WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- The Justice Department reportedly denied an FBI request for a warrant to gather information on a French Algerian man who allegedly wanted to learn how to make airplanes turn but not how to take off or land.
Habib Zacarias Moussaoui, 33, is being held as a material witness in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
USA Today and Newsweek reported the FBI wanted to seize Moussaoui's computer hard drive but Justice said the warrant was denied because there was not enough information to support it. The FBI had no comment.
Newsweek reported FBI agents in Minneapolis requested the warrant in early September under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Moussaoui initially was detained in mid-August on an immigration charge after officials at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, Minn., told authorities he was acting suspiciously. He allegedly asked only to learn how to make turns while flying and about New York airspace.
French officials warned the FBI Moussaoui had alleged links to an Algerian terrorist group and possibly to Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden, the suspected of mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, is being harbored by the Taliban regime.
After the attacks, agents seized Moussaoui's computer and found data on wind patterns related to crop-dusting aircraft, leading the FBI to seek an immediate halt to all crop-dusting activities to head off a feared chemical or biological attack. Crop dusting has since resumed but the planes are prohibited from flying near cities.
Moussaoui is being detained in New York.
