[W]hy don't they release footage from cameras from the hotels, gas stations, and traffic cams?
The footage just released was photographed by a Pentagon security camera, which means it's the property of the Pentagon, which means it's the property of the people of the United States. Under ordinary conditions the public therefore has a right to see it.
Footage taken by traffic cameras would be the property of the people for the same reason.
Footage taken at hotels and gas stations is the property of the owners of those establishments. They retain ultimate authority over whether or not it is released to the public.
He futher asks why the FBI took such tapes and has not released them.
If they exist and are what they purport to be, they would constitute evidence in a criminal proceeding arising from the attack on the Pentagon. That is one possible reason why the FBI would take them. We empower law enforcement officers and courts to compel the delivery and disclosure of information potentially useful as evidence.
There are several possible reasons why the FBI does not release them. First is that much of it is private property. While the owners of that property may be compelled to release it as evidence to the FBI, that does not mean the FBI has further power to publish it. In fact, the FBI can be constrained not to release it, and instead to keep it quite safe.
Let's say I own a company that makes widgets. I compete against a company that makes gadgets. Now let's say I arrange for the gadget company to be investigated for fraud. The police come and seize their records, including the proprietary trade-secret designs for their gadget. If I make a Freedom of Information Act request for those records held in police custody, and if the police were required to satisfy it, I might get unfettered access to my competitor's innermost secrets. And if I improved my widget design based on what I learned from the gadget design, there would be no legal recourse against me.
Not everything in government custody should be made generally available. You have to carefully distinguish between custody and ownership.
Another reason would be tainting of potential jurors. That evidence was collected does not ensure it will be used. The FBI is empowered to collect the evidence and keep it in custody according to a broad set of guidelines. But whether it actually ends up in a court case will be a matter of its legal admissibility and various rulings in limine that vary greatly from case to case.
One of the (sometimes deplorable) oddities of our court system is that evidence may be pertinent to the question before the court, but for various reasons the jury is not allowed to see it. It may, for example, have been obtained illegally (e.g., an illegal wiretap in which a defendant incriminates himself). Or it may reveal something prejudicial. Or in the worst cases, it may be a quid pro quo negotiation between counsel -- "I'll agree not to talk about your client's arrest record if you agree not to ask my client about his dishonorable discharge from the military."
So if a jury is allowed to see evidence outside the controlled setting of the courtroom, the impartiality of the judgment is compromised.
Myself and another pointed out how little that would actually reveal.
Well, we don't know what it contains until it has been released. So we can't reason effectively along those lines.
Unfortunately this becomes a fertile field for tautology. When it's released, it will either contain pertinent material to fuel the debate, or it will contain little useful data and lead to speculation it has been doctored to remove it.
Prejudging the value of unknown evidence is bad on all counts.
I just wondered if such tapes really exist.
And maybe we should ask those questions. Conspiracists frequently repeat allegations among themselves until they reach a critical mass of reporting that wrongly acquires the status of established and documented fact. If "everyone knows" that tapes existed and were confiscated, then soon you lose track of where that notion actually came from.
I have seen it often reported that certain materials were confiscated. But I don't remember if an original source was given.
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