http://stj911.org/press_releases/Misrepresentation.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Victoria Ashley, STJ911 committee member

Phone: 510-769-5109

Site: www.STJ911.org

Email: stj911@gmail.com

Scholars for 9-11 Truth & Justice Misrepresented in Draft Bill Sent to 8 House Members

Berkeley, CA, October 22, 2008 -- On October 18, 2008, an OpEdNews article titled, "8 House Members View Draft Bill on Independent Science/Tech Probe of WTC 1, 2, 7 Collapses," was published by four members of the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice (STJ911.org). The authors of the article and draft bill are not spokespersons for Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, and therefore are individually responsible for it.

Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice does not endorse the draft bill due to the inclusion of numerous unscientific claims and misrepresentations, and condemns in the strongest of terms any associations between the organization and the claims presented by the authors of this bill. As stated at the front page of their website, Scholars for 9-11 Truth and Justice "take[s] care to present the strongest, most credible research available..."

While in agreement with the authors of this bill that a new investigation into the tragic events of September 11, 2001 is warranted, representatives of the Scholars group note that the draft bill and article lack basic scientific rigor and credibility, with statements such as, "the entire WTC [complex] was destroyed by directed energy weaponry (DEW)," and the ideas that "nuclear materials, missiles or DEW weapons were used." The sister publication of the Scholars group, The Journal of 9/11 Studies (www.JournalOf911Studies.com), has numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles refuting such claims.

Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice believes that a much better bill can be crafted using the strong analysis in articles by its members, several of which are recently published in scientific journals, including The Open Civil Engineering Journal, The Environmentalist, and the Journal of Engineering Mechanics.

Kevin Ryan, a former Underwriters Laboratories (UL) manager who was fired in 2004 for publicly questioning the NIST report, and a committee member of the Scholars' group, says the bill is harmful to the cause of exposing the truth. "Basically," he said, "asking Congress to investigate many poorly defined, and highly implausible hypotheses minimizes the chances that Congress would be willing or able to investigate the actual evidence for the demolition of three WTC buildings." In fact, the bill also omits any mention of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee, which provided hundreds of questions left unanswered by the 9/11 Commission.

Scholars' member Dr. Steven E. Jones, a Professor of Physics, also notes that statements attributed to him in the bill are "errors . . . misrepresenting my published statements." Dr. Jones goes on to say, "It is unacceptable to misrepresent my views, as is done in this document by Ellis et al., and to ignore my published technical papers in established journals."

Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice is a non-partisan organization of over 500 independent researchers analyzing the September 11, 2001 attacks with a strong emphasis on the scientific method.

