Office of the Independent Blogger

There’s an intense, controversial story out today in the Washington Post and New York Sun about the Osama bin Laden tape and an intelligence “failure” that has occurred as a result.

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.

The last line in the excerpt stands out to me. I believe it, just because I imagine the American government fully capable of tracking al-Qaeda, still, and because of the points raised in this account of the incident.

I know what the NY Sun and Washington Post are saying about a major source of intel being burned by a leak, but it just isn’t so. Rita Katz and the SITE Institute do a great job, but attributing the interception of this video to them is just false. Sure, they intercepted the video–as did Laura Mansfield and other groups that do similar work as SITE, but let’s check the claim out.

WaPo:

at 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, [SITE] notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition.
And in the Sun article:
Rita Katz, said she personally provided the video on September 7 to the deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter.
So, SITE claims they are the source of the video given to the White House. Rita claims she personally gave the video to authorities on September 7th. But let’s take a quick look at the very bottom of the translation of the video leaked by ABC’s Blotter:

That means that the White House had a translation of the video a full 24 hours before SITE intercepted it. Apparently, our intel guys are better than we thought.

Sure, the fools over at al Ekhlaas have closed down their back room, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other back rooms.

So, just because SITE’s intel source got burned, doesn’t mean that we’ve lost capability of tracking al Qaeda online. In fact, SITE was not the only one that had the “new” bin Laden 9/11 video before it was supposed to be released, as these two articles suggest.

Both Intel Center and Laura Mansfield also had the video. Hell, I had the video.

So, sorry to hear that SITE has lost its edge. And it really sucks that it was someone at The White House who leaked the video.

But why would you give the video to the White House and not to the FBI or CIA? The White House leaks like a sieve. That’s just the way the White House works.

I’m also sorry to hear that this scared al Qaeda into being more cautious. In fact, that same day al Ekhlaas and a few other jihadi forums went down. There was a lot of speculation as to why. Some at the time claimed that the online Zionist conspiracy had hacked al Ekhlaas. But now we know why they went down: to upgrade their security measures.

But no matter how hard they try, they will never be as good as we are.

If there is further to this, I will update you, Dear Reader, but as it stands, I don’t imagine our counter-terror capabilities damaged but who knows.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Outside Retort (Current Affairs).