TODAY show news report: Saudi tip about suspicious packages included TRACKING NUMBERS

[ProgressiveEconomist]

for them.

How could the Saudis have supplied specific tracking numbers for the packages intercepted on their way to Chicago from Dubai and Midlands?

WHAT'S YOUR OPINION?

[drm604]

1. Good intelligence work?

They may have people inside the terrorist networks. This would have to have come from someone pretty close to the plot.

[lamp_shade]

2. That was suggested by a couple of the "expert military analysts" on CNN/MSNBC yesterday.

[drm604]

4. Thinking about it some more...

Who would leak this kind of information about how important intelligence is gathered?

I'm thinking that it may not even be true.

[Turbineguy]

3. They learned from the Bush Administration?

[SpiralHawk]

7. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R)

"Of course, almost ALL the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi -- and not a one was from Iraq. Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R)

[csziggy]

5. If the shippers used a routine UPS feature to notify the recipients

That would include the tracking numbers. UPS and FedEx have a app that lets shippers send notification to the recipients. That notification includes a link to the shipping company site with the tracking number so the recipient can keep track of the package progress. If these were shipped undercover as routine shipments, the notifications could have gone out automatically. If intelligence agencies were monitoring specific email accounts, they could have gotten the information and followed up to find out that the packages contained explosives.

[AngryOldDem]

6. I'm no expert but when I hear "tracking numbers"

I think of the numbers that UPS and FedEx use when they ship packages. They do exactly that -- keep tabs on packages from point of drop-off to delivery.

:shrug:

[GoCubsGo]

8. Yep. Every package gets one. n/t

[stray cat]

9. How do you thinp packages are correctly routed?

[kstewart33]

10. A plot to tilt the midterm election.

On Friday before the 2004 Bush-Kerry election, Osama bin Laden released a tape beseeching the American people to vote for Kerry not Bush. It was not until months later that our brilliant media figured it out, duh. He of course wanted Bush to win because as long as Bush was prez, al Qaeda had a much easier time recruiting and motivating their troops and ginning up US hatred in the Mideast.

So, on Friday before the midterms, some packages are discovered and publicized. It's the best al Qaeda could do to boost Repub voting on Tuesday. It gins up the fears about terrorism, a topic which always motivates people to vote Repub (it's the one guaranteed issue where Repubs always outpoll Dems on who's best to handle it), and thereby increases the Repub vote.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

11. You mean, the Saudis have the tracking numbers because THEY sent the packages?

[roamer65]

12. Sounds like a plot hatched by Bandar Bush and the Bush Crime Family.

...but that's just a "theory".

[ProgressiveEconomist]

13. A woman has been arrested in Yemen for mailing the packages. Is she a hapless

asset of Saudi intelligence? A random scapegoat? An Al-Quaeda zealot?