Monday, August 28, 2006

Loose lips sink court cases

One recurring aspect of UK terrorism investigations is that more details seem to show up in US media outlets, suggesting blabbing by top US security officials. Therefore it's not surprising that the New York Times was sufficiently concerned about potential legal implications of its well-sourced story about the Heathrow liquid bomb plot in today's print edition to block it from its website. One conundrum though is that the NYT sourced its information to British officials, who surely must have known that they were leaking potentially prejudicial material. Could it be that the NYT is not being entirely upfront about who its sources actually are?

UPDATE: Having read the article again, there is no single highly sensitive revelation, but it was clearly based on interviews with people who had access to the inner workings of the investigation, including the text from alleged martyrdom videos, the seized evidence (including Lucozade bottles), and the Pakistan angle, in which the Pakistanis are said to have moved on Rashid Rauf (possibly in connection with a different investigation*) before the British wanted. In addition, the unnamed officials now seem keen to backtrack from John Reid's more hysterical declarations when the news first broke.

*It's unclear whether the Pakistanis were originally pursuing Rauf for the earlier crime, or whether it's been used a vehicle for a quicker extradition than the current plot details would allow.

FINAL UPDATE: The NYT story is now posted, but blocked in the UK. Backword summarises.

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