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posted by janrinok on Saturday June 13 2015, @06:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the psst-do-you-want-to-see-pictures-of-naughty-ladies-in-burkas? dept.

And one for the start of the weekend. Vice News reports:

In addition to his library of English-language books on topics such as international law, voting irregularities, and the Illuminati, Osama bin Laden also had a pretty substantial porn collection.

But the CIA won't release bin Laden's stash of porn, which Navy Seals apparently seized during a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan four years ago. That's because, unbelievably, it's located in an "operational file," which is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

An operational file is defined as:

(1) files of the National Clandestine Service which document the conduct of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence operations or intelligence or security liaison arrangements or information exchanges with foreign governments or their intelligence or security services;

(2) files of the Directorate for Science and Technology which document the means by which foreign intelligence or counterintelligence is collected through scientific and technical systems; and

(3) files of the Office of Personnel Security which document investigations conducted to determine the suitability of potential foreign intelligence or counter-intelligence sources;

Reuters first reported in 2011 that pornography was recovered from bin Laden's compound after he was killed by commandos.

"The pornography recovered in bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive," Reuters reported, citing anonymous officials. "The officials said they were not yet sure precisely where in the compound the pornography was discovered or who had been viewing it. Specifically, the officials said they did not know if bin Laden himself had acquired or viewed the materials."

It has long been rumored that Al Qaeda used pornography to hide secret messages to its followers, according to a report published by The Telegraph last March.


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  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday June 13 2015, @02:04PM

    by looorg (578) on Saturday June 13 2015, @02:04PM (#195774)

    It doesn't really explain it at all. It's one possible explanation. Except it's a pretty bad one. To release a list of the titles of content of Usamas porn stash wouldn't by itself reveal the steganography or its content. It's not like they do it to ONE video or image and it magically appears in all -- unless they believe Al-Qaeda somehow infiltrated the porn industry and was in charge of the master tapes and all duplication.

    Sure it they released the list some people would be search the net for every copy of said images or videos and look for steg content -- a sisyphus like task if there ever was one. I recall reading some papers on this a few years ago, they downloaded millions of images from the net by an automated process. They found indications of content in some by a matter of statistical analysis and various tools but found zero actual steg-content. It might have been there, they just couldn't extract it or it was false positives and nothing was actually there.

    But they must have believed it to have some value, after all they had to carry it out of there and you don't carry things you don't have to. The word "significant" here is also vague. How many videos is that? More then one, less then 10? It's not like they carried a porn library out there or if they did it was probably on the harddrives.

    This "news" seems more like some people are interested in finding out if they are spank-buddies with Usama (if it was even his, not like he was alone in the household) or not.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Jiro on Saturday June 13 2015, @03:46PM

    by Jiro (3176) on Saturday June 13 2015, @03:46PM (#195802)

    It doesn't say they won't release the titles separately from the porn, it says that they won't release the porn itself. The article tries to vaguely imply that they won't release the titles separately, but all it actually says is "they released the titles of his books separately from his books" and "they wouldn't release his porn". Juxtaposing those two makes it sound like they won't release the list of porn titles either, but it doesn't actually say that. Shoddy journalism often works like this--that way the journalist isn't actually lying, he just depends on the reader misreading in a totally understandable way what the journalist actually said. If the government really refused to list the titles, the article would have said "the government wouldn't release the list of titles either" and would not have tried to imply it.

    Furthermore, according to the article, they won't release the porn regardless of whether it is classified or not, because the government isn't permitted to mail out obscene matter. Can you imagine the headlines about the government sending out porn and corrupting our youth (from the right) and helping objectify women (from the left) if the government started mailing out porn in response to FOIA requests? Particularly if it contained nasty and/or illegal material?

    Compounded by this is the fact that the FOIA request is written by idiots and is vague in what it asks for. It *could* be interpreted to mean they are asking for titles, but it's clear that this wasn't how the government read it.