[crypt2k]

Messages can be encrypted and then tucked away in digital and audio images and are next to impossible to detect.

The Bin Laden network can now communicate with impunity.

Terrorists have become the lowest snakes in a dense, dark electronic jungle.

[Fulbright]

So much data, so little coordination and connection of the dots.

I was thinking today of the holocaust sites and the $350 billion spent yearly on defense and intelligence vs. the $500,000 budget for the terror operations.

Real security would seem to be a matter of individual responsibility.

[Timesink]

boastful NSA officials used to replay recorded satellite telephone conversations between the master terrorist and his mother in his native Saudi Arabia.

I thought the Bin Laden family had DISOWNED Osama. If this is true, what's he doing on the phone to Mom? More importantly, how much of the Bin Laden fortune is Mom funneling to Osama's buddies?

[fordlight]

But last year those calls abruptly ceased, presumably because bin Laden realized that the NSA was snooping on him

Have you noticed reporters are no longer mentioning how Binsky found out?

He read it in a NEWSPAPER REPORT!

All the latest descriptions I've seen try to make it sound like we don't even know why he stopped using the phone.

I WANT TO KNOW THE REPORTER'S NAME!!

The name should be known and repeated and repeated.

No more of this false, fraudulent and misleading "presumably" stuff!!

(REPORTER: Well, I'll be darned! Bin Laden Down doesn't use the phone anymore! I wonder why!? Maybe he just up and figured it out on his own! I better not say anything about my stupid colleague, maybe they won't say anything about me. Professional Courtesy, and all.)

[denydenydeny]

The story of the NSA playing Osama's phone messages comes from James Bamford's book Body of Secrets, which was published in April 2001; most reviews of the book mentioned the Bin Laden detail.

[dr_who]

hmmm! Why are these college students from the same dorm ordering pizzas with THE SAME TOPPINGS?

[Spook86]

Overload has always been a problem in the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) business. That's why NSA and its globals "partners" have to use key words and supercomputers to sort through the reams of material collected each day. Unless the material is collected by an airborne platform, or a ground-based post with specific target responsibilities, most conversations and other collected voice signals don't cross an analyst's work station unless they've been flagged by some sort of screening program. Of course, the fact that we lack enough linguists that speak "Pushto" (local Afghan dialect) only adds to the problem....

[Nick Danger]

analysts can't keep pace with the growing mountains of clues

[Common Tator]

Until recently, Echelon had such a firm tap on bin Laden that during briefings for visiting dignitaries, boastful NSA officials used to replay recorded satellite telephone conversations between the master terrorist and his mother in his native Saudi Arabia.

BULL DOUBLE YOU EYE SH*T! If Clinton had known how to get bin Laden, he would not have settled for two camel butts and an Aspirin factory.