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-- Administration leak of al Qaeda operation caused al Qaeda to go dark
Administration leak of al Qaeda operation caused al Qaeda to go dark
Nice job, boys. I wish I could say I was surprised when I read this:
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| Leak Severed a Link to Al-Qaeda's Secrets Firm Says Administration's Handling of Video Ruined Its Spying Efforts By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 9, 2007; A01 A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release. Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide. The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network. "Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," said Rita Katz, the firm's 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE's methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries. The precise source of the leak remains unknown. Government officials declined to be interviewed about the circumstances on the record, but they did not challenge Katz's version of events. They also said the incident had no effect on U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts and did not diminish the government's ability to anticipate attacks. While acknowledging that SITE had achieved success, the officials said U.S. agencies have their own sophisticated means of watching al-Qaeda on the Web. "We have individuals in the right places dealing with all these issues, across all 16 intelligence agencies," said Ross Feinstein, spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. But privately, some intelligence officials called the incident regrettable, and one official said SITE had been "tremendously helpful" in ferreting out al-Qaeda secrets over time. The al-Qaeda video aired on Sept. 7 attracted international attention as the first new video message from the group's leader in three years. In it, a dark-bearded bin Laden urges Americans to convert to Islam and predicts failure for the Bush administration in Iraq and Afghanistan. The video was aired on hundreds of Western news Web sites nearly a full day before its release by a distribution company linked to al-Qaeda. Computer logs and records reviewed by The Washington Post support SITE's claim that it snatched the video from al-Qaeda days beforehand. Katz requested that the precise date and details of the acquisition not be made public, saying such disclosures could reveal sensitive details about the company's methods. SITE -- an acronym for the Search for International Terrorist Entities -- was established in 2002 with the stated goal of tracking and exposing terrorist groups, according to the company's Web site. Katz, an Iraqi-born Israeli citizen whose father was executed by Saddam Hussein in the 1960s, has made the investigation of terrorist groups a passionate quest. "We were able to establish sources that provided us with unique and important information into al-Qaeda's hidden world," Katz said. Her company's income is drawn from subscriber fees and contracts. Katz said she decided to offer an advance copy of the bin Laden video to the White House without charge so officials there could prepare for its eventual release. She spoke first with White House counsel Fred F. Fielding, whom she had previously met, and then with Joel Bagnal, deputy assistant to the president for homeland security. Both expressed interest in obtaining a copy, and Bagnal suggested that she send a copy to Michael Leiter, who holds the No. 2 job at the National Counterterrorism Center. Administration and intelligence officials would not comment on whether they had obtained the video separately. Katz said Fielding and Bagnal made it clear to her that the White House did not possess a copy at the time she offered hers. Around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, Katz sent both Leiter and Fielding an e-mail with a link to a private SITE Web page containing the video and an English transcript. "Please understand the necessity for secrecy," Katz wrote in her e-mail. "We ask you not to distribute . . . [as] it could harm our investigations." Fielding replied with an e-mail expressing gratitude to Katz. "It is you who deserves the thanks," he wrote, according to a copy of the message. There was no record of a response from Leiter or the national intelligence director's office. Exactly what happened next is unclear. But within minutes of Katz's e-mail to the White House, government-registered computers began downloading the video from SITE's server, according to a log of file transfers. The records show dozens of downloads over the next three hours from computers with addresses registered to defense and intelligence agencies. By midafternoon, several television news networks reported obtaining copies of the transcript. A copy posted around 3 p.m. on Fox News's Web site referred to SITE and included page markers identical to those used by the group. "This confirms that the U.S. government was responsible for the leak of this document," Katz wrote in an e-mail to Leiter at 5 p.m. Al-Qaeda supporters, now alerted to the intrusion into their secret network, put up new obstacles that prevented SITE from gaining the kind of access it had obtained in the past, according to Katz. A small number of private intelligence companies compete with SITE in scouring terrorists' networks for information and messages, and some have questioned the company's motives and methods, including the claim that its access to al-Qaeda's network was unique. One competitor, Ben Venzke, founder of IntelCenter, said he questions SITE's decision -- as described by Katz -- to offer the video to White House policymakers rather than quietly share it with intelligence analysts. "It is not just about getting the video first," Venzke said. "It is about having the proper methods and procedures in place to make sure that the appropriate intelligence gets to where it needs to go in the intelligence community and elsewhere in order to support ongoing counterterrorism operations." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...isrc=newsletter |
HA! Do you actually think they want to stop terrorism? The more terrorism we incite, the more we can plunder the middle east with public conset. People will give up their rights for the feeling of security, so the War on Terror is one step forward in the march toward the corporate police state, whereby the people surrender their rights for the promise of security, from an enemy not our own, but of secret powers.
