Osama Bin Laden Raid Yields Trove Of Computer Data

Politico:

The assault force of Navy SEALs snatched a trove of computer drives and disks during their weekend raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, yielding what a U.S. official called "the mother lode of intelligence."

Read the whole story: Politico

Comments

[cdiasmd]

08:42 PM on 05/05/2011

If UBL's IE favorites even had wikileaks.com saved in there...or a document from wikileaks... Manning is toast. His prosecutor is gonna get first dibs on those hard drives.

[Spiffy1]

09:01 AM on 05/04/2011

The CIA is scouring the binLaden computers for BHO's school transcripts..

[Tom Joad]

10:42 PM on 05/03/2011

...I pity the poor analyst that has to scroll through OBL's porn...

[ReMarker]

03:40 PM on 05/03/2011

Even if we didn't get any information just think how worried anyone that had anything to do with OBL is at this time.

Saying we got loads of data is good whether we got info or not.

[Bufford P Tusser]

03:44 PM on 05/03/2011

Lovein it!

[RoofinReality]

03:24 PM on 05/03/2011

I'd like to partially agree with Rush on this one, but I can't.
I wish we'd not said we'd gotten anything other than obl.

Howver, the survivors will certainly communicate that the Americans took everything we had in the house. So, anyone connected would know that the Americans took the info.
Further, if the bad guys are smart at all, they would EXPECT the Americans to take computers, notebooks, etc.
Lastly, perhaps sharing this info (see #1 and #2 above) makes some of these bad folks either reach out to the family to get info or makes them move from their current place to another place.
In so doing, they expose themselves. And that may be what the motivation is.

Whatever the reason, I'm confident in our leaders that they know what they're doing and why. After all, President Obama and his team did in fact get their target.

[jeanrenoir]

03:13 PM on 05/03/2011

Let's hope Obama can use this info to continue in his Michael Corleone role of cool, calm exterminator in chief. The sooner these rats are mercilessly wiped out, the better for this planet. Now Obama can exterminate the Republicans, too, with his newfound prestige as brilliant, cool, confident, and, above all, COMPETENT commander-in-chief. After all, the fools mocked the skinny Lincoln for years during the Civil War too. But he finally made fools of THEM, didn't he?

[vibroluxor]

03:02 PM on 05/03/2011

Another angle - thet may not have found anything, and just saying they did to see who flinches.

[Bufford P Tusser]

03:48 PM on 05/03/2011

Oh, I think they found plenty. Unless OBL knew what was coming, this is the mother lode. And if he knew what was coming he wouldn't of been there. Good bye to bad trash!

[ljc]

02:59 PM on 05/03/2011

poor you

[xMoonWalkerx]

02:43 PM on 05/03/2011

I am wondering what our response will be if we find from this motherlode of intelligence that Pakistan govt knew of the 911 attack before it happened?

[OcotilloKid]

03:07 PM on 05/03/2011

We should drop a tactical nuke on downtown Islamabad

[Bufford P Tusser]

03:58 PM on 05/03/2011

Unfortunately the considerable quantity of intelligence we've gained is largley off set by the enormous st00pidity on display by some posters.

[Devin1818]

10:22 AM on 05/04/2011

For some reason, your screen name repeatedly pops up on my profile page requesting to be fanned. This has been going on for weeks despite my repeated declinations and reports of this seeming harassment to the web managers. If this is coming from you, let me make even clearer what I wrote to you after your first request a few weeks ago. I will not fan you, now or probably ever. You have shown yourself to be a close-minded, hateful, pretentious and condescending snark. There is little if anything you have shown on these pages to recommend yourself to humanity. Stop bothering me.

[makemesmile]

03:10 PM on 05/03/2011

It would be more interesting to know what Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld knew about the 9/11 attack before it happened. Did Osama Bin Laden keep some important notes regarding their roles in the 9/11 tragedy?

[p47nandmosquito]

02:43 PM on 05/03/2011

Honestly, I wish news outlets weren't mentioning this. Intelligence is usually most useful when the enemy doesn't know you have it. Now they know we have something, and they probably have some idea what we could have. That means they'll take action to make it useless to us. Still, with luck, we can get something out of it, and the chaos lower down should make it easier.

[JohnSawyer]

02:53 PM on 05/03/2011

News outlets aren't mentioning this as some unauthorized act--US intelligence is happily telling the media about it, wanting them to report on it. US intelligence is proud of having not only killed bin Laden, but of having gotten possibly a large amount of useful information during the action.

