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Did a flash drive just put ISIS in checkmate?

Britain's Sky News reports being handed a thumb drive by a disillusioned ISIS defector who once believe in the cause but has had second thoughts. (Creative Commons)

Another data breach! But for once it’s not us getting hacked, it’s ISIS.

Britain’s Sky News reports being handed a thumb drive by a disillusioned ISIS defector who once believed in the cause but has had second thoughts.

Related: Let’s hope U.S. Intelligence Community is awake after N. Korean threats

The defector decided he didn’t like the way leadership was being taken over, according to Sky News. So he stole a memory stick and left.

The memory stick, according to correspondent Stuart Ramsay, has the personnel files of 22,000 ISIS recruits from 51 countries. Who knew that ISIS makes you register?

You think they’d just give you the oath and trust the rest to God. But no, they had a form with 32 questions, including: Name, fighter name, mother’s maiden name, blood type, level of Sharia understanding, previous job, level of obedience, special skills, and contact numbers.

There’s also a box labeled “security deposit” in case you break anything. No, actually they hold your passport to keep you from running.

Sky News made it sound like this is a ball game.

“The information on this could bring down the entire network.”

But wait, why would a defector go to Sky News, and why would Sky News disclose it? One theory is that we already had this stuff, which is why some of the names on the list are already dead, and it’s being released now so that fighters we haven’t killed are rendered useless for an attack on the West.

And the story about the ISIS defector could just be a little bit of drama to obscure how the files were really stolen. That would be so sneaky and couldn’t happen to a more deserving organization.

Dave Ross on KIRO Radio 97.3 FM

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About the Author

Dave Ross

Dave Ross hosts the Morning News on KIRO Radio weekdays from 5-9 a.m. Dave has won the national Edward R. Murrow Award for writing five times since he started at KIRO Radio in 1978.

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