[DEBATE] : Fwd: Bin Laden tipped off by White House

[Sean Jacobs]

> 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."
>
>
>  © 2007 The Washington Post Company
>
>
>