ABC News Helped Osama Escape Capture

No, it is not a joke or a lie. Once again, a news outlet here in the US has exposed a classified operation to the enemy that has prevented us from capturing or killing key enemy figures ... including Osama bin Laden.

From now on when someone raises the question of why we haven't been able to get bin Laden after all of these years ... you respond by saying that the NY Times and ABC News are the ones responsible.

NY Sun:

Al Qaeda's Internet communications system has suddenly gone dark to American intelligence after the leak of Osama bin Laden's September 11 speech inadvertently disclosed the fact that we had penetrated the enemy's system.

The intelligence blunder started with what appeared at the time as an American intelligence victory, namely that the federal government had intercepted, a full four days before it was to be aired, a video of Osama bin Laden's first appearance in three years in a video address marking the sixth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. On the morning of September 7, the Web site of ABC News posted excerpts from the speech.

But the disclosure from ABC and later other news organizations tipped off Qaeda's internal security division that the organization's Internet communications system, known among American intelligence analysts as Obelisk, was compromised. This network of Web sites serves not only as the distribution system for the videos produced by Al Qaeda's production company, As-Sahab, but also as the equivalent of a corporate intranet, dealing with such mundane matters as expense reporting and clerical memos to mid- and lower-level Qaeda operatives throughout the world.

The article then explains how AQ hacks legitimate websites, without the knowledge of site's owners, in order to communicate with each other.

One intelligence officer who requested anonymity said in an interview last week that the intelligence community watched in real time the shutdown of the Obelisk system. America's Obelisk watchers even saw the order to shut down the system delivered from Qaeda's internal security to a team of technical workers in Malaysia. That was the last internal message America's intelligence community saw. "We saw the whole thing shut down because of this leak," the official said. "We lost an important keyhole into the enemy."

Government agencies are now denying that they were responsible for the leak, but it is impossible to speak on behalf of all of their employees.

Bottom line is that the evidence shows the leak came from a government employee after they were told it was classified ... we don't know who yet. After they leaked the video and transcript to ABC News ... ABC should have withheld the information until after it was aired.

These news organizations must be required to make a choice between the welfare of this nation and their "scoop." So far, the nation comes second. The US government had better start reimplementing some of the internal security measures we had in place during the Cold War, or senseless leaks will continue so long as their is money and/or a political objective to be reached.

Make sure you go to the Sun's website for the full story.