7 Abnormal Stock Trading
[HI]In the week prior to 9/11, an extraordinary amount of put options were placed on United Airlines and American Airlines stocks.[/HI] If you are unfamiliar with the stock market, a put option is financial contract between two parties that will offer the buyer insurance against a companys excessive loss. [HI]Someone who purchases a put option is expecting a stock to drop [/HI]or they are protecting their assets. [HI]Between September 6 and 7, 4,744 put options were purchased on United Airlines stock[/HI], compared to 396 call options. On [HI]September 10, 4,516 put options were purchased on American Airlines[/HI], as compared to 748 call options. [HI]The trading activity was 600% above the normal level. United and American Airlines were the only two companies who had planes hijacked on 9/11[/HI]. There were also an abnormal number of put options purchased in companies who had a stake in the World Trade Centers.
The majority of the suspicious trading was linked to Deutsche Bank Alex Brown. On September 12, 2001, the head of the bank, Mayo A. Shattuck III, resigned from office. The previous director of the bank was A. B. Krongard, who is the former head of the CIA. Citigroup Inc and Morgan Stanley also received an abnormal number of put options, and both companies held offices in the World Trade Centers, and saw a decrease in stock price after the attacks. On September 10, 2001, Raytheon, a defense contractor, had an anomalously high number of call options traded. The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an insider trading investigation, in which Osama Bin Laden was a suspect, but no action was taken. The trading was traced to areas all over the world, with most activity occurring in the UK, Italy, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, France and the US.
In the days prior to 9/11, the Chicago Exchange saw the highest number of United and American Airlines options traded in history. The names of the investors remain a mystery, because they never claimed their money. After it was discovered that a single U.S.-based institutional investor, with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda, purchased a large amount of these options, the 9/11 Commission dismissed the importance of the events. Unfortunately, the abnormal trading did not tip off law enforcement, as intelligence agencies constantly monitor the stock exchange and the sudden rise in activity could have allowed analysts to connect the dots and see that a major event was about to take place involving American Airlines, United Airlines and The World Trade Centers. However, nobody could have imagined the scale of the tragedy.
10 Enron Scandal Revealed
Most Americans are familiar with the failure of the Enron Corporation. Enron was an American energy company based out of Houston, Texas. In 2000, Enron was one of the largest businesses in the world. They had working operations in many areas, mainly electricity, natural gas, communications and pulp and paper. Amazingly, Enron claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion in 2000. The problems for Enron started from the beginning, when a group of executives in the company began misleading the board of directors and audit committee. They did this by hiding billions of dollars in debt, acquired from failed deals and projects. In the months following 9/11, the illegal activity caught up with Enron and the company failed. Enron stock holders lost nearly $11 billion, and the resulting scandal marked the largest bankruptcy reorganization in American history at that time.
The Enron scandal ended the business career of accounting firm Arthur Andersen. Arthur Andersen Corporation was found guilty of unlawful practice in the auditing of Enron. In October of 2001, one month after the attacks in New York and Washington, details of the Enron scandal were leaked to the world press. The story sparked a panic among Enron stock holders, and by December 2, 2001, Enron Corp. filed for one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in US history, with assets of $63.4 billion. Because of the failure, new regulations and legislation were enacted to expand the reliability of financial reporting for public companies. Many conspiracy theories have been formed around the Enron Scandal, and the date on which it was revealed to the public.[HI] Most of these claims document the ties between former Texas Governor George W. Bush and Enron founder Kenneth Lay.[/HI]
9 Executive Order 13233
In 1972, thousands of official and unofficial FBI records were destroyed, upon the death of J. Edgar Hoover. In fact, in the past it was common practice for high ranking officials to destroy their most important business documents. For this reason, in 1974 the US Congress passed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, placing the presidential records of Richard Nixon in federal custody to prevent their destruction. The Act was meant to reduce secrecy at the highest levels of government, and to give historians the materials they need to perform their duties. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 expanded such protection of historical records. This was accomplished by mandating that all records of former presidents automatically become the property of the federal government upon leaving the Oval Office.