And the game of denial begins...with the White House taking the lead. Boy, this is going to get ugly. And I hope it does.
People behind such mindless acts need to be held accountable and publicly humiliated (and ofcourse prosecuted, but that comes later)
With the privatization of intelligence this was only a matter of time.
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| Originally posted by Krypton HA! Do you actually think they want to stop terrorism? The more terrorism we incite, the more we can plunder the middle east with public conset. People will give up their rights for the feeling of security, so the War on Terror is one step forward in the march toward the corporate police state, whereby the people surrender their rights for the promise of security, from an enemy not our own, but of secret powers. |
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| Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov With the privatization of intelligence this was only a matter of time. |
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Normally I would agree, but this situation doesn't appear to fit your implication. The passing of information to our Administration by this private firm was not where the leak occurred. Rather, it was after it was passed into the Administration and then a staff member of the Administration proceeded to leak it out to Faux News. So even if our government intelligence agencies picked up this info., the leak would likely still have occurred once the Administration got wind of it since the breakdown was within the Administration itself. |
The denials begin...
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2007100...ntelligenceleak
White House denies leaking info that hurt Al-Qaeda spying
2 hours, 46 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House on Tuesday denied being the source of a leak involving an Osama bin Laden video that a private intelligence firm said had sabotaged its secret ability to intercept Al-Qaeda messages.
Asked if the White House was the source of the leak, spokeswoman Dana Perino said: "No, we were not ... We were very concerned to learn about it."
The SITE Intelligence Group said it lost access that it had covertly acquired to Al-Qaeda's communications network when the administration of President George W. Bush let out that the company had obtained a bin Laden video early last month ahead of its official release, the Washington Post said.
"Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," SITE founder Rita Katz told the newspaper.
SITE monitors websites and public communications linked to radical Islamist groups and organizations deemed terrorist by US authorities and provides the information to clients, including news media companies.
It got hold of the bin Laden video before its release and provided it for free to the White House on the morning of September 7 but insisted that the video's existence remain secret until it spotted the official release, in order to protect its own work.
"Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's website," the Post said.
By that afternoon the video and a transcript from it had been leaked to a cable television news network and broadcast worldwide, the Post reported.
According to Katz, this tipped off Al-Qaeda that its communications security had been breached by SITE.
White House officials said the matter would be referred to the Director of National Intelligence, and that the White House was not planning any internal investigation.
"When the White House receives information from an individual or a company, we refer that appropriately to the intelligence community. That's what happened here," Perino said.
"And I'll have to refer you to the Director on National Intelligence for any process problem they had in that regard."
Homeland security adviser Fran Townsend echoed Perino's "concern" and referred the matter to the nation's spy chief.
"This is going to be an issue for the DNI to look at so that we can understand what, if anything, happened, and how to deal with it to ensure that we fully protect those who cooperate with us," Townsend said.
"I haven't looked at the internal White House emails, so what I can tell you is the DNI and the Intelligence Committee will need to look at who had access to it.
She added: "We are only going to be successful in the war on terror with the help of the American people."
The video appeared to be timed to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, and was bin Laden's first video appearance since October 2004.
