However, this is a weak argument as it is impossible to tie consequence to action - in the end, there's no way to justifiably say that 'X happened because of Y'.
The article itself admits that several enemy leaders have been caught unaware by the program, and their resources-in-transit seized. No, we don't know what they would have done had they not been caught, but I think it's fair to say things would be nastier for our side. From there it follows that we're going to miss out on some choice captures and fail to intercept large wads of cash being used in terrorist activity. (Intelligence is actually in the process of determining a damage assessment from the revelation of the program.)
The term is almost always applied to information regarding EVENTS (which is to say, occurances or operations that occur over a relatively brief timespan) and NOT to long-running programs because such programs have an increased weight in regards to the public interest and therefore it is more difficult to justify their continued classification.
During WWII, we broke the German's codes early and used that information in the ULTRA program to predict several of their submarine movements. ULTRA continued for the duration of the war and wasn't declassified until the 70s. Had a newspaper revealed the existence of the program, the Germans would have switched codes and their sub fleet would have been deadly again.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2006-06-30 05:07 am (UTC)The article itself admits that several enemy leaders have been caught unaware by the program, and their resources-in-transit seized. No, we don't know what they would have done had they not been caught, but I think it's fair to say things would be nastier for our side. From there it follows that we're going to miss out on some choice captures and fail to intercept large wads of cash being used in terrorist activity. (Intelligence is actually in the process of determining a damage assessment from the revelation of the program.)
The term is almost always applied to information regarding EVENTS (which is to say, occurances or operations that occur over a relatively brief timespan) and NOT to long-running programs because such programs have an increased weight in regards to the public interest and therefore it is more difficult to justify their continued classification.
During WWII, we broke the German's codes early and used that information in the ULTRA program to predict several of their submarine movements. ULTRA continued for the duration of the war and wasn't declassified until the 70s. Had a newspaper revealed the existence of the program, the Germans would have switched codes and their sub fleet would have been deadly again.