The presidential papers of Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush were due to be made public when George W. Bush took office in January, 2001. However, George W. Bush first delayed the release for 90 days, and then repeated the action, pushing the date back into September, 2001. On November 1, 2001, Bush issued Executive Order 13233, limiting public access to the records of former U.S. presidents. The Bush executive order also includes the documents of former vice presidents. Many people were critical of this action, claiming that it violated both the spirit and letter of existing US laws. The order severely curtailed public access to presidential records and added to delays in obtaining materials from presidential libraries. On January 21, 2009, Executive Order 13233 was revoked, by executive order of President Barack Obama on his first day in office. Obama essentially restored the original Executive Order 12667.
During his presidency, George W. Bush was accused of acting in violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. In 2007, the Bush White House e-mail controversy was revealed. The event started when George W. Bush initiated the unprecedented midterm dismissal of seven United States Attorneys, on December 7, 2006. The U.S. attorneys were replaced with interim appointees, under provisions in the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization. Following the action, a congressional request was called looking for documents indicating why the attorneys were fired. [HI]This caused the Bush administration to reveal the fact that not all internal White House emails were available, because they were sent via a non-government domain, that was hosted on an e-mail server not controlled by the federal government. In 2009, it was announced that as many as 22 million emails may have been deleted by the Bush administration[/HI].
5 US Government Exercises
On September 11, 2001, the United States government held a series of military exercises and drills. Operation Northern Vigilance was a NORAD operation, which involved deploying fighter aircraft to the northwestern part of North America, specifically Alaska and Northern Canada. The exercise was one part simulation, one part real world. It was in response to a similar test acted out by Russia on September 11, where long-range bombers were dispatched to Russias high north. The exercises were immediately called off after the news of the terrorist attacks, and all simulated information was purged from NORADs computer screens. However, the event was a distraction for the US government on 9/11.
Operation Northern Vigilance was not the only US exercise planned for September 11. A series of war games were also acted out, specifically Global Guardian. Global Guardian is an annual, command-level exercise held in the United States. It is an important task, and the purpose of the drill is to test and validate US nuclear command, control and execution procedures. Vigilant Guardian is an exercise that was run in conjunction with Global Guardian. It involved a simulated bomber attack from the former Soviet Union. The drill was conducted in real time, and appeared legitimate in offices and on computers, but without any planes in the air. One of the drills included was a traditional simulated hijacking.
[HI]The National Reconnaissance Office drill that was being conducted on [HI]September 11, 2001, is the strangest. In the exercise, a simulated small aircraft crashed into one of the towers at the NRO headquarters[/HI]. No plane was involved in the drill, but to simulate damage from the crash, some stairwells and exits were closed off. A bioterrorism exercise was planned for September 12, 2001. It was named Operation Tripod and included a real life test of the US plan to distribute antibiotics to an entire city population during a bioterrorism attack[/HI].
4
Nimda Virus
In the months before and after September 11, 2001, the United States was bombarded with a series of cyber attacks. A group of criminals exposed vulnerabilities in the Microsoft operating system, and created a buffer overflow virus, which executed arbitrary code and infected hundreds of thousands of computers. By July 19, 2001, the amount of infected hosts reached over 350,000 zombies. A series of separate viruses named Code Red I and Code Red II crippled valuable servers and made calculated attacks on US government computers.
On September 18, 2001, a new virus attacked United States operating systems. The worm was given the name Nimda, and it was an advanced version of Code Red II. Some might say that the Code Red viruses were created in preparation for the much larger Nimda attack, which was executed the week following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Due to the release date of the virus, members of the American government speculated on a link between the cyber attacks and Al Qaeda, but this theory ended up proving unfounded. The American media did not report much on the virus because of the terrorist attacks.
