NEW YORK –- In April 2011, the
Associated Press reported that U.S. airstrikes in Yemen 15 months earlier had forced al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to reconsider how it communicates.
Following deadly strikes, the militant Islamist group had realized it was “up against the National Security Agency and the Predator drones that can hover out of sight and intercept phone calls,” Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman wrote. AQAP members, they reported, had increasingly started using walkie talkies and code names, passing information through intermediaries, and shielding email with “highly sophisticated encryption software.”
That 2011 article
received renewed attention on Twitter this week amid a slew of national media reports citing anonymous government officials' claims that terrorists have changed their methods of communication following
recent NSA leaks. Those reports have coincided with anonymous officials speculating to several major news outlets that Chinese and Russian authorities have likely seized leaked NSA documents or will do so in the near future.
Both scenarios help bolster the government's argument that
NSA contractor-turned-fugitive Edward Snowden jeopardized national security by
leaking classified documents to The Guardian and
The Washington Post.
Such coverage, based on claims by anonymous officials, also portrays Snowden as more traitor than whistleblower.
