people (as enlisted typically feel) and guess what happens?

Re:admitted?

[Livius]

Unless the aim of torture of one guy is actually to frighten and discourage a bunch of other guys not yet residing in your secret lair dungeons.

The purpose of torture is to terrorize others. That's why torture is 'secret' (because it's illegal), but that 'secret' always seems to very widely known.

When a prisoner is tortured, a decision has already been made that it's not about criminal justice or reliable information.

Re:admitted?

[Raenex]

No, it just gets you something else to use in a show trial once you've already decided the person is guilty.

You need actionable information or some way of verifying it. Example: Leon v. Wainwright:

"Leon [one of the kidnappers] and Frank Gachelin [a relative of the kidnapee] met in the shopping center parking lot at 2:00 a.m. During the confrontation Leon drew a gun on Frank. The police officers, who had accompanied Frank to the meeting, immediately arrested Leon and demanded that he tell them where he was holding Gachelin. When he refused to tell them the location, "he was set upon by several of the officers." Leon v. State, 410 So.2d 201, 202 (Fla.3d DCA 1982). "They threatened and physically abused him by twisting his arm behind his back and choking him until he revealed where Louis [Gachelin] was being held." Id. The officers went to the apartment, rescued Gachelin and arrested Armand [the second kidnapper]."

Sure, you can practice crude torture, get signed "confessions" and boatloads of real and made up information. But to say you can't get any information from torture is just trying to shortcut the argument.

Re:admitted?

[gl4ss]

Because I thought that torture will only get people to tell you what they think you want to hear

Why? Why do you think that people will _ONLY_ lie? What makes you so sure? If someone had information to hide and were tortured, its certainly ONE OF THE POSSIBILITIES that they would reveal that information.

Truth doesn't figure into it.

So every single person who was tortured always lied in each and every instance? lol.. your brain seems particularly receptive to propaganda and seems to exhibit a tendency of non-critical thought. Ah... to think of the things I could sell you...

well.. you can't know if it was a lie, a hopeful thought or something else. people might confirm your "suspicions", which might be a lie or might not - the guy telling you it might not know it though.

but more to the point.. why you don't torture people is simply because that it's evil, wrong and against the principles of western morality, idiot.
that's why it's illegal and against international laws. sure, you might save a life sometime - that's the risks you run by abiding to rule of law for which you're supposed to be fighting for, there's NO FUCKING WAY to execute torture "properly" except with consent for sexual satisfaction.

if you go the other way around then you could justify killing everyone in middle east because someone of them might sometime kill someone american. thus you would be "saving american lives" by killing everyone, going all judge death - preventing all kinds of crime with a simple "cure". now that sounds fucking stupid doesn't it? yeah, it's not so black and white but actually what's black and white very simply is that you don't torture people on purpose.

Re:He Should Be Executed

[Grave]

How is he still alive?

Simple. We threw him in Gitmo instead of treating him like the a criminal, and trying him by jury. He'd already have been executed if we would've done that. But since due process was not afforded, we are now paying the bills for keeping him alive. Funny how that worked out for us..

Mk 1

[Coditor]

If the vacuum starts looking like a giant metal guy with a glowing center light maybe they should rethink this idea.

I've heard...

[Guano_Jim]

...his design sucked.

Thank you! I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

Many terrorists are engineers

[ebno-10db]

It's interesting how many terrorists are trained as engineers.

Re:Many terrorists are engineers

[rasmusbr]

It's interesting how many successful terrorists are trained as engineers.

Fixed that for you. It is interesting, but it is also unsurprising if you think about it.

And evil geniuses

[Okian Warrior]

Doctor Octopus
Doctor Doom
Doctor Evil
Doctor No
Doctor Horrible

It's interesting how many evil geniuses have an advanced degree.

Life Imitates Art ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the Grahame Greene novel "Our Man in Havana"? The protagonist is a CIA agent who gets tired of his job trying to uncover missile silos and communist plots in Cuba and starts microfilming close-ups of vacuum cleaner schematics and sending those back to Washington.

So now we have a Guantanamo detainee drawing vacuum cleaner schematics? Which are no doubt being photographed and pored over by CIA agents for evidence of terrorist plots.....

grave danger

[thereitis]

It sounds ridiculous, but answering this question, or confirming or denying the very existence of a vacuum cleaner design, a Swiffer design, or even a design for a better hand towel would apparently expose the U.S. government and its citizens to exceptionally grave danger

This kind of hyperbole is what makes people ignore warnings.

Vacuum man.

[Seiken]

I think that if you were to overlap all of the schematics, you would find that they are in fact for a mechanized suit designed to break out of jail and also prevent shrapnel from entering his heart, via a magnetic push.

Our man in havana

[goombah99]

Graham Greene rolls over in his grave.

Re:I wont pretend to be impressed for this salesma

[quenda]

How is this for impressive then:

Britain admits to using 'brutal' vacuum bomb against Taliban
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/britain-admits-using-vacuum-bomb/story-e6frg6to-1111116704067

Is this where KSM got the idea?

Re:I wont pretend to be impressed for this salesma

[Anonymous Coward]

10 years in prison without due process.
Tortured.

Nice democracy you have there.