Wonder if she's a FReeper.
Posted on 09/20/2007 8:56:59 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
WASHINGTON - Once her son is off to school, Laura Mansfield settles in at her dining room table with her laptop and begins trolling Arabic-language message boards and chat rooms popular with jihadists.
Fluent in Arabic, the self-employed terror analyst often hacks into the sites, translates the material, puts it together and sends her analysis via a subscription service to intelligence agencies, law enforcement and academics.
Occasionally she comes across a gem, such as when she found a recent Osama bin Laden video — before al-Qaida had announced it.
"I realized, oh my gosh, I'm sitting here, I'm a fat 50-year-old mom and I've managed to scoop al-Qaida," said Mansfield, who uses that name as a pseudonym because she receives death threats.
She sometimes spends 100 hours a week online, and she often finds items after word has begun spreading on the Arabic forums of an imminent release.
"It's really important to understand what the jihadists think and how they're planning on doing things," she said. "They're very vocal. They tell us what they're going to do and then they go out and do it."
Mansfield tips off her intelligence sources when she does find something new, part of an informal working relationship with the government.
"When I send them something, it's welcome," she said. "They thank me."
There have been times when an impending video release has kept her from a planned shopping trip with her daughter.
"It gets really challenging when you're trying to do that and cook spaghetti at the same time," she said.
An “Army of Davids / A pack not a herd.” alert.
You would think with all of the freaking tax money we pay Uncle Sam they wouldn't have to rely on a fat 50-year-old mom sitting at home for intelligence.
Sweet kudos to her!
Wonder if she's a FReeper.
The CIA should hire her for $50K per year, and give her an office from which she could do the same analysis.
Open mouth, insert foot, chew leather. How does it taste?
Laura is literally one in a million. You would also think that with all the money we send to the RNC we wouldn’t have to rely on a guy named Jim Robinson to keep the Conservative agenda alive.
Let’s face it: the private sector just does it better.
Or at least give her a nice fast computer and a T1 line.
She’s must be brilliant. And catches things others have missed. I’m lovin’ it. God Bless Her.
Hell, they not only should hire her and dozens of other more qualified freepers but fire most of the useless apparatchiks skulking about Langley.
You would think with all of the freaking tax money we pay Uncle Sam they wouldn't have to rely on a fat 50-year-old mom sitting at home for intelligence.
Given how hard it is to raise kids decently these days, and how sneaky kids can be, can you think of someone more qualified to uncover these sorts of secrets?
Mark
Loose lips sink ships
You give money to the RNC? And you think it has something to do with the conservative agenda?
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