The thing missing from these briefs is the context. We're not seeing the hundreds or thousands of other daily reports that are mixed in and have to be acted on. It's easy to cherry pick after the fact.
Case in point, just going off of the reports here it would have been hard to predict what happened. They were concerned about Bin Laden starting civil wars, taking embassies, launching a biological attack, cells in Europe, etc. And even their preliminary reports about a possible plane hijacking in the US presumed it would be a simple quid pro quo for prisoner releases.
I'm worried this release is being thinly veiled as an attack on previous administrations. But it should be pointed out that the current administration eschews intelligence entirely and has no qualms about worsening the country's current security posture.
The New York Times summary noted that there was a fear of "alert fatigue" coupled with a lack of confidence about the strength of the signals they were getting.
Yeah, its a bit like a medical test that promises to detect cancer 100% of the time, but actually just says everyone has cancer.
To be useful, information doesn't just have to have a good false negative rate, it also has to have a good false positive rate, and be specific. Otherwise its useless as you can't persue every possible lead.
Because a number of the people associated with this are still alive on all sides.
1998-2001 was only 25-28 years ago, so a lot of sources are still alive or active sources as we speak, and in a number of cases now decisionmakers in theirs early-mid 60s.
It's the same way how a KGB liaison officer in 1989 Dresden ended up invading Ukraine 25 years later.
> Interesting to read but … why bother?
It still has academic value, and plenty of information to be garnered.
The redacted parts are a lot more than names and detailed locations.
I think there should be a law that any info is fully public after like 20 years unless releasing it would put a specific person or named group in danger, like a source's identity but not the things they said. No vague talk about national security that can't be verified unless you have a clearance and is probably subjective anyway.
Yes, that includes nuclear weapon designs, hacking tool source code and every assassination plan ever dreamed up by some megalomaniac CIA officer. The system needs to go.
Reminder that Trump famously doesn't take Daily Briefs (first term and now) and for a year with Gabbard, she was omitting huge swarths of info from what he did get.
>Reminder that Trump famously doesn't take Daily Briefs
I was surprised by this.
The guy who tried to sell me on the CIA did so by knowing I had dreams of being a writer, and coyly said maybe what I'd written would be seen by "just one, very important person".
(The implication being said important person had seen some of my writing and/or uh.... "reports" previously? Big if true!)
I knew when he took office he was a lazy fascist[1], but I assumed he'd whenever possible ingest intelligence so he could monetize it, the lazy fuck is truly a special kind of stupid.
But hey, I'm just a dumb Appalachian from "flyover country", handed the password to a shared account that's only accessed over Tor.
What could I possibly know? I probably have delusions of grandeur.
(Alternative take to that one: since I was a child, folks react to being held to the rules they wrote in a world I didn't choose to be born into as if they're being held at gunpoint by Hans Gruber from Die Hard.)
The thing missing from these briefs is the context. We're not seeing the hundreds or thousands of other daily reports that are mixed in and have to be acted on. It's easy to cherry pick after the fact.
Case in point, just going off of the reports here it would have been hard to predict what happened. They were concerned about Bin Laden starting civil wars, taking embassies, launching a biological attack, cells in Europe, etc. And even their preliminary reports about a possible plane hijacking in the US presumed it would be a simple quid pro quo for prisoner releases.
I'm worried this release is being thinly veiled as an attack on previous administrations. But it should be pointed out that the current administration eschews intelligence entirely and has no qualms about worsening the country's current security posture.
The New York Times summary noted that there was a fear of "alert fatigue" coupled with a lack of confidence about the strength of the signals they were getting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/11/us/politics/cia-sept-11-i... (gift article)
Yeah, its a bit like a medical test that promises to detect cancer 100% of the time, but actually just says everyone has cancer.
To be useful, information doesn't just have to have a good false negative rate, it also has to have a good false positive rate, and be specific. Otherwise its useless as you can't persue every possible lead.
The PDBs are summaries intended for only the President.
Intended only for the President means that only carefully crafted half truths to influence the desired result are present.
What’s the purpose of publishing these? Why now? Why redacted still?
Interesting to read but … why bother?
> Why redacted still
Because a number of the people associated with this are still alive on all sides.
1998-2001 was only 25-28 years ago, so a lot of sources are still alive or active sources as we speak, and in a number of cases now decisionmakers in theirs early-mid 60s.
It's the same way how a KGB liaison officer in 1989 Dresden ended up invading Ukraine 25 years later.
> Interesting to read but … why bother?
It still has academic value, and plenty of information to be garnered.
The redacted parts are a lot more than names and detailed locations.
I think there should be a law that any info is fully public after like 20 years unless releasing it would put a specific person or named group in danger, like a source's identity but not the things they said. No vague talk about national security that can't be verified unless you have a clearance and is probably subjective anyway.
Yes, that includes nuclear weapon designs, hacking tool source code and every assassination plan ever dreamed up by some megalomaniac CIA officer. The system needs to go.
"the things they said" could very well reveal their identity.
Distraction from Epstein?
Reminder that Trump famously doesn't take Daily Briefs (first term and now) and for a year with Gabbard, she was omitting huge swarths of info from what he did get.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/09/trump-intelligence-...
https://www.npr.org/2016/12/13/505348507/what-exactly-is-the...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/tulsi-gabbard-reveals-li...
Its harder to ignore reality if you’re being explicitly told about it each day
No, it's not, if you just forget what you were told.
TBH, that was probably Biden, and Reagan at least toward the end of his second term. There really should be an upper age limit on federal offices.
Alternate reality then?
>Reminder that Trump famously doesn't take Daily Briefs
I was surprised by this.
The guy who tried to sell me on the CIA did so by knowing I had dreams of being a writer, and coyly said maybe what I'd written would be seen by "just one, very important person".
(The implication being said important person had seen some of my writing and/or uh.... "reports" previously? Big if true!)
I knew when he took office he was a lazy fascist[1], but I assumed he'd whenever possible ingest intelligence so he could monetize it, the lazy fuck is truly a special kind of stupid.
But hey, I'm just a dumb Appalachian from "flyover country", handed the password to a shared account that's only accessed over Tor.
What could I possibly know? I probably have delusions of grandeur.
(Alternative take to that one: since I was a child, folks react to being held to the rules they wrote in a world I didn't choose to be born into as if they're being held at gunpoint by Hans Gruber from Die Hard.)
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/hitler-incompetent-lazy-nazi-govern...
I have lots of questions but am sure you will not answer them.