So PRISM helped stop the Zazi case?

[Savannahmann]

But at the time, it was credited to the British, and what looks like a gaffe, and they handed the information off to the Americans. Not just according to the Telegraph, but Wikipedia too. Strange isn't it? Now we're told that it was not the British Intelligence, but as I understand it now American Intelligence. So in 2009, the Brits got the credit because we didn't want anyone to know that we were doing it is the story we're told now?

So the sequence of events was this. The NSA found it through PRISM, who then gave it to the British Intelligence, who gave it to Scotland Yard to investigate, who then passed it onto the FBI, who prevented the attack.

But at the time, we were told that an aborted British Investigation had identified the email address, and that the Brits were the ones who tagged Zazi.

At the time, the British Coup in discovering the links was the reason we did not sever intelligence sharing ties with the British because they had released the Lockerbie Bomber. The Telegraph story says that gang.

So according to this newest release of information. The Brits didn't do anything except release the Lockerbie bomber, and screw up an investigation into a terror cell in London. Now we're saying that the British are just flat out incompetent to pretend that this PRISM thing is great?

Gang, if this keeps up we're going to need programs. Anybody feel like cranking one up listing all the claims and counter claims as well as players past and present?

UPDATE: The transcript of the trial doesn't say where the FBI got the emails from. Just that their office received the emails. The testimony of the FBI agent for how they investigation got started is on page 46.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Apparently we shared a great deal with the British government.

They had access to the data as much as any of our agents did, if the PowerPoint slides leaked are to be believed.

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. The whole "Lockerbie bomber" thing is a fucking joke anyway

the man convicted? Probably didn't do it. There's very strong evidence suggesting he didn't, anyway. The actual culprits were more likely to have been Iranian, in retaliation for the USS Vincennes shooting down an Iranian airliner in July of 1988. See here, for a start.

[jberryhill]

3. It's like money laundering

But how would that sequence give rise to a claim?

If it is proper for US intelligence to share with British intelligence, and if it is proper for the FBI to receive tips from Scotland Yard, then the exclusionary claim rests on whether, under US Law, it is proper for British intelligence to share information with Scotland Yard. A Constitutional claim that hinges on whether the UK government should or should not do something is interesting. They weren't supposed to attack us in 1812 either, one supposes, or to support an armed rebellion 50 years after that.