One of the Bush Administration claims after it being revealed in the New York Times a week ago (damn, has it already been a week?) that NSA is spying inside the U.S. was that U.S. media publicizing Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite telephone in 1998 led to his no longer using it. This claim, it turns out, is somewhere between urban legend and outright lying.

The Washington Post traces back the news reporting of Osama bin Laden’s use of an Inmarsat satellite telephone, which at the time was number +873 682505331, to 1996.

It turns out that in 1996, the Taliban said bin Laden was using a satellite phone, a claim bin Laden himself confirmed later that year.

The real reason for him ceasing use of the satellite phone is most likely President Bill Clinton.

Causal effects are hard to prove, but other factors could have persuaded bin Laden to turn off his satellite phone in August 1998. A day earlier, the United States had fired dozens of cruise missiles at his training camps, missing him by hours. — Washington Post

As it turns out, the attack was planned and executed within the timespan of a week, suggesting that signals intelligence was in use. Only SIGINT, provided by NSA, can provide the near-real-time location data one would need to execute this sort of attack. And only by using the location of the satellite phone could bin Laden’s location be found. NSA is now known to have technology capable of locating such a satellite phone with enough accuracy for missile targeting, though this was not widely known at the time.

In July, Rep, Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, gave a speech titled “Secrets and Leaks: the Costs and Consequences for National Security,” in which he highlighted the bin Laden case. “Were it not for a leak, there is a chance we could have brought Osama bin Laden to justice by now and have a better understanding of the al Qaeda operation,” Hoekstra, who is considering legislation to make it easier to prosecute leakers, said.

A spokesman for Hoekstra did not return a call seeking comment.

Hoekstra has distributed to lawmakers a classified report on leaks compiled by James B. Bruce, vice chairman of the CIA’s Foreign Denial and Deception Committee, and a leading advocate of enacting very tough laws on leaks. In 2002, Bruce was quoted as saying that “we’ve got to do whatever it takes — if it takes sending SWAT teams into journalists’ homes — to stop these leaks.” — Washington Post

Yes, let’s just round up all the journalists and put them in concentration camps, too. That will neatly solve the non-problem.

What needs to happen is that White House officials need to realize that merely acting on intelligence is sometimes enough to give away the sources and methods that the intelligence community strives to keep secret and from which that intelligence was derived. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that bin Laden was targeted through his satellite phone. Dumbasses.