This contentious thread here (last page): http://truthaction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8778#...
has prompted me to try to categorize useful distinctions between at least three types of information presented as direct artifacts of the hijackers or "Al Qaeda" masterminds:
1) that which they supposedly arranged to present themselves: for example, the videos released by "Al Qaeda" post facto, which would if authentic constitute their suicide statements. Also, the supposed interview of "KSM" and Binalshibh while still free in Pakistan by Al Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda in 2002.
2) that presented by authorities as found incidentally, for example the passport of Satam al Suqami at the WTC site, the bandanna from Shanksville, and the two bags allegedly checked by Atta at Portland airport, which did not make the connecting flight from Boston. These would not have been intended as statements to posterity. (The items supposedly found in a van parked at Logan are a borderline case that can be ascribed to 1 or 2.)
3) that presented by authorities as confessions post facto by still living perpetrators, e.g. the transcripts of interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohamed et al. provided by the government to the 9/11 Commission, and of the supposed proceedings at Guantanamo.
As indirect:
4) that presented as supposed surveillance or other info gathered by authorities prior to 9/11, for example observation of the Kuala Lumpur meeting of Jan. 2000 attended by Al-Midhar, Al Hazmi and Ramzi Binalshibh, or the supposed 1999/2000 discovery by Able Danger of a "Brooklyn Cell" led by Atta. This in turn might be divided as coming in the guise of official statements (e.g., former) or as whistleblower revelations (e.g., the latter).
Different types of real or fabricated evidence. Only the first type constitutes a supposed, freely given terrorist political statement.
Proposal: discuss categories, how to categorize given items of evidence, reasons to believe or not believe, ways of possibly testing these types of evidence (i.e., for us, the ones who don't have subpoena power).