The fact that bin Laden would have data onsite that might help US intelligence and the military, is no secret--it's not a leak. And it's not the first time. Years ago, US intelligence told the world that when bin Laden escaped capture in November 2001, he left behind his laptop, which they took possession of. It contained plenty of revealing data. The administration, intelligence, military, etc. consider it obvious that anyone, including militants, would understand that bin Laden's latest hideout would also be a source of computerized data.

There's also a practical reason for confirming this, as has been mentioned elsewhere: it gets members of al Qaeda worried and in motion to protect themselves, in which they sometimes take risks they normally wouldn't, appearing places where they can be observed, making phone calls that are inevitably monitored, etc. And none of that practice is secret either.

[p47nandmosquito]

03:05 PM on 05/03/2011

True, anyone could guess that they probably got information out of it. And perhaps the possibility would cause them to cover their tracks just as much. My thought is simply that it would be good to take advantage of the fact that they couldn't be sure if the troops had taken the time to gather the data before bugging out, and see if the US could make a few extra captures that way. Certainly it would be said later that this had been done, probably generating a similar result to what you're talking about.

[Bufford P Tusser]

04:01 PM on 05/03/2011

Dr. Sawyer

BINGO F&F

[Yeuk Moy]

03:19 PM on 05/03/2011

Don't worry. It is so obvious, that it was a given. The terrorists probably statred scrambling once word got out. What is can be just as telling is who called who to alert everybody that they have been compromised. NSA is probably working double overtime on that.

[CeeCee]

02:30 PM on 05/03/2011

The motherlode? Good. Now use it wisely.

[Littlewords]

02:28 PM on 05/03/2011

The strike has surely done two big things...

1) Confirms that the US will tenaciously pursue its most wanted at extreme cost and effort even over protracted periods of time when required, but find you and take you down they will.

2) The data collected from the compute and information/storage devices has got to be sending the harshest cold shiver down the spine of key A Qda members still in the network who now realize that US intelligence might know exactly who they are, where they are operating, what they are planning to do, and how they are financed and resourced.

Rather than various retaliations, other than from copy-wantabe folks, things will go quiet as the A Qda circle ducks and goes off the grid for a period of time in case their information is now exposed.

Given this team Obama should do two things...tamp down too much rhetoric and over the top noise about this entire affair, and should quietly (carrying a very big stick) seek out any others from available OBL data on his inner circle and network and take them down one at a time until the list of all are checked off as 'resolved.'

[Bufford P Tusser]

04:08 PM on 05/03/2011

Fanned for the insightful synopsis, faved for the "big stick" analogy.

Bufford

[gabright]

02:25 PM on 05/03/2011

"raid yields trove of valuable information".....well not any more, now that your incompetent administrations chooses to blabber/brag about it.

[JohnSawyer]

02:58 PM on 05/03/2011

US intelligence is the outfit happily revealing their possession of this data, wanting the media to report on it. US intelligence is proud of having not only killed bin Laden, but of having gotten possibly a large amount of useful information during the action. Also, al Qaeda will react to this information by doing things, and taking risks, that may reveal some of their plans, members, locations, etc.

[Bufford P Tusser]

04:26 PM on 05/03/2011

John Sawyer

A well reasoned and thoughtful post, sandwiched by buffoonery. And you are big enough to not stoop. Me, not so much. You go to Huff post with the brain you have, not the brain you want. (Donald Rumsfeld)

[Blufftonian]

02:01 PM on 05/03/2011

Chalk up another score for Cheney's Secret Assassinat­ion Squad.

[OcotilloKid]

02:23 PM on 05/03/2011

One of many

[Bufford P Tusser]

04:35 PM on 05/03/2011

ya, if you count that judge, that makes one.

[Bufford P Tusser]

04:41 PM on 05/03/2011

Bluff Allow me to speculate, your not a rocket surgeon in your day job.

[earto44]

01:54 PM on 05/03/2011

Note to spooks.
# 1 Big house with lot's of security? Check
# 2 No Interwebs or telephones? Check
# 3 Burning their own trash to avoid pick up? Check
You probably should look into these types of homes.

[expanse]

02:25 PM on 05/03/2011

They did.

[doublerainbow]

02:35 PM on 05/03/2011

I believe earato44 was speaking about the Pakistani government.

[earto44]

08:07 PM on 05/03/2011

Speaking about other homes with the same set up.

Not a bad check list.

[p47nandmosquito]

02:45 PM on 05/03/2011

Actually, it was notably lacking in security, there was not a single guard, which is rather unusual for the house of anyone with a major threat to their life.

[MsMassachusetts]

03:08 PM on 05/03/2011

Maybe because he was 1000 feet from the Pakistan Military academy, his own personal body guards.