Why the State Department's Embassy Warnings Give Us Ample Reason to Doubt the NSA

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http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/nsa-leaks

I hope you had a nice weekend cowering in your home, refusing to leave or answer the door, in accordance with orders issued by the United States Department of State. On Friday the department issued a “worldwide” travel alert, lasting until the end of August, sort of generally alerting traveling Americans that terrorists exist and intend to hurt us.

Terrorists may elect to use a variety of means and weapons and target both official and private interests. U.S. citizens are reminded of the potential for terrorists to attack public transportation systems and other tourist infrastructure. Terrorists have targeted and attacked subway and rail systems, as well as aviation and maritime services. U.S. citizens should take every precaution to be aware of their surroundings and to adopt appropriate safety measures to protect themselves when traveling.

Just a reminder: Your life is in peril. Terrorists could attack anything at any time using “a variety of means and weapons.” Have a kick-ass summer!

We needn’t be entirely cynical about this. Twenty-two embassies and other diplomatic posts have been closed in the Middle East and North Africa. Unlike similar vague warnings in the past, this one is not suspiciously close to Election Day. There is likely some genuine intelligence about some sort of attack that led to this. But that raises questions posed by Philip Bump this weekend: If the American intelligence community was crippled by the recent leaks about its operations and tools, as so many have claimed, how did it manage to collect the intelligence that led to this alert? The head of the National Security Agency told us that the terrorists read all those Guardian stories and immediately took action. Presumably they now no longer use “telephones” or “the Internet,” whereas before they were all blissfully unaware that the United States had the ability to spy on them at all.

So maybe comrade Snowden’s leaks didn’t cripple the NSA? Perhaps the NSA, and our other intelligence-gathering agencies, can still monitor the communications of terrorist organizations despite the fact that people know that our intelligence-gathering agencies are trying to monitor the communications of terrorist organizations. (I mean, how could it have been news to them? Have they not seen “Homeland”?)