New Tape

One of the speakers at the Al Qaeda 2.0 conference (Scheuer, I think) went on an extended rant about how the CIA had been reduced to bringing in ornithologists to listen to Osama bin Laden's tapes and try and see if the background chirping gave away any information about his location. That didn't seem plausible to me at the time. But here I see that "German authorities thought they heard a bird chirping in one of Bin Laden's audiotapes this year, and brought in ornithologists to identify the species — and its habitat — according to reports in the German media" so it's at least fact-esque. More to the points, the LA Times article provides the first coverage I've seen on what seems like the obvious way to track OBL down:

Former CIA officials also said the agency had tried in vain to follow the trail of the tapes delivered to Al Jazeera and other outlets. But retracing the delivery route of the tapes has proved almost impossible, in large part because Al Qaeda is believed to use a series of secretive drops in Pakistan and elsewhere to thwart such efforts.

That doesn't really scan. Surely it's not impossible to ask questions of al-Jazeera tape-recipients or to conduct stakeouts of suspected drop locations. What kind of help is the Pakistani government giving us? Do we even know, say, who it is at the various media outlets who gets the tapes? Who do they get the tapes from? There's got to be more than "a series of secretive drops" standing in the way of this investigation.