The intelligence bulletin sent out today about the NY-Washington terror threat didn't reveal much: A possible car bomb at a bridge or tunnel, related to 9/11.

Listening to CNN on Sirius on the way home from work, here's what I learned from Homeland Security Committee Chair Joe Lieberman: It started with a wiretap involving someone whose information had previously proved reliable. But this tip from the wire, while it involved that person, didn't come from that person's conversation. In other words, it wasn't something he said on a wire, it may have been something someone else said who was picked up on his wire.

But another "source" tells Fox News, it was the reliable source who provided the information. "The person who provided the intelligence is known to the U.S. intelligence community and "has a track record," one source said." So Lieberman says they got it through him and another source says he provided it directly. Which is it? If it's the first, why is it credible? [More...]

ABC News skipped the analysis after President Obama's speech to cover an unconfirmed but specific terror threat from an outside country connected to 9/11. The target may be Washington or New York. The threat came in Wednesday night. Obama was briefed today.

CBS is covering the speech. NBC went to football.

An investigative report by the Associated Press reveals that 35,000 people around the world have been convicted of terror offenses in the past decade. There were more than 119,000 arrests.

That included 2,934 arrests and 2,568 convictions in the United States, which led the war on terror — eight times more than in the decade before.

Many of those arrested were not terrorists but people "put behind bars for waving a political sign or blogging about a protest." Martin Sheinin, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism says:

"Nowadays people are realizing the abuse and even the actual use of counterterror laws is bad for human rights and also bad for actually stopping terrorism."

Via the Washington Post, there are now more agents in the CIA's counter-terrorism division than there are core members of al-Qaeda around the world (about 2400.). Not only that, the CIA's mission has changed since 9/11.

In the decade since the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks, the agency has undergone a fundamental transformation. Although the CIA continues to gather intelligence and furnish analysis on a vast array of subjects, its focus and resources are increasingly centered on the cold counterterrorism objective of finding targets to capture or kill.

Even analysts are now being used to track targets for capture and kill operations: [More...]

The LA Times reports on a key legacy of the 9/11 attacks: the exponential increase in governmental spying on Americans.

Thanks to new laws and technologies, authorities track and eavesdrop on Americans as they never could before, hauling in billions of bank records, travel receipts and other information. In several cases, they have wiretapped conversations between lawyers and defendants, challenging the legal principle that attorney-client communication is inviolate.

As one law professor puts it:

"We are caught in the middle of a perfect storm in which every thought we communicate, every step we take, every transaction we enter into is captured in digital data and is subject to government collection."

One we give the Government new power, it rarely gives it back. It's important to note that this legacy was not caused by the terrorists, but by our own lawmakers in Washington who let fear drive their actions. We have not become safer, we are only less free.

Mother Jones has partnered with the University of California-Berkeley's Investigative Reporting Program and compiled a fascinating report on the FBI's use of informants in the war on terror. The crucial question:

The FBI has built a massive network of spies to prevent another domestic attack. But are they busting terrorist plots—or leading them?

The number of informants has dramatically increased since 9/11:

The bureau now maintains a roster of 15,000 spies, some paid as much as $100,000 per case, many of them tasked with infiltrating Muslim communities in the United States.

They aren't just ratting out their partners in crime, they are setting them up.

The bureau's answer has been a strategy known variously as "preemption," "prevention," and "disruption"—identifying and neutralizing potential lone wolves before they move toward action. To that end, FBI agents and informants target not just active jihadists, but tens of thousands of law-abiding people, seeking to identify those disgruntled few who might participate in a plot given the means and the opportunity. And then, in case after case, the government provides the plot, the means, and the opportunity.

Really a good series and well worth reading.

Update: The death toll is now at 21, with more than 100 injured. Indian authorities say fuel-filled, molotov cocktail type devices were used. Forensic experts on scene say the prime ingredient was ammonium nitrate, with RDX as a booster, and all of the devices contained shrapnel to maximize the damage. As of now, no one has taken credit, and it doesn't sound like they know who is responsible.

Original Post: The death toll now stands at 13 in last nights Mumbai bombings. 54 have been injured. The numbers could rise. Indian authorities believe it was a coordinated attack by terrorists.

Latest details available at NDTV twitter feed. Here's the official statement.

Mumbai police believe the Indian Mujahideen is behind the attacks.

The Nation has released an investigative report with details of a walled compound completed four months ago in Somalia, and a secret basement prison at the Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters. The CIA maintains an aircraft at the new compound, and CIA agents conduct interrogations of prisoners in the basement prison, some of whom are plucked off the streets. The U.S. is footing the bill for the salaries of the Somali intelligence agents.

At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.

[More...]

Osama bin Laden's Yemeni wife, Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, age 29, and their 12 year old daughter Safiya, are finally going to be allowed to leave Pakistan and return to Yemen. No word yet on the fate of Osama's other two wives.

More uncertainty as to which of bin Laden's sons was killed along with Osama in the U.S. raid: The Guardian article says Hamza (not Khalid) was killed and buried at sea with his father. That is not what the U.S. and Pakistan have said (although the U.S. changed its story a few times.) Where is Hamza bin Laden?

On a related al Qaida note, there's been a jail break in Yemen, and 57 al Qaida members escaped.

The General Command of al-Qaeda announced today that Ayman al-Zawahiri will succeed Osama bin Laden. Via Site Monitoring Service (subscription required):

“[We] assure every oppressed [individual] in this world – and most of them are victims of the American Western criminality – that our religion is a religion of justice and equity. We sympathize with the sufferings of the oppressed. Our jihad against American arrogance will lead to the lifting of oppression from them, and it is an effort that will help them in getting rid of the American Western exploitation that enslaved them, robbed them of their wealth, and spoiled their environment and their lives.”

The U.S. believes the statement is genuine. The statement also said the appointment was made after “consultation” and that the selection of the new leader is the “best form of gratitude” for bin Laden."

Pakistan denies the allegation in the New York Times that an Army Major was one of those arrested with undercover CIA operatives suspected of providing the U.S. with information about the Osama bin Laden compound in Abboutabad.

Sen. Patrick Leahy today condemned the arrests.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, on the FBI's most wanted list for allegedly masterminding the 1998 U.S. Embassies bombing, has been killed in Somalia.

Is he really dead? He was buried before Somalian officials knew who he was, but when they realized from the documents that had been on his person, they exhumed him and did DNA testing.

The U.S. says the killing is a big blow to al Qaida in East Africa. Others say it won't have much impact, especially in Somalia:

J. Peter Pham, director of the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, said that Mohammed's death would have little impact operationally on the Islamist insurgency in Somalia, which is led by al Shabaab. "Even the foreign fighters present in Somalia are under Shabaab control, rather than the aegis of al Qaeda in east Africa," he said....Also, al Shabaab has its own ties al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."