I am at work and don't have much time so this will be short. If anyone else has posted this please let me know. If this is 'too short' and someone wants to go into more detail in a different diary, feel free.
You can find the original story at the Washington Post.
A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.
Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.
The rush to spread fear just in time for the Sept 11th anniversary and Gen. Betrayus testimony had its consequences of course:
The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.
"Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," said Rita Katz, the firm's 44-year-old founder
Don't worry however, because unlike asking questions about torture, congressional oversight on illegal wiretapping, etcetc, the White House says the leak did not benefit terrorists:
Government officials declined to be interviewed about the circumstances on the record, but they did not challenge Katz's version of events. They also said the incident had no effect on U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts and did not diminish the government's ability to anticipate attacks.
Even if the guy who gave them the video says it did, it definately did not. So don't you go thinking otherwise as that would be helping the terrorists... unless you work in the WH.