Over the course of the last six years, the news media has been admonished by the White House and other supporters of the Iraq war that some of the material they publish helps the enemy. One example of that is when the stories about torture first broke: Publishing such material, we were told, only helps the terrorists. Better to keep such information secret, said the White House.
That is certainly good, sound advice. We certainly don't want to give too much information about our methods, do we?
So what happened about a month ago? A small American company that specializes in surveillance of terrorist websites obtained a new video from Osama bin Laden. The company managed to pull this off without Al Qaeda knowing about it. They were using some secret method to get early information from the terrorists, thereby allowing us to anticipate their next moves.
Unfortunately, this time the information got out to the media too early, enabling Al Qaeda to trace the source of their inside leak and seal it. So who was this irresponsible party that cost the United States a major intelligence source? Was it those liberal assholes at the New York Times? Or the idiots at the Washington Post who have no qualms about endangering us all as long as they can sell a few extra newspapers? Or maybe the morons at CNN who trying to beat Fox News to the scoop?
Well, actually it wasn't any of them. This time the source of the dangerous leak was... the White House itself!
The company that obtained the video passed it along to some officials in the Bush administration with a warning that it was to remain secret. Well, within hours it was being downloaded by everyone and their grandmother, thus tipping off Al Qaeda that they had a security breach.
No word on whether anyone at the the White House plans to publicly criticize themselves for endangering the American people, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
That is certainly good, sound advice. We certainly don't want to give too much information about our methods, do we?
So what happened about a month ago? A small American company that specializes in surveillance of terrorist websites obtained a new video from Osama bin Laden. The company managed to pull this off without Al Qaeda knowing about it. They were using some secret method to get early information from the terrorists, thereby allowing us to anticipate their next moves.
Unfortunately, this time the information got out to the media too early, enabling Al Qaeda to trace the source of their inside leak and seal it. So who was this irresponsible party that cost the United States a major intelligence source? Was it those liberal assholes at the New York Times? Or the idiots at the Washington Post who have no qualms about endangering us all as long as they can sell a few extra newspapers? Or maybe the morons at CNN who trying to beat Fox News to the scoop?
Well, actually it wasn't any of them. This time the source of the dangerous leak was... the White House itself!
The company that obtained the video passed it along to some officials in the Bush administration with a warning that it was to remain secret. Well, within hours it was being downloaded by everyone and their grandmother, thus tipping off Al Qaeda that they had a security breach.
No word on whether anyone at the the White House plans to publicly criticize themselves for endangering the American people, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
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