Why does information like this get into the media?
 

Read this:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/808393.asp

If they did a better job of keeping their surveilance techniques a secret than they would still be able to use it to gather info on supposed terrorists in the US, but if these terrorists can read about the fact that their calls are being tracked than they're gonna stop making calls completely, so then you don't get to listen to their conversations anymore.

Are they just really bad about keeping their surveilance techniques a secret? or are they leaking this info on purpose?

media = poop

I would bet a good bit of the "revealing" information that we receive was leaked on purpose.

I remember last year when CNN reported that the US had intercepted radio conversations in Tora Bora that they believed were Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda leaders. I don't know why CNN got this info, but they blabbed it for all the world to know.

A day after CNN reported this, they started reporting that the radio conversations had stopped.

Of course they stopped! As if Bin Laden would keep talking on a radio that is being listened in on by US intelligence.

So what was the benefit of that info getting out into the public? Can't the people who are listening in on these conversations keep it a secret?

CNN is a CIA intelligence gathering organisation

This is the same government that "planed a highly secret operation to crash airliners into buildings"?

I just find it ironic that one group of people think the U.S. government runs secret operations with cracker jack decoder rings, then hear (sometimes from the same people) that the government is responsible for huge conspiracies and cover-ups.

Which is it folks? LOL

Much of the time, the media just reports what they are leaked by the government. It's not as simple as you think.

I think CNN IS the CIA!

Wolf Blitzer is the cheif that's why he's always in the middle of everything! Did you ever wonder why he is always able to get into hostile territories the military has to fight to get in untouched? :1orglaugh

If that information is floating around out there and no one from the Bush Administration (which never met any information it didn't want to withhold from the American people), you can bet they WANT it there. It seems to me that they have really been following the government's line lately ...

At the end of the article it says that the sting was enabled by the Patriot Act.

Bingo.....

Who told CNN? The CIA?

The info we get is only there because they want it there.

Consider this. Government fears that those area of communications are being used and cannot really track them very well so they leak a story to CNN that they are now tracking them, so the terroists decide they have to find other methods of communicating, thus causing it to be more difficult for "cells" to be in contact. Viable theory or not?

Maybe they were just pretending to make the US people think that A> they were getting something done B> he was definitely the guy

Everybody and their mother knows the NSA can listen in on phone calls - and that radio conversations aren't secret.

theking:

I wouldn't be surpised - there is probably something to that.

I have have read that police have introduced static into lines ON PURPOSE of lines under surveillance in order to get people talking.

"Did you here that static"

"Yeah, maybe someone is bugging us."

"Hope they don't find out about hoffa being under my waterbed."

Don't know if it is true or not, but when an investigation is stalled - police can and will get tricky to get the results they need.

It wouldn't be illegal to lie to the press.

Not sure if it happened in this case.

I can't even get that article to come up - but from what I saw on the news today - sounds like the gov't is saying

"We know they were doing something - we just don't know what it is yet."

From the CNN Article:

"There's a definition in the statutes of what providing material resources and support is, and anything that's alleged in the complaint does not fit within that definition," attorney Jim Harrington told CNN. "This is going to be a difficult legal case, I think."


The gov't is going to be up a creek if they don't make this one stick. US judges are getting a little sick of the lack of honesty and professionalism in the FBI. Two foreign countries (germany and britain) have already thumbed their noses at the FBI's "evidence" by letting suspects go that they didn't have any legitimate reason to hold.

Soon the ra ra ra, U-S-A, let's roll, red white and blue stuff is going to fade enough to where people are going to actually expect EVIDENCE again in criminal cases.

As easy as it is for people to transfer information I think in some respects journalists are outpacing the government when it comes to intelligence. Most of the information gathering is based on relationships and research. If you take all of the super tech wire taps out of the equation some journalists have to be a step ahead.

For instance, if you studied the case of the journalist Daniel Pearl you can see that he got extremely deep into Pakistani underbelly even though he was a Jew! He still got killed of course but he got a lot of information out of the deal.

I imagine there are many many more journalists that have better connections and get information. I'm sure these same journalists have been doing this for decades so they would have to have a great inside track.

The point is, as hard as it is to stifle information now a days thanks to this internet thing, some of the information the government can't control.

One long time journalist said that investigative reporting used to be about exposing the inappropriate actions of government, but now it is about exposing scandal, usually sex, drugs, drinking and all of the important stuff.

On any given day 75% of what's in the news is inaccurate to some degree. Of course on some days I'd bet its 100%/