Multiple propagation vectors allowed Nimda to become the Internets most widespread and dangerous virus. It took only 22 minutes for the worm to rip through the American financial sector, causing over $3 billion in damage. The Nimda virus was so effective because it used five different infection vectors. People could, and still can, get the virus via e-mail, open network shares, infected websites, exploitation or via back doors left behind by the Code Red II virus. The group of people behind the Nimda virus and the theft of billions of dollars are unknown. The event greatly damaged the worlds financial sector and economy.
http://listverse.com/2010/08/27/10-events-surrounding-september-11/
[HI]In the week prior to 9/11, an extraordinary amount of put options were placed on United Airlines and American Airlines stocks.[/HI] If you are unfamiliar with the stock market, a put option is financial contract between two parties that will offer the buyer insurance against a companys excessive loss. [HI]Someone who purchases a put option is expecting a stock to drop [/HI]or they are protecting their assets. [HI]Between September 6 and 7, 4,744 put options were purchased on United Airlines stock[/HI], compared to 396 call options. On [HI]September 10, 4,516 put options were purchased on American Airlines[/HI], as compared to 748 call options. [HI]The trading activity was 600% above the normal level. United and American Airlines were the only two companies who had planes hijacked on 9/11[/HI]. There were also an abnormal number of put options purchased in companies who had a stake in the World Trade Centers.
The majority of the suspicious trading was linked to Deutsche Bank Alex Brown. On September 12, 2001, the head of the bank, Mayo A. Shattuck III, resigned from office. The previous director of the bank was A. B. Krongard, who is the former head of the CIA. Citigroup Inc and Morgan Stanley also received an abnormal number of put options, and both companies held offices in the World Trade Centers, and saw a decrease in stock price after the attacks. On September 10, 2001, Raytheon, a defense contractor, had an anomalously high number of call options traded. The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an insider trading investigation, in which Osama Bin Laden was a suspect, but no action was taken. The trading was traced to areas all over the world, with most activity occurring in the UK, Italy, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, France and the US.
In the days prior to 9/11, the Chicago Exchange saw the highest number of United and American Airlines options traded in history. The names of the investors remain a mystery, because they never claimed their money. After it was discovered that a single U.S.-based institutional investor, with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda, purchased a large amount of these options, the 9/11 Commission dismissed the importance of the events. Unfortunately, the abnormal trading did not tip off law enforcement, as intelligence agencies constantly monitor the stock exchange and the sudden rise in activity could have allowed analysts to connect the dots and see that a major event was about to take place involving American Airlines, United Airlines and The World Trade Centers. However, nobody could have imagined the scale of the tragedy.
10 Enron Scandal Revealed
Most Americans are familiar with the failure of the Enron Corporation. Enron was an American energy company based out of Houston, Texas. In 2000, Enron was one of the largest businesses in the world. They had working operations in many areas, mainly electricity, natural gas, communications and pulp and paper. Amazingly, Enron claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion in 2000. The problems for Enron started from the beginning, when a group of executives in the company began misleading the board of directors and audit committee. They did this by hiding billions of dollars in debt, acquired from failed deals and projects. In the months following 9/11, the illegal activity caught up with Enron and the company failed. Enron stock holders lost nearly $11 billion, and the resulting scandal marked the largest bankruptcy reorganization in American history at that time.
The Enron scandal ended the business career of accounting firm Arthur Andersen. Arthur Andersen Corporation was found guilty of unlawful practice in the auditing of Enron. In October of 2001, one month after the attacks in New York and Washington, details of the Enron scandal were leaked to the world press. The story sparked a panic among Enron stock holders, and by December 2, 2001, Enron Corp. filed for one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in US history, with assets of $63.4 billion. Because of the failure, new regulations and legislation were enacted to expand the reliability of financial reporting for public companies. Many conspiracy theories have been formed around the Enron Scandal, and the date on which it was revealed to the public.[HI] Most of these claims document the ties between former Texas Governor George W. Bush and Enron founder Kenneth Lay.[/HI]
9 Executive Order 13233
In 1972, thousands of official and unofficial FBI records were destroyed, upon the death of J. Edgar Hoover. In fact, in the past it was common practice for high ranking officials to destroy their most important business documents. For this reason, in 1974 the US Congress passed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, placing the presidential records of Richard Nixon in federal custody to prevent their destruction. The Act was meant to reduce secrecy at the highest levels of government, and to give historians the materials they need to perform their duties. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 expanded such protection of historical records. This was accomplished by mandating that all records of former presidents automatically become the property of the federal government upon leaving the Oval Office.
