False Authority: "Thoughts From a Former NIST Employee" on 9/11

[Keith Beachy]

[off topic commentary removed, wrong thread]

NIST sets an arbitrary threshold for the amplitude of an explosion. They have no way to calibrate eye witness testimony against this threshold. It appears to be a contrived argument to rule out explosives. That is the point Ketchum and others are making.

Ketcham's point was NIST ignored evidence. NIST did not ignore evidence, as shown. 9/11 truth is trying to use Simile, sounded like an explosion, which is not evidence for explosives.

I did not find Ketcham saying NIST made up stuff to rule out explosives, he said they ignored evidence which has not been proved.

NIST using science and engineering, becomes contrived, and arbitrary. Why would 19 terrorists plant explosives in the WTC complex and risk exposing their end-run once in the life time trick of using USA hijacking customs (like paying DB Cooper, or negotiation) to take four planes and crash them? 19 terrorist are responsible for all the damage and murder on 9/11, why would they plant explosives? That failed the first time in 93.

I think anyone can be an authority on issues if they present evidence to support their argument, and prove their point. Ketcham has nothing to support NIST ignored evidence.

WTC 7 reports discuss possible blast events, NIST NCSTAR 1-9 - Vols. 1 & 2 (Final, Nov. 2008), "8.9.2 Hypothetical Blast Events". NIST did not find evidence to support the speculation it was CD. They used science, not speculation.
WTC 7 final report discusses possible blast events... NIST did not ignore evidence, they could not find evidence, an simile is not evidence; sounded like an explosion is not proof of explosives.
http://ws680.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=861610

Is this evidence Ketcham did not read NIST, thousands and thousands of pages. No.

 

[Hama Neggs]

"...Among the most egregious examples is the explanation for the collapse of WTC 7 as an elaborate sequence of unlikely events..."

Such as two airliners impacting the towers? Soo unlikely that no one would have believed it could actually happen... until it DID.

 

[Cube Radio]

"Soo unlikely that no one would have believed it could actually happen... until it DID.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/99-report-warned-of-suicide-hijacking/

 

[Hama Neggs]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/99-report-warned-of-suicide-hijacking/

Clearly it wasn't taken as a serious possibility. That was my point. It was considered pretty unlikely. Similarly nowadays, we aren't taking seriously enough the threat to America's energy infrastructure of cyber-hacking. But that's another discussion.

 

[Nada Truther]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/99-report-warned-of-suicide-hijacking/

Excellent article, Cube. I especially like this part:
______________________________________________________________________
Asked about the report at his daily press briefing, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer described it as a psychological, sociological evaluation of terrorism.

"I don't think it's a surprise to anybody that terrorists think in evil ways," he said.

"It is not a piece of intelligence information suggesting that we had information about a specific plan."

Former CIA Deputy Director John Gannon, who was chairman of the National Intelligence Council when the report was written, said U.S. intelligence long has known a suicide hijacker was a possible threat.

"If you ask anybody could terrorists convert a plane into a missile, nobody would have ruled that out," he said. He called the 1999 report part of a broader effort by his council to identify for U.S. intelligence the full range of attack options for terrorists and U.S. enemies.

"It became such a rich threat environment that it was almost too much for Congress and the administration to absorb," he said. "They couldn't prioritize what was the most significant threat."

Gannon, who served both Democratic and Republican presidents, said Americans need to make a distinction between knowing the type of vulnerabilities terrorist could exploit and knowing the attacks were imminent.

He said criticism that President George W. Bush's August briefing should have alerted the administration to the attacks was "egregiously unfair. The president wasn't given actionable intelligence," he said.
________________________________________________________________________

--Sounds to me like he is saying that there are mountains of threats from terrorists (no big surprise there), involving mountains of different ways for them to carry them out. It is the job of the intelligence community to decide how serious to take each and every threat. The fact that someone didn't take this threat serious enough is a major issue....In hindsight. Look at how people complain about TSA and how long it takes to just get through airport security. And this is AFTER 9/11! Imagine what would have happened pre-9/11 if they put the measures in place that are in place today. It may have seemed unnecessary, given the credible info that they had at the time. It also may have just steered the terrorists into another direction.

The use of this article as evidence of gross negligence or stupidity, or complacency in any way, takes into account that this was the ONLY potential threat from the terrorists and we ignored it. They have to pick and choose what to take serious and what to take very serious.

They chose wrong and 3,000 people paid for it. But who's to say that dumping every effort into this threat would have stopped it or something similar anyway?

I guess that is a question for the "CIA Division of Hindsight"

 

[Mick West]

Things seems to be drifting off topic here. The topic is Ketcham, and the use of his former employment at NIST as a form of false authority.

