HoodaThunk?

After repeated investigations by European agencies into the “secret prisons” run by the CIA story was leaked resulted in no evidence whatsoever that such prisons existed, it was suggested that the entire story might have been a huge canary trap. It was effective: Mary McCarthy was discovered. With the revelation that more telecom companies weren’t involved – Verizon says they weren’t even asked – several folks have begun to suspect that this story might have been less about the NSA and more about the media, too.

Via Power Line, we have this post from Strata-Sphere:

Is it possible the NSA phone database story was a red herring, put out to leakers and reporters in order to make them break cover? The story, if true, definitely provided some important information on how to evade detection. It seems one target may be Brian Ross from ABC News. Ross has a record of exposing national security information to our enemies at left wing sites. His bio is impressive, but he seems to be a Woodward and Bernstein wannabe. He has high level sources inside the government:

It would be good news, if true. I have no issue with the reported NSA database. All the information within it is already shared by our telecom companies with a whole host of telemarketing firms who then sell the data on to other industries. Virtually everything described in the report is available on the commercial market. But if the story can be used to ferret out a leaker of national security programs, I’m all for it.