A Real Security Breach: Larry Johnson

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After reading Ron Suskind's book, The One Percent Doctrine, I am wondering whether the attack on the NY Times for its report that the CIA was receiving SWIFT data was intended to divert public attention from the astonishing revelations in his book. Shortly after Suskind's book was published, the attack on the New York Times commenced. I'm not blaming Suskind for violating national security. I don't think he should be prosecuted. However, several of the sources for his book, Dennis Lormel in particular, have harmed national security by divulging information that was not publicly known and has played a critical role in exposing what the United State Government is doing to go after terrorists.

Let's start with the revelation that the CIA and the FBI have been given access to Western Union data and have used this information to track and disrupt several terrorist networks. Take a look at page 231-233, where Suskind details how the Western Union data was passed to the Israelies and used to track operatives of Palestinain Islamic Jihad (PIJ). According to Suskind, a Western Union official gave the FBI info about a PIJ transaction in April 2003:


The Terrorism Section of the Department of Justice, on twenty-four-hour call, kicked into gear. In an arrangement with the U.S. Federal Court for the Eastern district of Virginia, based in Alexandria, they issued an instantaneous subpoena. It allowed Western Union--a U.S.-based company--to notify FBIK and CIA about which location the oney was being wired to, and who was picking it up. All of it occurred in minutes. Israeli intelligence ooficers were hailed. They raced, silently, to the right Western Union office in Hebron, and then followed the PIJ courier to his safe house in the West Bank. From there, electronic surveillance equipment swiftly tracked communications to other cells in the Palestinian territories.

For the love of God, why expose a capability that was top secret and not publicly known? Unlike the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal stories on the SWIFT transactions--which was publicly known and did not capture terrorist activities--this is a bombshell. It was done within the law and it played a critical role in finding terrorists and preventing subsequent attacks. Why reveal it? No good reason except to feed the egos of those involved. Based on Suskind's book it appears that Dennis Lormel was one of the principle sources for this story. I don't know Dennis and have no vendetta against him, but there is absolutely no reason to justify his decision to release this story to the press. And Dennis had the gall to criticize the New York Times? That is bullshit!

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