Sorry to deflate your bubble, but obviously your research into NORAD stopped at September 11, 2001, for if you had researched NORAD before September 11, 2001 you would have found quite a lot of articles from the news media and the government on NORAD's true capabilities on 9/11, which included
monitoring and controlling the territorial airspace of America and Canada. This is what NORAD calls "Air Sovereignty". Let's take a little trip down memory lane (from the 1990s) and see what NORAD's mission was on 9/11:
The article
NORAD: Air National Guard manning stations across the country (National Guard Association of the United States, Sep. 1997) explains how NORAD’s six battle management and command centers identify commercial aircraft as these aircraft are being monitored flying through our air space, "Aircraft flying over our air space are monitored seven days a week, 24hours a day. Much of the identifying process is done by hand.
Flight plans from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are compiled in logs and have to be manually searched to identify aircraft.
Unlike current operating procedures,
the new system will mean fewer manual inquiries and phone contact with FAA officials about commercial aircraft. The FAA flight plan is now hooked up via computer with the new R/SAOCs so operators can easily
track friendly aircraft through our air space without having to get someone on the phone or thumb through written log books of flight plans." --(
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3731/is_199709/ai_n8766326.).
The above quote shows that NORAD radar operators are NOT passive, they actually contact FAA ATC operators to ask "what's going on" in the air. By the way, hijacked aircraft can't hide from NORAD nor FAA ATC! Let's continue with the pre-9/11 documents:
"The NORAD mission is threefold. NORAD's first responsibility is to provide SURVEILLANCE AND CONTROL [emphasis mine] of the airspace covering North America, specifically the airspace of Canada and the United States. This mission is based on agreements between the two governments…
The second part of NORAD's mission is to provide the NCAs with tactical warning and attack assessment of an aerospace attack against North America. This information is essential to providing those in command with information to aid them in making decisions on how to respond to an attack against North America.
NORAD's third responsibility is to provide an appropriate response TO ANY FORM OF AN AIR ATTACK [emphasis mine]. NORAD was created to provide a defense against the threat from air-breathing aircraft, specifically the threat from long-range bombers. However, over the years the threat has changed. Now NORAD must provide an appropriate response to a multitude of threats, to include the air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) and the sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM)." -- NORAD AIR DEFENSE OVERVIEW; Northeast Parallel Architectures Center, Syracuse University, pre-1995(
http://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/civ/vanguard/C2Demo/OPRef.html).
"One ongoing mission of the Battle Management Center is to coordinate "air sovereignty" efforts,
MONITORING EVERY AIRCRAFT THAT ENTERS [emphasis mine]
U.S. or Canadian airspace -- some 2.5 million a year. NORAD is asked to INVESTIGATE [emphasis mine] aircraft that do not file flight plans, contact ground controllers or identify themselves with TRANSPONDERS [emphasis mine]." -- Cheyenne Mountain: America's underground watchtower; CNN Interactive, 1999 (
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/experience/the.bomb/route/01.cheyenne/).
"NORAD defines "sovereign airspace" as: the airspace over a nation's territory, internal waters, and territorial seas. NORAD's territorial seas extend 12 miles from the continental United States, Alaska, and Canada. Sovereign airspace above a nation's territory is unlimited." -- NORAD AIR DEFENSE OVERVIEW; Northeast Parallel Architectures Center, Syracuse University, pre-1995 (
http://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/civ/vanguard/C2Demo/OPRef.html).
"The Air Operations Center (AOC) (also known as the Air Defense Operations Center – ADOC) maintains
CONSTANT SURVEILLANCE OF NORTH AMERICAN AIRSPACE TO PREVENT OVERFLIGHT [emphasis mine] by hostile aircraft. It TRACKS [emphasis mine] over 2.5 million aircraft annually. The ADOC collects and consolidates surveillance information on suspected drug-carrying aircraft entering or
operating WITHIN [emphasis mine] North America, and provides this information to counternarcotics agencies." -- Cheyenne Mountain Complex; Federation of American Scientists, 1999 (
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/c3i/cmc.htm); Cheyenne Mountain Trivia; NORAD, April, 1997 (
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usspc-fs/cmoctrivia.htm).
"In 1998, Canada posses the ability to
detect,
identify, and if necessary
intercept aircraft over Canadian territory. The "Canadianisation" of NORAD operations over Canada is complete. Though we still rely heavily on the Americans for the Integrated Tactical Warning and Attack Assessment and mutual defense, we have successfully transitioned on at least one of the three core functions of NORAD [surveillance and control of the airspace covering Canada]." -- Canadian Aerospace Sovereignty: In Pursuit of a Comprehensive Capability, by Maj François Malo; Department of National Defence (Canada), 1998 (
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/canada/0056.htm).
What does the United States government say about NORAD's capabilities within America? As reported by the General Accounting Office in 1994(GAO/NSIAD-94-76 ), "NORAD defines air sovereignty as providing surveillance and control of the territorial airspace, which includes:
1. intercepting and destroying uncontrollable air objects;
2. tracking hijacked aircraft;
3. assisting aircraft in distress;
4. escorting Communist civil aircraft; and
5. intercepting suspect aircraft, including counterdrug operations and peacetime military intercepts."
The above documents from the 1990s amply demonstrates that the official accounts of NORAD's capabilities on 9/11 were an absurd lie.
For more information on NORAD before 9/11, go to
www.DNotice.org and read the three articles there on NORAD.
