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.
2220 Days since 9/11 and Osama is still free...........
With friends in the White House, it is no surprise....
Looks like someone was just getting too close to family members of Bu$h's oil partners....








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Zanubiyah wrote on 08 August 2007, in an article titled "Taking the Boogieman Off the Shelf" this...
"And...you gotta wonder the practical common sense, logical question here. I am not making acusations here, just asking reasonable questions. Why would Usama bin Laden "preview" a video on a terrorist Islamic site? If this is a known terrorist webpage, why is it still accessable on the internet, and why isn't it's originators in jail? How would the US intelligence Department get an "advanced copy" of it? If they can "intercept" a video, why can't they find out where it is originating from? Why, if Usama bin Laden's spin machine knew this video would be "intercepted" by the US intelligence, and if he had a message to the American people would he not just release it on the internet without warning? Who transcribes these videos, and why has never, the whole tirade been released to the American people in full context?
I watch the rollout of new products, specificlly movies. Note that they have critics talking, they offer previews and lots of advertising before hand to make you "anticipate" the product. Does anyone see the parallels here. Doesn't this Usama bin Laden video seem more like a marketing campaign, rather than a spontanious release of a madman?"
Thank you "adam" for finding and posting this article. It just goes to show me, and hopefully the others in here that we have no intention whatsoever to get Usama bin Laden as long as he and his minions can be used to put the fear in us enough to give our freedoms and privacies over to the Neocon "savior". It means all along that Usama bin Laden's hiding place may have been known all this time, and that his value as "the boogieman" is more important than his justice to the Neocon.
Again, the questions should arise...What do you worship? Who do you depend on to protect your family, cherished ones, friends and neigbours? What does "the savior" require you to give in return (since freedom is not free), and when will that savior find you not worthy enough to be under his domain. It seems to me that if one belives that God in omnipotant, there should not be a need to give over your rights to a man or his institutions. If there were more real faith in the omnipotant being, then Usama bin Laden and his minions would be much less of a threat to those who claim to believe because we would not be so driven to make decisions against the very essence that God put in us to be free by fear. And yet, I find that people who claim faith are the most afraid, and most willing to trust their freedoms and privacy to men
Using the boogieman to instill fear before a major debate about this war in this case was blatantly obvious to those not blinded by the light in this case. Unfortunatly, there are very few who have not looked into the sun of evil dressed just like us.
Wake up before we are awakend by the lash of the master we now empower.
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