In it, the elusive Al-Qaeda chief mocked the United States as "weak" and vowed to escalate fighting in Iraq.
Another US-based organization that monitors Islamic militant websites, IntelCenter, said its "sources, methods and techniques ... to collect terrorist video material remain intact," according to CEO Ben Venzke, who added that the focus on rushing videos to the public could have dangerous consequences.
"Simply getting the video first but not having the professional knowledge and responsibilities to know what to do with it can not only result in the loss of valuable intelligence but it can actually harm ongoing activities within the official counterterrorism community," he said.
This "has happened time and time again when private citizens and organizations outside of the IC (intelligence community) play in fields where they lack the depth and experience."
Either way, the administration looks like a patsy.
Personally, if I was going to 'leak' information, I'd be using it to find my own leak.
Hopefully the administration finds the media mole and hangs them out to dry...
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Krypton The denials begin... -------------------------------------------------------------- http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2007100...ntelligenceleak White House denies leaking info that hurt Al-Qaeda spying 2 hours, 46 minutes ago WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House on Tuesday denied being the source of a leak involving an Osama bin Laden video that a private intelligence firm said had sabotaged its secret ability to intercept Al-Qaeda messages. Asked if the White House was the source of the leak, spokeswoman Dana Perino said: "No, we were not ... We were very concerned to learn about it." The SITE Intelligence Group said it lost access that it had covertly acquired to Al-Qaeda's communications network when the administration of President George W. Bush let out that the company had obtained a bin Laden video early last month ahead of its official release, the Washington Post said. "Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," SITE founder Rita Katz told the newspaper. SITE monitors websites and public communications linked to radical Islamist groups and organizations deemed terrorist by US authorities and provides the information to clients, including news media companies. It got hold of the bin Laden video before its release and provided it for free to the White House on the morning of September 7 but insisted that the video's existence remain secret until it spotted the official release, in order to protect its own work. "Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's website," the Post said. By that afternoon the video and a transcript from it had been leaked to a cable television news network and broadcast worldwide, the Post reported. According to Katz, this tipped off Al-Qaeda that its communications security had been breached by SITE. White House officials said the matter would be referred to the Director of National Intelligence, and that the White House was not planning any internal investigation. "When the White House receives information from an individual or a company, we refer that appropriately to the intelligence community. That's what happened here," Perino said. "And I'll have to refer you to the Director on National Intelligence for any process problem they had in that regard." Homeland security adviser Fran Townsend echoed Perino's "concern" and referred the matter to the nation's spy chief. "This is going to be an issue for the DNI to look at so that we can understand what, if anything, happened, and how to deal with it to ensure that we fully protect those who cooperate with us," Townsend said. "I haven't looked at the internal White House emails, so what I can tell you is the DNI and the Intelligence Committee will need to look at who had access to it. She added: "We are only going to be successful in the war on terror with the help of the American people." The video appeared to be timed to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, and was bin Laden's first video appearance since October 2004. In it, the elusive Al-Qaeda chief mocked the United States as "weak" and vowed to escalate fighting in Iraq. Another US-based organization that monitors Islamic militant websites, IntelCenter, said its "sources, methods and techniques ... to collect terrorist video material remain intact," according to CEO Ben Venzke, who added that the focus on rushing videos to the public could have dangerous consequences. "Simply getting the video first but not having the professional knowledge and responsibilities to know what to do with it can not only result in the loss of valuable intelligence but it can actually harm ongoing activities within the official counterterrorism community," he said. This "has happened time and time again when private citizens and organizations outside of the IC (intelligence community) play in fields where they lack the depth and experience." |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r Either way, the administration looks like a patsy. Personally, if I was going to 'leak' information, I'd be using it to find my own leak. Hopefully the administration finds the media mole and hangs them out to dry... |
