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Terror Suspects Hone Anti-Detection Skills
Convicted al-Qaeda operative Jose Padilla used a code that referred to weapons as vegetables.
(Alan Diaz - AP)
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In March 2003, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence agents captured Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the lead planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings, after U.S. and European investigators traced a cellphone chip he had acquired from Switzerland.
The prepaid chip, or SIM card, was purchased anonymously, but European intelligence officials traced calls to it from a suspected terrorist in Germany and later determined that it was being used by Mohammed. He was caught even though he practiced extreme caution in his telephone habits; he rarely used the same cellphone more than once and had others take calls on his behalf, but he tripped up by relying on the same chip.
Since then, al-Qaeda operatives have tended to use chips only once or twice before throwing them away and have turned to Internet telephone services such as Skype, which are extremely difficult to monitor. One senior Italian counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed strong frustration that Skype had been invented.
Italian authorities are among the most skilled in Europe at monitoring telephone traffic. According to information made public in court cases, they employ a technique known as "funneling" to trace all cellphone calls made in the country during a certain period of the day or to another country or specific geographical region.
"Unfortunately, the technology changes so quickly that we're always playing a catch-up game," the senior Italian official said. "The bottom line is that we'll have to work more and more with human sources."
Other Italian officials, however, said the trackers would always have one important advantage: Because conspirators must communicate, they will always be vulnerable to eavesdropping in some form.
"Many times I ask myself, how is it still possible to obtain important information if the suspects know we can do this?" said Spataro, the deputy chief public prosecutor in Milan.
The answer, he said, is that "as members of a criminal association, they have to speak, they have to communicate with each other, they have to make plans."
