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Politics : FREE AMERICA -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (1850)	4/13/2006 5:57:17 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 14758

DID LEAKING THE NSA PROGRAM REALLY HURT NATIONAL SECURITY? Andy McCarthy The Corner The NSA's terrorist surveillance program was illegally leaked to the NYTimes [My edit: and illegally reported to the public by the NYT], which elected to reveal the program publicly in mid-December. Defenders of the Times' decision have sought to deflect criticism of its compromise of a wartime signals intellligence program (the purpose of which is to root out and thwart further attacks on the homeland) by arguing that our enemies already knew we were trying to intercept their communications so, in essence, "what's the big deal?" This has always been an empty contention. Legions of people have been undone by wiretaps under circumstances when they were well-aware it was risky to be communicating over phones, email or in places very likely to be surveilled. Now, consider this, from a Washington Post story from yesterday (emphasis mine): <<< Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the nonprofit research group Rand Corp., said that ... electronic communication is still popular among terrorists but that they must constantly keep up with ways to avoid leaving electronic tracks. ... "This kind of tradecraft is essential to survival," Hoffman said. They know the authorities are using wiretaps and monitoring satellite phones, so they are constantly trying to come up with ways to go around it, he said. When terrorist groups learned that the National Security Agency could track electronic communication only when it was in transit -- not when it was sitting in an inbox -- users started drafting messages in free e-mail accounts, then allowing others to log in to the accounts and read the drafts. No message ever had to be sent. "I would be surprised if this kind of electronic communication is diminished," Hoffman said. "They are just going to greater efforts to obfuscate it. They are hoping that with the volume of e-mail traffic, if they take the appropriate precautions, they can [communicate] undetected." >>> School is always in session when it comes to our enemies' attention to our intelligence methods. Educating them in wartime is unconscionable. corner.nationalreview.com washingtonpost.com