Well, of course! Marketing always trumps national security in this administration:
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.
UPDATE: Buzzflash points out something I should have seen (but in my defense, I hadn’t yet had any caffeine:
Bizarre, Bizarre Bushevik Relationship with an “Anti-Terrorist” Organization Called “SITE” That We’ve Been Meaning to Write a News Analysis About. Okay, This Group Called “SITE” is Allegedly Finding Stuff Out About Al-Qaeda Before the Bush Administration, Such as the Alleged Latest Osama Tape with the Photo-Shopped Beard. Now, the Woman Who Runs It — Who Allegedly is Paid a Large Consulting Fee by The White House — is Accusing the Bush Administration of Destroying Her “Sources” for Finding Out Things About the “Terrorists” That the Bush Administration Doesn’t Know. So, She Goes to the Washington Post Complaining that the Bush Administration is Undercutting the War on Terrorism, In Essence, by Leaking the Alleged Osama Tape Too Early After She Sent it To Them. Our Question is Why is this Small Private Organization Called “SITE” Allegedly Beating Our Intelligence Agencies to Information About Osama? Why Isn’t the CIA The WH Source? Uh, This is Mind Boggling. And She Regularly Appears to be Supplying the Busheviks with “Secret” Information. This is THE Story that the WP Should be Investigating, Not Her Strange Whining to Them. What the Heck is “SITE” Doing Being Several Steps Ahead of the Combined Department of Homeland Security Intelligence Operation? Or are They Just a WH Propaganda Plant? A Very Strange Story Indeed.
Of course it was leaked. They can’t have working intelligence or else the terrorist would be stopped and then where would they be? Just sad that it’s that transparent.
Once the insufficiently-loyal Iraq war skeptics were purged from the CIA (you know, like the ones that actually understand Arabic), then their efficiency at actually getting useful intelligence from the Middle East took a bit of a nosedive.
Good thing that there are alternatives, like freelance contractors. The amazing thing is that apparently some are actually competant. That must be, like, a first for ShrubCo.
Oh yeah, and torturing random dark-skinned furriners. They don’t get much useful out of them either, but the screams and pleading warms the cockles of Unka Dick’s mechanical heart.
well, really, this is all smoke and mirrors. 9/11 was an inside job and al Qaeda should be known more properly as al-CIA_duh.
Why doesn’t the CIA know about this?
For an exhaustive, stomach-turning explanation, go get A Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner, and read from the Agency’s own secret history how totally FUBAR’ed the CIA has been from the very beginning.
Beyond looking into why the CIA isn’t getting this info, perhaps we should be thinking really hard about who the Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen is today.
“Why Isn’t the CIA The WH Source? Uh, This is Mind Boggling”
No it’s not. Fer christssake, do you think Blackwater is unique?
“The Defense Intelligence Agency is preparing to pay private contractors up to $1 billion to conduct core intelligence tasks of analysis and collection over the next five years, an amount that would set a record in the outsourcing of such functions by the Pentagon’s top spying agency…..The proposed contracts, outlined in a recent early notice of the DIA’s plans, reflect a continuing expansion of the Defense Department’s intelligence-related work and fit a well-established pattern of Bush administration transfers of government work to private contractors…..Since 2000, the value of federal contracts signed by all agencies each year has more than doubled to reach $412 billion, with the largest growth at the Defense Department, according to a congressional tally in June. Outsourcing particularly accelerated among intelligence agencies after the 2001 terrorist attacks caught many of them unprepared to meet new demands with their existing workforce.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/18/AR2007081800992.html
“Mike McConnell, the man President Bush tapped to replace John Negroponte as National Intelligence Director, has been a leading figure in outsourcing U.S. intelligence operations to private industry. McConnell is a former director of the National Security Agency and the current director of defense programs at Booz Allen”
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/12/151224
That was my reaction - except my first thought was, “hey, a private security group that seems to be doing it’s job.” My next thought was yours. Where is the accountability?
John is right that the WH does not want genuine intelligence. Sunday a NYT editorial concluded that choosing not to torture or operate secret prisons is an easy choice, then failed to ponder why Cheney/Bush would choose to embrace torture and secret prisons.
The answer is that American values and good “intelligence” are not among Cheney’s priorities – Cheney wants hype-able intelligence (what he really means by “actionable”), the scarier the fabrication the better. Torture is very well suited to producing such “actionable intelligence.” Torture and secret prisons also play a major role in stifling dissent during a country’s descent into fascism. Full rant here: http://www.spectrumz.com/z/alejandro/why_make_stupid_choice.html
I guess it couldn’t be that SITE is getting “help” from Mossad. Katz, an Israeli citizen(born in Iraq)….NAHW cLOne eLvis