The AP reports:
A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department obtained video surveillance tapes suggesting terrorists were targeting Las Vegas casinos but authorities never alerted the public as they discussed whether a warning might hurt tourism or increase the casinos’ legal liability, internal memos show.
The mayor of Las Vegas said Monday he was never told about the tapes uncovered in Detroit and Spain in 2002, and had been assured by the FBI there were no credible threats against his city. “If I were told, I would certainly tell the public,” Mayor Oscar Goodman said.
But memos and e-mails between federal prosecutors, obtained by The Associated Press, say Las Vegas authorities were alerted to some of the footage by Aug. 30, 2002. Later, numerous local law enforcement officials were invited by a senior FBI agent to view the footage, but most spurned the invitation, the memos say.
(Yes, I’m just trying to be cute with the post headline; I have no particular reason to think that the owners of the Flamingo are particularly culpable here, even if some casino owners are.)
One document quotes a federal prosecutor in Las Vegas as saying the mayor was concerned about the “deleterious effect on the Las Vegas tourism industry” if the Detroit evidence became public. Another memo states the casinos didn’t want to see the footage for fear it would make them more likely to be held liable in civil court if an attack occurred. . . .
I doubt that such deliberate ignorance could indeed diminish the casinos’ liability — it might actually increase it (unless they thought they could hide their refusal to see footage). On the other hand, it’s not clear whether the memo was reporting the casinos’ expressed motivations, or was just guessing at the motives:
“The information, unfortunately, was not taken as seriously as we believed it to have been,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino told AP in an interview, recounting how only two local police officers took up the FBI agent’s offer to see the tape.
“The reason that he (the FBI agent) was given for the low turnout was because of liability. That if they heard this information they would have to act on it. It was extraordinarily unacceptable and absolutely outrageous,” Convertino said. . . .
It’s certainly possible that the agent’s source was just speculating, and the real problem was that the casinos weren’t adequately informed about the tapes, or someone else along the line dropped the ball.
Thanks to Jennifer Ash (Mellow-Drama) for the pointer.
Comments are closed.