Two Florida newspapers have asked a Fort Lauderdale federal judge to deny the Justice Department's effort to shut down a Freedom of Information lawsuit seeking records from an FBI investigation into apparent terrorist activity in Sarasota shortly before 9/11.
BrowardBulldog.org filed the suit in September 2012 alleging the government was improperly withholding records on the matter. The government, after unexpectedly releasing 31 highly censored pages last spring, argued the court should end the case because of national security considerations and asserted a "reasonable search" had determined "there are no agency records being improperly withheld."
Court papers filed Tuesday by attorneys for two Florida newspapers say they were intervening "to stress that the outcome of this case is a matter of intense interest to the media and the public generally." The newspapers also argued "government officials charged with investigating terrorist connections in our state must also be held fully accountable."
"The Broward Bulldog has provided this court with ample evidence establishing that the FBI could not have possibly conducted adequate searches in response to its federal Freedom of Information Act request," said the joint brief filed by Tampa attorneys Carol LoCicero and Rachel Fugate. "The stakes are simply too great to accept as a matter of law the government's vague, often second-hand conclusions as to the adequacy of its document searches."
The newspapers' friend-of-the-court brief asks U.S. District Judge William Zloch not to be "too quick" to accept an agency's claim it conducted "an appropriate search," citing examples where records that should have been produced were not.
One cited case involves the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, which sued in 2012 seeking records about the Obama administration's alleged coordination with the producers of "Zero Dark Thirty," the motion picture about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Allegations had been made the White House provided the filmmakers with access to highly sensitive national security records to burnish President Obama's reputation prior to the 2012 election.
A judge ordered the CIA to produce records about the matter, "but it was only months later that additional 'overlooked' documents were produced that included illuminating correspondence among the White House, the Department of Defense and the CIA suggesting a coordinated effort to provide a heightened level of access to the filmmakers and a desire that the administration be portrayed positively."
Broward Bulldog.org, represented in the suit by Miami attorney Thomas Julin, disclosed the existence of the FBI's Sarasota investigation in September 2011.
The story reported how, a decade earlier, the FBI found direct ties between 9/11 hijackers and a young Saudi couple, Abdulaziz and Anoud al Hijji, who appeared to have hurriedly departed their upscale home in a gated community in the weeks before 9/11 -- leaving behind cars, furniture, clothing, a refrigerator full of food and an open safe in the master bedroom.
Anoud al Hijji is the daughter of the homeowner, Esam Ghazzawi, a longtime adviser to a senior Saudi prince. Ghazzawi was also a focus of FBI interest after 9/11 when agents sought to lure him back to the United States from Saudi Arabia to close the transaction when the home was sold, according to a lawyer for the homeowner's association.
Agents searched gatehouse logbooks and license plate snapshots and found evidence vehicles used by the hijackers, including ringleader Mohamed Atta, had visited the home, according to a counterterrorism agent who spoke on condition of anonymity. A sophisticated analysis of incoming and outgoing phone calls to the home also established links to Atta and other terrorists, including Adman Shukrijumah, the agent said.
Shukrijumah, a former Miramar resident, is on the FBI's "most wanted" list and the State Department is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.
The FBI publicly acknowledged its investigation but said it had found nothing connecting the Hijjis to 9/11.
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