intercept

“…a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications.”
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1225453,00.html

Can't imagine what else it would be.

Interesting thing, though. Bush and US intelligence only found out 2 weeks ago that this investigation was in progress (they didn't trust us not to leak it). Yet, the investigation has been going on for over a year. So 'blind' wiretaps, as Bush has been doing illegally, were no help to this investigation whatsoever.

In addition, it's likely that the 'us intelligence' that handed the 'intercepts' over were actually the US personnel working in the Echelon station in Britain, and they were doing highly targeted taps (since they already had the subjects in mind). This, again, is not the same as the illegal taps that BushCo has been doing.

i don't have a "point"

i am reporting an interesting aspect of this story.

i have no idea if it was echelon, or which program

fwiw, plenty of civil libertarians have long criticized echelon

see : EFF

I take it to mean that bolstering those talking points is the 'point' of the post. If you meant otherwise, you should say so in the OP, since I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed the similarity.

it's from frigging time magazine

are they a RW shill mag?

i'm looking over my posting history as to news items. i don't see any pattern of posting talking points news items. if this one seems to be a talking point news item, so be it

i think many are curious as to how these guys were caught.

this is part of the story