That&#x27;s roughly equivalent to &#x27;if those documents had not been properly shred that data would not have been available&#x27;.<p>Each and every operation of this magnitude leaves a trail. The party perpetrating it will try what they can to erase that trail but that will always be an imperfect process.<p>Maybe next time the phone will be secured, they will scrub themselves of parking tickets, they will burn up their escape vehicle after a few minutes ride and so on. All the media has succeeded in doing is educate the terrorists about how to be more successful in evading capture and possibly being more successful in carrying out the attack in the first place.