Was That Really Osama on Al Jazeera?

CIA analysts reported today that an audiotape broadcast on Al Jazeera this weekend—purported to be a voice recording by Osama Bin Laden—”likely” belonged to the al-Qaida leader. In March, Slate’s Brendan Koerner explained how intelligence officers figure out whether a voice on tape really belongs to Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, or whoever else. The key: creating a “digital model” of the voice in question, “using archived snippets from past speeches.”