 

[IoIa]

Working at NIST doesn't make him an expert in a field he never worked on, but: it makes him an expert about how an organisation like NIST operates. His point is, that they never looked into the possibility of controlled demolition. And knowing how NIST normally works, this makes him, and not only him, wonder, why.

 

[Mick West]

Working at NIST doesn't make him an expert in a field he never worked on, but: it makes him an expert about how an organisation like NIST operates. His point is, that they never looked into the possibility of controlled demolition. And knowing how NIST normally works, this makes him, and not only him, wonder, why.

Has he ever worked on an investigation at NIST? FedEx jet pilots don't know anything about billing, packing delicate objects, or truck route planning just because they work at FedEx. Working for an organization does not make you an expert on all aspects of that organization.

 

[NoParty]

Working at NIST doesn't make him an expert in a field he never worked on, but: it makes him an expert about how an organisation like NIST operates. His point is, that they never looked into the possibility of controlled demolition. And knowing how NIST normally works, this makes him, and not only him, wonder, why.

Are you suggesting that his mindset is that, in most cases in which the cause and effect of a building's destruction is
caught on film in broad daylight, that NIST routinely opens an investigation re. "possibility of controlled demolition" ?

 

[Whitebeard]

Working at NIST doesn't make him an expert in a field he never worked on, but: it makes him an expert about how an organisation like NIST operates.

I've worked, as a freelance, with the BBC as a researcher in local news and current affairs, it doesn't mean I know anything at all as to the workings and deliberations of the Drama department, light entertainment department or the natural history unit.

Now the BBC has 25,000 direct employees and maybe three times that number sub contracted and contractees. Looking at the shear size of the NIST I can imagine their employee roster is many times that size (can't find the exact figure), so its very very likely that a low level, or even mid level employee in one department would have no idea what goes on in other parts of the organisation.

 

[Mick West]

Now the BBC has 25,000 direct employees and maybe three times that number sub contracted and contractees. Looking at the shear size of the NIST I can imagine their employee roster is many times that size (can't find the exact figure), so its very very likely that a low level, or even mid level employee in one department would have no idea what goes on in other parts of the organisation.

NIST isn't that big, but it still has thousands of employees in hundreds of locations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_of_Standards_and_Technology#Constitution

NIST had an operating budget for fiscal year 2007 (October 1, 2006 – September 30, 2007) of about $843.3 million. NIST's 2009 budget was $992 million, and it also received $610 million as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.[6] NIST employs about 2,900 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support and administrative personnel. About 1,800 NIST associates (guest researchers and engineers from American companies and foreign countries) complement the staff. In addition, NIST partners with 1,400 manufacturing specialists and staff at nearly 350 affiliated centers around the country.

 

[Keith Beachy]

Working at NIST doesn't make him an expert in a field he never worked on, but: it makes him an expert about how an organisation like NIST operates. His point is, that they never looked into the possibility of controlled demolition. And knowing how NIST normally works, this makes him, and not only him, wonder, why.

NIST did look into "controlled demolition", did not find evidence. Read NIST. The former NIST guy has no evidence for his claims, he has speculation and opinion.
Do we need "experts" who think they know how NIST operates to propose CD? No, we need evidence. There is no evidence for controlled demolition on 9/11. The former NIST guy has no evidence, he has speculation.

The FBI found no evidence for explosives, and concluded the damage on 9/11 was due to the acts of 19 terrorists. The ae911t claims are without evidence for CD, as if they are using NIST as a scapegoat to float the CD fantasy.

Why do people make claims about 9/11 without evidence? Why.

 

[Mick West]

NIST:
https://www.nist.gov/el/faqs-nist-wtc-7-investigation

13. Did investigators consider the possibility that an explosion caused or contributed to the collapse of WTC 7?

Yes, this possibility was investigated carefully. NIST concluded that blast events inside the building did not occur and found no evidence supporting the existence of a blast event.

In addition, no blast sounds were heard on the audio tracks of video recordings during the collapse of WTC 7 or reported by witnesses. According to calculations by the investigation team, the smallest blast capable of failing the building's critical column would have resulted in a sound level of 130 decibels (dB) to 140 dB at a distance of at least half a mile, if unobstructed by surrounding buildings. This sound level is consistent with a gunshot blast, standing next to a jet plane engine, and more than 10 times louder than being in front of the speakers at a rock concert.

For the building to have been prepared for intentional demolition, walls and/or column enclosures and fireproofing would have to be removed and replaced without being detected. Preparing a column includes steps such as cutting sections with torches, which produces noxious and odorous fumes. Intentional demolition usually requires applying explosive charges to most, if not all, interior columns, not just one or a limited set of columns in a building.