Update: CBS is trying trivialize the threat because the Key players were not in the US – yet. But as I live blogged the press conference, the next stage of the plan was to surveillance the targets and acquire the materials. You do not do that from overseas. That means the FBI or others had indications they terrorists where (or are since 5 are missing) heading this way. The crippling of our surveillance programs by the NY Times and other Pulitzer-hungry news organizations probably made it a risk to let these people try and make moves that could be now hard to monitor with proper adjustments on the terrorists part. But to minimalize this threat is to be so BDS driven it boggles the mind. – End update

In my earlier post on the foiled plot to blow up commuter lines into NY City I speculated that the NSA would have to be involved in monitoring the communications internationally, and the Treasury Dept would want to watch the flow of money from Al Qaeda to distribution points. The American Spectator is confirming some of my suspicions [H/T Lawhawk at The Blog Spot}:

We’ve been talking to a few folks inside DOJ, the FBI and Treasury this morning, and things are a bit unclear. But this is what we’re being told.

Our Treasury source wouldn’t comment on the case. One DOJ source indicated that this case initially took off from monitoring of chat rooms that had been identified as havens for some of the plotters (that monitoring was undertaken in part by the NSA, and some of the monitoring required FISA court filings, something the New York Times doesn’t support, either).

BTW: another DOJ source said that in the past year, counter-terrorism officials have noted a marked downturn in the use of cell phone and landline communications. There are a number of reasons for this, but they readily point to the N.Y. Times story on NSA overseas terror-call monitoring as one reason.

This clearly shows the NY Times has put American lives, and specifically NY City lives, at risk in their exposure of legal and successful surveillance programs. As I have been saying since December 2005 when the first Risen lies were published, the NSA monitors overseas communications and, when there is a contact with someone in the US, they pass these leads to the FBI who go to FISA if the threat is real. This is the ‘tainting’ of the FISA process the leftleaning judge who resigned in protest and the Benedict Arnolds inside the Intelligence Community who leaked the details of this program were against. They could care less if people were at risk, they did not want NSA evidence being used in the FIS Courts. That is the essence of the NY Times story which exposed this program.

What will Bill Keller say now? How confident is he his actions are of no risk to Americans? One source is pointing directly at the NY Times and their stories as the catalyst for these actions, and they were premature:

It is not clear whether this case was one of several our sources claim they discussed in general terms with the New York Times, and which Treasury and Justice told the Times would be endangered if it went public with the SWIFT program. It appears the arrest of the plotter in Lebanon took place before the SWIFT story was leaked.

But another DOJ source added something interesting to the mix: “If you go back and look at some of our more successful anti-terrorism cases, they have focused on taking down entire networks. How do we do that? From the inside, peeling off a lead actor, turning him and using him to keep the plot moving forward so we can trace everyone else, the money, the accounts, the weapons dealers, everyone. I’ll just note that we weren’t able to do that with this case and leave it at that. We could have, but we weren’t able to. You’ll have to do the math for the Times.”

Well, we can try to do the math for them, but the NY Times has trouble with 2+2=4. I still say their press credentials should be revoked in all areas of defense and security and all people in the government directed to not talk to any NY Times reporter.