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Five hours. Five fucking hours Fir3start3r. It took someone in this Administration a whole stinking five hours to pass on this information to their favorite cheerleader, Faux News. A media mole? Perhaps we need to find the ADMINISTRATION mole(s) who was so willing to leak this information out? And BTW, why didn't we hear not a fucking drop of anything from this Administration on this IMMEDIATELY IF we were to assume that the media somehow intercepted this without someone in the Admin. tipping them off? Did you hear a word about this from anyone in this Admin. before the SITE people came forward and exposed this Administration for their major fuck-up? Because one would assume that this Administration would be steaming mad as hell and would want to out those traitors at Faux News for exposing State Secrets like this, don't you think? But that's not what happened, was it? This SITE people came down and unzipped this Administration's fly by going public with this Admin's fuck-up instead. Funny that. And are we to really be surprised by the Press Secretary to say anything else but, "Nope, wasn't us. Hey, look over there, it's Sasquatch!!!!" *******runs out of room******* When has anyone in this Administration ever taken responsibility for their blunders? And just in case you're questioning how atrocious this might be, keep in mind the strange propensity of this Administration politicizing their War on Terra in efforts for a little "boost", such as that lovely Pakistani source that got burned before the 2004 election: http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_...185597245383648 And a certain CIA covert operative also comes to mind after her husband exposed our dear leader's Iraq nuke capability bullshit too. What was her name......... |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r So the fact that they're actually investigating doesn't mean anything then? Doesn't that, in fact, advocate responsibility in some way despite what the political press is taking everyone? |
| quote: |
| White House officials said the matter would be referred to the Director of National Intelligence, and that the White House was not planning any internal investigation. "When the White House receives information from an individual or a company, we refer that appropriately to the intelligence community. That's what happened here," Perino said. "And I'll have to refer you to the Director on National Intelligence for any process problem they had in that regard." |
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| Court ruling declared Bush�s program illegal on May 31: �After the 31st of May we were in extremis because now we have significantly less capability� when a federal court ruled part of the wiretapping program illegal, McConnell said. Private sector actively involved in wiretapping program: �Under the president�s program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us,� said McConnell. �Now if you play out the suits at the value they�re claimed, it would bankrupt these companies,� McConnell said, arguing for legal immunity for the companies when Congress returns from recess. McConnell denies White House involvement: �The president�s guidance to me early in the process, was, �You�ve got the experience. I trust your judgement. You make the right call. There�s no pressure from anybody here,� McConnell claimed. Thousands overseas are being monitored via warrants. �Offering never-disclosed figures, McConnell also revealed that fewer than 100 people inside the United States are monitored under FISA warrants. However, he said, thousands of people overseas are monitored,� states the AP. Takes 200 hours to assemble a wiretapping warrant: McConnell alleged that �the issue is volume and time� as to why he was so adamant about pursuing warrantless wiretapping. �My argument was that the intelligence community should not be restricted. � It takes about 200 man hours to do one telephone number.� http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/22...l-unclassified/ |
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| SCOTT: Does it come declassified just because you said or is there some process to declassify? McCONNELL: There is a process but it is ultimately a judgment call. [...] SCOTT: So we know when something was declassified. The moment of time it was declassified. Is there some record of that? McCONNELL: Not specifically. I�m sure it can be recovered some way if there is some if there�s a specific concern or question. http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/18...ell-declassify/ |
People are still debating whether this administration consists of incompetant retards that have pretty much fucked up everything it has touched? That's news in and of itself to me. This will become all the more clearer as the election approaches ...
/can't wait for "conservatives" here to figure out whether they should defend or attack arguments republicans make in 2008
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| Originally posted by occrider People are still debating whether this administration consists of incompetant retards that have pretty much fucked up everything it has touched? That's news in and of itself to me. This will become all the more clearer as the election approaches ... /can't wait for "conservatives" here to figure out whether they should defend or attack arguments republicans make in 2008 |
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 So where'd you vacation off to this time, you bastard? (yes, that's jealousy in my voice) |
. I gave my two weeks notice last Friday so I can actually goof off and post until I go on vacation. Glad to see everyone is still here holding up the fort!
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