OSINT tracks down CIA jet
The Washington Post has a great article demonstrating the effectiveness of research using open sources to reveal government secrets. The jet is apparently being used to transport prisoners to countries that are more permissive when it comes to interrogations. Through the work of a number of journalists and online citizens, a large amount of information on the jet has been uncovered.
Not only have the plane’s movements been tracked around the world, but the on-paper officers of Premier Executive Transport Services are also connected to a larger roster of false identities.
Each of the officers of Premier Executive is linked in public records to one of five post office box numbers in Arlington, Oakton, Chevy Chase and the District. A total of 325 names are registered to the five post office boxes.
An extensive database search of a sample of 44 of those names turned up none of the information that usually emerges in such a search: no previous addresses, no past or current telephone numbers, no business or corporate records. In addition, although most names were attached to dates of birth in the 1940s, ’50s or ’60s, all were given Social Security numbers between 1998 and 2003.
The story of the jet has bounced around quite a bit, but it’s interesting to note how the story broke:
The CIA’s plane secret began to unravel less than six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
On Oct. 26, 2001, Masood Anwar, a Pakistani journalist with the News in Islamabad, broke a story asserting that Pakistani intelligence officers had handed over to U.S. authorities a Yemeni microbiologist, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, who was wanted in connection with the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.
The report noted that an aircraft bearing tail number N379P, and parked in a remote area of a little-used terminal at the Karachi airport, had whisked Mohammed away about 2:40 a.m. Oct. 23. The tail number was also obtained by The Post’s correspondent in Pakistan but not published.
The News article ricocheted among spy-hunters and Web bloggers as a curiosity for those interested in divining the mechanics of the new U.S.-declared war on terrorism.
At 7:54:04 p.m. Oct. 26, the News article was posted on FreeRepublic.com, which bills itself as “a conservative news forum.”
Thirteen minutes later, a chat-room participant posted the plane’s registered owners: Premier Executive Transport Services Inc., of 339 Washington St., Dedham, Mass.
This is a relatively mild example of how quickly information can bubble up. At the same time, however, the story didn’t really solidify until the Post conducted it’s own more extensive research. Citizens, particularly those without access to pay services, are still at a disadvantage.
UPDATE (1.9.5): The Tribune has more info on the jet and its ownership.