There is no question that an Al-Qaeda tape was not released and that's news of a sort. However the writers' insistence that a release was shortstopped by intelligence agencies is questionable, at best. Jihadi tapes are still being released, perhaps not in the numbers before, but they are still out there. Many can be found and downloaded at http://clearinghouse.infovlad.net/forumdisplay.php?f=2. Jihadica at http://www.jihadica.com tracks much of the jihadi releases and is a good resource to understand what is happening in that field. To illustrate, I was background downloading a 40-minute, professional quality, video for the collection of a major American educational institution from two sites while I was writing this. There are a number of explanations for why no al-Qaeda tape was released -- starting with the idea that bin Laden is dead or even didn't want to release a tape for reasons of his own. Yes, there are some problems with jihadi forum websites being closed down, and there is speculation as to the cause -- including CIA intervention. But jihadis have attributed the closures to Shiite-Sunni intramural conflicts and even to the work of pro-American independent web monitors. In many ways this article represents pure speculation. Frankly, this is poor journalism: theory stated as fact, lack of research etc., The theory presented here may be true, but there are enough alternative explanations that the writers didn't offer to the reader that this piece may be seriously misleading.