Wiretaps fail to make dent in terror war; al Qaeda used messengers

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/wiretaps_0.htm

U.S. law enforcement sources said that more than four years of surveillance by the National Security Agency has failed to capture any high-level al Qaeda operative in the United States. They said al Qaeda insurgents have long stopped using the phones and even computers to relay messages. Instead, they employ couriers.

"They have been way ahead of us in communications security," a law enforcement source said. "At most, we have caught some riff-raff. But the heavies remain free and we believe some of them are in the United States."

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But despite the huge amount of raw material gathered under the legislation, the FBI has not captured one major al Qaeda operative
in the United States. Instead, federal authorities have been allowed to use non-terrorist material obtained through the surveillance program for investigation and prosecution.

In more than one case, the sources said, a surveillance target was prosecuted on non-terrorist charges from information obtained through wiretaps conducted without a court order. They said the FBI supported this policy in an attempt to pressure surveillance targets to cooperate.

N/T

of her local library.

I guess we'll just have to go back to the old-fashioned methods - racial & religious profiling, bashing in doors, and torture.