AFP PODCAST
Susan Lindauer, 49, was the first woman and the second non-Arab American to be charged with violating the Patriot Act, was arrested on March 11, 2004, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and charged with “acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government,” accepting $10,000 from the Iraqi Intelligence Service, and accused of meeting with an FBI agent posing as a Libyan.
She was locked up for one year at United States prison Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Texas without trial or hearing, “and threatened with indefinite detention and forcible drugging to shut her up.” “During her incarceration she won the right to refuse forced anti-psychotic medication which the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) claimed would render her competent to stand trial.” On January 16, 2009, after nearly five years of being under indictment with no conviction or guilty plea, the DoJ dismissed all charges.
Ms. Lindauer discusses her early years, and touches on her memoir, EXTREME PREJUDICE: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover-Ups of 9/11 & Iraq, in this interesting interview (26:14).
Dave Gahary, a former submariner in the U.S. Navy, is the host of AFP’s ‘Underground Interview’ series.
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9-11 From The Inside Out
CIA ‘asset’ blows the whistle on September 11 co-conspirators
Susan Lindauer, 49, was the first woman and the second non-Arab American to be charged with violating the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, more commonly referred to as the Patriot Act, “a 7,000 page document,” she says, “that I happened to know nobody on Capitol Hill actually read before voting to approve.” USA PATRIOT is a 10-letter acronym that stands for Uniting (and) Strengthening America (by) Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.
Ms. Lindauer was arrested on March 11, 2004, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and charged with “acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government,” accepting $10,000 from the Iraqi Intelligence Service, and accused of meeting with an FBI agent posing as a Libyan. She was locked up for one year at United States prison Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Texas without trial or hearing, “and threatened with indefinite detention and forcible drugging to shut her up.” “During her incarceration she won the right to refuse forced anti-psychotic medication which the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) claimed would render her competent to stand trial.” On January 16, 2009, after nearly five years of being under indictment with no conviction or guilty plea, the DoJ dismissed all charges.
Ms. Lindauer explains that the reason for her extreme odyssey is because she was a U.S. intelligence asset covering anti-terrorism at the Iraqi Embassy in New York from 1996 up until Iraq War II, who also happened to be an antiwar activist in possession of Iraqi prewar intelligence that would expose the myriad lies used to justify hostilities. She also claims to have given advance warning on 9-11, and several independent sources have confirmed this.
Born in Oklahoma and raised in California and Alaska, “Lindauer is the daughter of John Howard Lindauer II, the newspaper publisher and former Republican nominee for Governor of Alaska.” She is also the second cousin on her father’s side to former White House Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush, Andrew Card, whom she delivered a letter to, urging him to intercede with Bush not to invade Iraq, while offering to act as a back channel in negotiations.
She was an honor student in high school and graduated from Smith College and received a master’s degree in public policy from the London School of Economics. She has worked as a reporter and editor at two Washington newspapers, and a reporter and researcher at the news magazine U.S. News & World Report.
She worked for several U.S. Democratic Representatives, including Peter DeFazio (Ore.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), and Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), and also as a press secretary and speech writer for Democratic Senator Carol Moseley Braun (Ill.).
As a result of her experiences, Ms. Lindauer wrote the 457-page book, Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq, which details her life as an intelligence asset, her arrest, imprisonment and eventual release.
AMERICAN FREE PRESS conducted an exclusive interview with Ms. Lindauer, to discuss the book.
AFP asked Ms. Lindauer when she first decided to write the book.
“I got the idea for writing the book from my boyfriend,” she said, “right after my indictment, and we knew that this was an important story, that Americans needed to hear the real truth about Iraqi prewar intelligence and the CIA’s advance warnings about 9-11. Everybody understood why they were suppressing the truth, because the government was so desperate to reinvent the facts so that politicians in Washington could escape their responsibility for having pushed the country into this catastrophic war.”
AFP asked how her background prepared her for her work as an intelligence asset, which are, according to her book, “private citizens who have developed some specialized field of expertise or interest that grants them special access to target groups desirable to the intelligence community.”
“I went to the London School of Economics, and there for the first time, I was exposed to Arabs and Muslims,” she said. “The London School of Economics at that time was a major educational institution for the sons and daughters of foreign diplomats and foreign leaders. They were heavily represented by the Middle East, and I was exposed to a broader global picture then I had ever imagined.”
AFP asked how she persevered through this terrible ordeal.
“It was a horrific nightmare, an appalling offense to the democracy of our country and the Constitutional protections,” she said.
“I am a formidable fighter. If I had been a weak defendant, they would’ve given me a trial. And if I had been a weak prisoner, they would’ve succeeded in forcibly drugging me. The fact that the Justice Department made the accusations and was unable to go into court and complete the case and make a presentation to a jury, should tell you…that I would’ve conducted my own oversight investigation into Iraqi prewar intelligence right in that courtroom.”
AFP asked how her experiences could apply to your average American.
“If they could do this to me, you have no chance. Because I know how to fight, the CIA taught me. I was trained by the CIA for a decade to run any blockade. I am a child, a creature, of black ops and operations. I’m not an analyst. I’m the one who goes in and deals face-to-face with terrorists. Terrorism was my baby for a decade.”
AFP asked what she had realized while locked up.
“What I believed while I was in prison was that a man can be judged by the strength of his enemies. And I was attacked by George [W.] Bush and Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz and right-wing neocons, who had to lie, they couldn’t even tell the truth about who I was.”
