So much for the family disowning BL.

NYPost

DATA POURING IN FASTER THAN NSA CAN DECIPHER IT

By GREG SEIGLE

September 30, 2001 -- An overload of information from America's most secret computer program and the challenge of detecting encrypted online messages could be hampering the National Security Agency's efforts to locate terrorist Osama bin Laden.

The NSA's super-secret spy gizmo Echelon is spewing forth so much information, analysts can't keep pace with the growing mountains of clues that may lead to bin Laden's hidden lair, intelligence experts say.

Echelon, a computerized interception program so powerful authorities do not officially acknowledge its existence, is gathering data so fast that investigators are drowning in new information as they attempt to sift through the past year's data, much of which now needs to be more closely scrutinized, sources say.

The backlog of intercepted communiqués from the Middle East, Africa and even the United States is so massive that it's possible NSA agents already possess recorded communications between terrorists who planned the Sept. 11 kamikaze atrocities in New York and Washington - but haven't had time to decode them, sources said.

"They spend too much time collecting information and not enough time deciphering and analyzing," said James Bamford, author of the only two books about the NSA - this year's "Body of Secrets" and 1982's "The Puzzle Palace."

The far-reaching power of Echelon seemingly has not gone unnoticed by bin Laden.

Until recently, Echelon had such a firm tap on bin Laden that during briefings for visiting dignitaries, boastful NSA officials used to replay recorded satellite telephone conversations between the master terrorist and his mother in his native Saudi Arabia.

But last year those calls abruptly ceased, presumably because bin Laden realized that the NSA was snooping on him - ending intercepts that could pinpoint his location and expose him to targeted air or ground strikes.

"The guy has a lot of survival instincts," said Charles Duelfer, a former top U.N. investigator and now a terrorism scholar with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2001

Answers

"The guy has a lot of survival instincts," said Charles Duelfer, a former top U.N. investigator and now a terrorism scholar with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

You know. . .as much as they are probably paying that guy, couldn't he come up with anything more profound that that? I mean, no shit, Sherlock. Surely to get that sort of a job, he had to attend college of some sort, and presumably possesses a degree or two. Is it just me, or is anyone else getting real fed up with nincompoops? Or am I just crabby?

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2001

You know, this is exactly what I thought would happen. Snooping devices like Carnivore are only good when things are simple and quiet. When there are only a couple problems going on that can be studied. When all hell breaks loose, the system overloads and is useless. We even had that happen with the primitive intelligence systems we used in WWII. Data starts coming in so fast, and in such quantities that there aren't enough qualified people to process it.

Sort of like that I Love Lucy skit when she was at the candy conveyor belt and it started running too fast. Now, with Internet traffic at the level it is, and increasing every single week, there just isn't time to separate the wheat from the chaff. And there's a lot of chaff coming in, tons of it, every single minute of every single day. Some prophet recently said that our computers will do us in. Here's the proof. Because, while the intelligence folks are looking for solid leads, the trash is piling up, and they can't possible sort it out in time to do themselves, and us, any good. Lucy made me laugh, not this.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2001

In the weeks before 9/11, a bunch of us Virgos were e-mailing back and forth trying to agree on when to have our annual dinner. One of them had a tagalong in his messages, promoting a "jam echelon" event that was supposed to happen something in October. He also had a bunch of acronyms to active echelon. Can't help wondering whether the folks who had fought echelon, et seq. have any different feelings about it now. Perhaps more schizophrenic.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2001