Remember last August when it was leaked that the US was facing a serious and imminent terrorist threat? We shut down 19 embassies for a week in response. It turns out that leaking that informtaion, along with the names of senior al-Qaeda officials who were discussing the plot, badly damaged our ability to spy on the terrorists. New York Times: Since news reports in early August revealed that the United States intercepted messages between Ayman al-Zawahri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as the head of Al Qaeda, and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, discussing an imminent terrorist attack, analysts have detected a sharp drop in the terrorists' use of a major communications channel that the authorities were monitoring. Since August, senior American officials have been scrambling to find new ways to surveil the electronic messages and conversations of Al Qaeda's leaders and operatives. "The switches weren't turned off, but...(Read Full Post)