“If we do not have human-intelligence assets in the field, then it’s hard for us to get any kind of warning, unless the bad guys are really loose on how they use their cell phones. But the news media likes to tell people how we track the bad guys, and the bad guys learn from that. The White House staffers, too–they like to tell reporters how smart they are, and they leak data on signals intelligence. You sometimes wonder if they’re stringers for the terrorists, the way they give away code-word-sensitive information.” In reality, the staff pukes were just showing off to the reporters, of course, which was about the only thing they knew how to do.
“So, the rest of the day the newsies will be screaming about ‘another intelligence failure,’ right?”
“Bet on it. The same people who trash the intelligence community will now complain that it can’t do the job–but without acknowledging their own role in crippling it every chance they get. Same thing from Congress, of course…”
—The Teeth of the Tiger (emphasis added)
Retrophisch