[telecom] Qaeda Plot Leak Has Undermined U.S. Intelligence

Qaeda Plot Leak Has Undermined U.S. Intelligence

By ERIC SCHMITT and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT September 29, 2013

WASHINGTON - As the nation's spy agencies assess the fallout from disclosures about their surveillance programs, some government analysts and senior officials have made a startling finding: the impact of a leaked terrorist plot by Al Qaeda in August has caused more immediate damage to American counterterrorism efforts than the thousands of classified documents disclosed by Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor.

Since news reports in early August revealed that the United States intercepted messages between Ayman al-Zawahri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as the head of Al Qaeda, and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, discussing an imminent terrorist attack, analysts have detected a sharp drop in the terrorists' use of a major communications channel that the authorities were monitoring. Since August, senior American officials have been scrambling to find new ways to surveil the electronic messages and conversations of Al Qaeda's leaders and operatives.

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***** Moderator's Note *****

"Major communications channel". Sounds, um, vaguely vague. Sounds like someone trying to give the impression that all right-thinking Americuns will accept the hint and leave the guvmint boys to their work.

Sounds like someone pumping up their copy with non-facts: the New York Times, which published the Pentagon Papers, has gone down a notch in my estimation.

Bill Horne Moderator

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Monty Solomon
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