For information: http://www.stj911.com or

Contact: stj911@gmail.com

Phone: 510-769-5109

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To: Victoria Ashley, STJ911 Committee member newsletter editor From: Barbara G. Ellis, Ph.D., Barry Ball, Joel S. Hirschhorn, Ph.D., Warren Pease Subject: Ashley's Public Relations Release of Oct. 22, 2008 regarding our draft bill for a 2nd investigation of the WTC 1, 2, 7 collapses __________________________ We four who drafted and promoted the bill asking for a scientific/technological investigation of the WTC collapses submitted to House members, have spent the last two days consulting about a response to your news release about this project to 911Blogger, the indymedia circuit, etc. Aside from the fact that we never purported to speak for Scholars anymore than other members do when they publish or are on the 9/11 speaker circuit, making videos, or expressing views on websites, interview shows, etc., let me assure you that on Capitol Hill, we did not mention STJ911 or say that we were in the 9/11 movement. Rather, we presented ourselves as citizen activists. Nor is STJ911 or the movement mentioned in the bill’s text. As to OpEdNews and other websites, it’s long been a journalistic rule that every author and person mentioned in a story must have an identifier; again, that does not mean they speak for an organization or institution. We would appreciate your fairness in making that correction and the points below to all recipients of that news release perhaps in sending this response—without deletions—to them. Most reputable professional journals provide a commentary section just for that purpose on controversial issues. And, judging from the adverse responses to the news release in website threads, a contrary view seems not only ethically merited, but wise. Second, the statement quoted from the bill is a descriptive of just one of the 14 major theories to be examined by investigators. I’m sure you’d agree that House members need to have a descriptive of each theory about the collapses—as will any member of the proposed investigative committee. A second and careful reading of the bill should make that clear. Further, we are puzzled that a bill asking for a scientific/technological investigation of these 14 major theories to arrive at a hypothesis—the traditional protocol in any credible research—be censored or be subject to prior restraint from any holders/adherents of those theories. For someone to insist his/her theory is more credible than any other, prior to a supposedly objective and thorough investigation, seems little different than NIST ruling out all causal theories except fire in both of its reports on the WTC collapses. One of the methods the perpetrators have used to discredit the 9/11 movement in general and research in particular to prevent the public from learning what happened, is to fan scientific divisiveness. A cooperative effort in fitting the puzzle pieces together would reveal what happened at the WTC and institute the hunt for the perpetrators. We undertook this project because we saw such motives and the results. Our aim was to get to the truth of this monstrous deed by letting such a committee examine each theory espoused by its researcher(s). Thus far, it appears that our bill is the only realistic one that has strategy and drive to obtain that objective: to overturn the Bush Administration’s explanations for the WTC collapses. As one of our colleagues just observed: “The real dispute is not between alternative theories, but between the government and the search for 9/11 truth.” The unending debate concerning those theories has prevented fruitful results toward the overall goal of a second, substantive investigation about the collapses. Surely, those paying a terrible price for the events of that day are by now owed practical and cooperative action by those capable and willing to seek the truth, to attain accountability and justice. Doing nothing means the perpetrators win. Waiting for the “perfect” bill to be written on which all researchers agree, means the perpetrators win. We would hope that baleful consequence of doing nothing and debating everything is plain to all involved in scholarly endeavors concerning the collapse causes. A charge of “errors” would seem to require the fairness of citing what they are, particularly in that the historical aspects of the collapses and the 9/11 Commission’s report usually depend upon subjective perceptions, sources’ credibility, and how current the data is. New information is constantly arriving such as the BBC tapes disclosing that WTC 7 met its end around 11 a.m. on 9/11, or that arson provided the cover the perpetrators needed for the theory about fire. It would have been fair for the news release to have included the pdfs of the article/bill sent to you so that readers could judge the merits of the bill and whether any “errors” or “misrepresentations” were contained therein. In this regard, I’m not sure Dr. Jones and Mr. Ryan told you that they had ample opportunity months ago to make corrections to the bill’s text. It was sent in mid-May by priority snail mail to 23 of the major 9/11 researchers. Each packet also included a stamped envelope to return input by our deadline of May 30. We heard from several who made suggestions and corrections. However, we heard nothing from Steven who certainly could have cleared up any “misrepresentations” or “errors” concerning his theory at that time. Too, the bill’s format was a singular departure (one used for Congressional drafts) from regular mail. Kevin emailed us on May 27, briefly indicating the chief reason he would not support the bill was because it included five theories he regarded as “long-discredited.” By whom he did not say, but this is what some other theorists continue to say about other’s research. House members and investigators may well suspect that the “whom” is self-serving exclusiveness. The review time also was adequate for Kevin to suggest any theory from the 9/11 Family Steering Committee; he did not do so. The only error he noted to us last May had to do with being consistent on temperature units (centigrade or Fahrenheit) and “heat dissolving steel”. We fixed the units, but ruled out deleting the later suggestion because it involved the FEMA/NIST fire theory. Let me also say that both the article and bill cited in the release were sent by email October 15—again for changes—to all 23 reviewers before I began querying websites about publishing it. We heard nothing from Steven or Kevin. Last, to close the article accompanying the bill in both OpEdNews and 911researcher websites, I used poet John Milton’s great quote about scholarship that’s most applicable to qualitative research in any discipline: “Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter.” Getting that “encounter” is the nub of this issue, Victoria. Considering how fervently millions of Truthers are demanding a second investigation, it’s a shame that a few of our hard-working, highly respected expert researchers—and you as editor of the Scholars newsletter—seem so fearful of having all 14 theories tested in such a “free and open encounter” of that second independent investigation. If those theories are valid, no such fears need exist. Nor should there be that curious and unscholarly need to denigrate the theories of others—or, for that matter, to denigrate fellow Truthers attempting at great effort, time and expense to secure for the 9/11 movement that long-sought independent investigation to settle once and for all time just what destroyed WTC 1, 2, and 7.

This is indeed the entire strategy of the secret government.

Have the debate center on the 9 / 11 movement and the prerequsite of nailing every detail of the plot and machanics down in order to gain standing.

They cannot prove anything involving their story and the pegs they hung it on.

So the process must be to always challange the matrix of research and never look at the story. To do that would be to see the flimsy *and changing* tissue of obvious lies.

The real problem is the media's treasonous involvement of this crime and the trail of perpetrators leading to the bigger truth of who exactly controls our judicial, legislative and administrative puppet shows.

And who should hang.