CIA thwarts underwear bomber.

[Screaming_Emu]

That's it...time to ban underwear.

 

[A Life Aloft]

That's it...time to ban underwear.

Excellent solution and very cost effective! Fly commando baby!

 

[Qutch]

........What I guess I'm curious about is wondering how some of you can pull up these little known public documents and videos, on obscure, sometimes still partially classified subjects at the drop of a hat. Spooky. You guys have to know more than you're telling us. Google doesn't provide that service.

A few members of JC make their living, at least partly, doing Open Source Intelligence research. OSINT experience, combined with some field experience in the topic area (like ex-military), and practitioners often easily find enough bread crumbs in public circulation to tell the story without the aid of Official Disclosure or classified docs. And you are correct, there are special fee based public data bases (like Nexus-Lexis and Westlaw). In addition, there are advanced search techniques that allow users to by-pass the crazy conspiracy websites, and go right to the less well known .gov and .edu sites that actually contain the real data.

As inigo88 said, "It's the idea that any secret or classified program or activity leaves a trickle of breadcrumbs behind in the public domain. Every time you find a bit of circumstantial evidence, you try and connect it to the other bits you already know and arrive at some theory through deductive reasoning."
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OSINT is so effective, that the CIA uses it, Law Firms use it, and private companies are being set up to provide pay-by-the-job intelligence to paying customers.

Example : "The OSINT Group provides training, research and information services, special studies and security assessments integrating world-class human expertise with automated tools to produce our unique, "just enough, just in time" research information tailored to support a specific decision.

Integration and implementation of specialized services founded on validated processes, continuous and measured improvement using quantitative performance data, and the delivery of seamless and responsive services are applied to the analytical modeling and implementation of automated toolsets."
http://www.theosintgroup.com/open_source_intelligence.html
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[Qutch]

Oh, now here's a shock. In the month following the announcement of a second CIA orchestrated (sorry, I'm supposed to say....) "infiltrated", al-Qaida planned underwear bomb attack on a commercial airliner, the Federal Gov't is demanding renewed emphasis on surveillance.

FBI Chief urges renewal of surveillance measures after foiled al-Qaida plot

"Boom ! " ....FBI director Robert Mueller told the House judiciary committee that the new pax wearable bomb highlights the need to step up surveillance measures. (The FBI Chief likes to use his hands and utter sound effects when testifying to show how big the 'boom' will be if they don't get the funding and authority they want.)

"Robert Mueller told a congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday that the supposed plot, revealed by the Associated Press, demonstrated the need to renew surveillance provisions that expire at the end of the year." Source: The Guardian, UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/09/fbi-surveillance-measures-al-qaida?intcmp=239

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My Comment : The media knows what's really going on here, but dares not say. Note the words "supposed plot" used in the article.

Fool us once, shame on them. Fool us twice, shame on us.
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