The presidential papers of Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush were due to be made public when George W. Bush took office in January, 2001. However, George W. Bush first delayed the release for 90 days, and then repeated the action, pushing the date back into September, 2001. On November 1, 2001, Bush issued Executive Order 13233, limiting public access to the records of former U.S. presidents. The Bush executive order also includes the documents of former vice presidents. Many people were critical of this action, claiming that it violated both the spirit and letter of existing US laws. The order severely curtailed public access to presidential records and added to delays in obtaining materials from presidential libraries. On January 21, 2009, Executive Order 13233 was revoked, by executive order of President Barack Obama on his first day in office. Obama essentially restored the original Executive Order 12667.
During his presidency, George W. Bush was accused of acting in violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. In 2007, the Bush White House e-mail controversy was revealed. The event started when George W. Bush initiated the unprecedented midterm dismissal of seven United States Attorneys, on December 7, 2006. The U.S. attorneys were replaced with interim appointees, under provisions in the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization. Following the action, a congressional request was called looking for documents indicating why the attorneys were fired. [HI]This caused the Bush administration to reveal the fact that not all internal White House emails were available, because they were sent via a non-government domain, that was hosted on an e-mail server not controlled by the federal government. In 2009, it was announced that as many as 22 million emails may have been deleted by the Bush administration[/HI].
5 US Government Exercises
On September 11, 2001, the United States government held a series of military exercises and drills. Operation Northern Vigilance was a NORAD operation, which involved deploying fighter aircraft to the northwestern part of North America, specifically Alaska and Northern Canada. The exercise was one part simulation, one part real world. It was in response to a similar test acted out by Russia on September 11, where long-range bombers were dispatched to Russias high north. The exercises were immediately called off after the news of the terrorist attacks, and all simulated information was purged from NORADs computer screens. However, the event was a distraction for the US government on 9/11.
Operation Northern Vigilance was not the only US exercise planned for September 11. A series of war games were also acted out, specifically Global Guardian. Global Guardian is an annual, command-level exercise held in the United States. It is an important task, and the purpose of the drill is to test and validate US nuclear command, control and execution procedures. Vigilant Guardian is an exercise that was run in conjunction with Global Guardian. It involved a simulated bomber attack from the former Soviet Union. The drill was conducted in real time, and appeared legitimate in offices and on computers, but without any planes in the air. One of the drills included was a traditional simulated hijacking.
[HI]The National Reconnaissance Office drill that was being conducted on [HI]September 11, 2001, is the strangest. In the exercise, a simulated small aircraft crashed into one of the towers at the NRO headquarters[/HI]. No plane was involved in the drill, but to simulate damage from the crash, some stairwells and exits were closed off. A bioterrorism exercise was planned for September 12, 2001. It was named Operation Tripod and included a real life test of the US plan to distribute antibiotics to an entire city population during a bioterrorism attack[/HI].
4
Nimda Virus
In the months before and after September 11, 2001, the United States was bombarded with a series of cyber attacks. A group of criminals exposed vulnerabilities in the Microsoft operating system, and created a buffer overflow virus, which executed arbitrary code and infected hundreds of thousands of computers. By July 19, 2001, the amount of infected hosts reached over 350,000 zombies. A series of separate viruses named Code Red I and Code Red II crippled valuable servers and made calculated attacks on US government computers.
On September 18, 2001, a new virus attacked United States operating systems. The worm was given the name Nimda, and it was an advanced version of Code Red II. Some might say that the Code Red viruses were created in preparation for the much larger Nimda attack, which was executed the week following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Due to the release date of the virus, members of the American government speculated on a link between the cyber attacks and Al Qaeda, but this theory ended up proving unfounded. The American media did not report much on the virus because of the terrorist attacks.
Multiple propagation vectors allowed Nimda to become the Internets most widespread and dangerous virus. It took only 22 minutes for the worm to rip through the American financial sector, causing over $3 billion in damage. The Nimda virus was so effective because it used five different infection vectors. People could, and still can, get the virus via e-mail, open network shares, infected websites, exploitation or via back doors left behind by the Code Red II virus. The group of people behind the Nimda virus and the theft of billions of dollars are unknown. The event greatly damaged the worlds financial sector and economy.
http://listverse.com/2010/08/27/10-events-surrounding-september-11/
