AP Leak ended informant's rare opportunity, why DOJ went after AP records [View all]

[okaawhatever]

WASHINGTON — Disclosure of a highly classified intelligence operation in Yemen last year compromised an exceedingly rare and valuable espionage achievement: an informant who had earned the trust of hardened terrorists, according to U.S. officials
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The informant, a British citizen born in Saudi Arabia, had been recruited by British intelligence to operate as a double agent within the group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the most dangerous franchises of the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

His access led to the U.S. drone strike that killed a senior Al Qaeda leader, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed Quso, on May 6, 2012. U.S. officials say Quso helped direct the terrorist attack that killed 17 sailors aboard the U.S. guided-missile destroyer Cole in a Yemeni harbor in October 2000
The informant also convinced members of the Yemeni group that he wanted to blow up a U.S. passenger jet on the first anniversary of the U.S. attack that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. They outfitted him with the latest version of an underwear bomb designed to pass metal detectors and other airport safeguards, officials say.

The informant left Yemen and delivered the device to his handlers, and it ultimately went to the FBI's laboratory in Quantico, Va. Intelligence officials hoped to send him back to Yemen to help track more bomb makers and planners, but the leak made that impossible, and sent Al Qaeda scrambling to cover its tracks, officials said

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British intelligence officials were furious at the disclosures, a British diplomat said. Saudi intelligence officials also were dismayed, U.S. officials said. And U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials were aghast.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-na-intel-leak-20130517,0,979584.story

This story is really worth the read because it gives all the details of the AP scandal, leak whatever u call it. It's LA Times so a little rw but it does give the details. I absolutely back their getting subpoenas for the phone logs, provided they don't explore any phone numbers not associated with the leak. AP reporters, just like abc w/benghazi emails got sloppy and others will have to pay.