TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The State Department has launched a different sort
of raid against al-Qaeda — hacking into al-Qaeda websites in Yemen.
In a rare public admission of the covert cyber war against extremists,
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says cyber experts based at
the State Department hacked Yemeni tribal websites
http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2012/05/23/clinton-state-department-hacking-into-al-qaeda-websites-in-yemen/
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last year, the Sept. 11 commission declared in its final report: "Al
Qaeda's senior leadership had stopped using a particular means of
communication almost immediately after a [Clinton Administration] leak
to The Washington Times. This made it much more difficult for the
National Security Agency to intercept his conversations."
Lee H. Hamilton, the vice chairman of the commission, mentioned the
consequences of the article in a speech last month. He said: "Leaks,
for instance, can be terribly damaging. In the late 90's, it leaked
out in The Washington Times that the U.S. was using Osama bin Laden's
satellite phone to track his whereabouts. Bin Laden stopped using that
phone; we lost his trail."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/politics/20fact.html