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Posted: 30-05-2004 13:20 Post subject: Terror alerts

We get moved up to an amber status then downgraded, the army turn up at Heathrow for a few days, etc. but nothing ever happens. Have they really diverted terror threats successfully (if so why have we never caught anyone?) or are we just being manipulated to help maintain our support for The War Against Terror?

Personally I'm still unsure about this issue but these artice thros some interesting light on things:

Posted: 02-06-2004 12:54 Post subject:

Posted: 03-06-2004 16:22 Post subject:

Propane Trucks Stolen in Texas Are Found

LAREDO, Texas (AP) - Two propane-delivery trucks were found Wednesday after being stolen from a gas company over the weekend, a theft that raised fears of what could happen if terrorists got hold of the explosive fuel.

The trucks were found on a highway just outside of Laredo, San Antonio police spokeswoman Sandy Gutierrez said. She did not know whether the trucks were still carrying the fuel.

An FBI spokesman in Laredo did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

Police Chief Albert Ortiz said Tuesday that his department does not suspect that terrorism was behind the thefts. But officials said that since Sept. 11, such a possibility cannot be ignored.

``Four years ago, we probably would not be too concerned about this, San Antonio FBI agent Patrick Patterson said Wednesday on NBC's ``Today.'' ``It would be a major theft and handled like any other criminal investigation. Because of the nature of the day, we are very, very concerned about the whereabouts of these two trucks.''

One of the tankers carried about 3,000 gallons of propane, while the other held 2,600 gallons, police said. The trucks were taken from a parking lot owned by Ferrellgas and have the company logo on them.

Another FBI spokesman, Rene Salinas, said the market for propane in Mexico is strong and that the thieves could have been filling an order, mirroring a similar theft about nine months ago. A nationwide alert has been posted and law enforcement officials in Mexico also have been contacted, he said.

``We don't want to alarm anyone,'' Salinas said. ``But we do want people to be on the lookout.''

Also under investigation is the weekend theft of 15 gas canisters from an ambulance supply company. Authorities do not believe the thefts are related.

06/02/04 15:36

© Copyright The Associated Press.

source

FWIW, Emps, I agree completely with your points 1 and especially two. These people have been playing the Politics of Fear to justify their own ends for 33 months now. It's disgusting. -lopaka:mad:

Posted: 08-07-2004 18:47 Post subject:

Ridge says al Qaeda planning attack
Terrorists' aim is to influence presidential vote, security chief says

Thursday, July 8, 2004 Posted: 11:55 AM EDT (1555 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Al Qaeda plans a large-scale attack on the United States "in an effort to disrupt the democratic process" before November's elections, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Thursday.

Ridge cited "recent interdictions" for the new warning. He said U.S. officials have no precise knowledge of the time, place or method of attack, but said they are "actively working to gain that knowledge."

"We know they have the capability to succeed and they also hold the mistaken belief that their attacks will have an impact on America's resolve," Ridge said.

Ridge did not raise the national color-coded threat level beyond its current yellow, or elevated, level.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, speaking before the briefing, said the intelligence was "very non-specific" and there was "no reason for panic, no reason for paralysis."

"The reality is of increased risk here in the homeland over the next several weeks, the next several months," Frist said.
Accusations of scaremongering

Officials say there is no specific intelligence of a planned attack on either of the major political conventions. The four-day Democratic convention kicks off July 26 in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Republican National Convention begins August 30 in New York City.

Officials say Ridge thinks it is time to again raise public awareness.

Because there is no plan to raise the threat level and only general information, some Democrats privately have questioned whether the timing of the announcement is politically motivated.

A senior administration official said accusations of scaremongering are to be expected. But the official, who has read Ridge's prepared remarks, added, "This is one of those damned if you do and damned if you don'ts, and our default is 'do.' "
Alert level raised 5 times

A senior campaign adviser to Sen. John Kerry, President Bush's expected rival in November, said he is giving the White House the benefit of the doubt. He added, however, that the White House would have to explain its reasons for the new warnings.

The color-coded alert level has been raised five times to orange, or high, since the system's inception after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

The last time the alert level was raised was in December, after a taped threat from al Qaeda's No. 2 figure, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The alert level was dropped the following month.

CNN Homeland Security Producer Mike Ahlers contributed to this report.

© 2004 Cable News Network

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/08/ridge.alqaeda/index.html

Forgive me for being cynical here, but "Ridge thinks it's time again to raise public awareness." Why is now the time ? Because Kerry just announced his running mate and so has been getting free publicity? I know what's bumped that as the lead story now.

If not that, why? If there's no time, place or method even hinted at, exactly what does he hope my awareness is raised in the service or purpose of doing?

But they insist that the terrorists believe an attack would weaken " America's resolve" for what exacty? Four more years?

Hmph

Posted: 14-07-2004 03:26 Post subject: GAO to Ridge: These Ain't Helping

And of course his last press conference is what set up the "let's delay the elections" scenario.-lopaka

GAO report criticizes terror warnings

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 Posted: 9:28 PM EDT (0128 GMT)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. government terror warnings to local police and citizens fail to give the specific information many authorities say is needed to protect the public, a report made for Congress said Monday.

The report followed a series of official warnings about possible attacks -- most recently voiced last week by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge -- which lacked new intelligence or details on the threat and how to respond.

The report by the Government Accountability Office, the independent, nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, was based on survey of 28 agencies and 56 states and territories.

Those responding "generally indicated that they did not receive specific threat information and guidance, which they believe hindered their ability to determine and implement protective measures," the report said.

Some critics have accused President Bush's administration of using terrorism warnings as a political tool. Bush has made the fight against global terrorism a major theme of his campaign for re-election.

The administration denies playing politics with terror threats, but a GAO official said the warning system's credibility could be undermined by vague announcements.

"When the government gives warnings without more information about why they're giving them ... that inevitably leads to people questioning whether the timing is a diversion, or politically motivated," said Randall Yim, head of GAO's homeland security division.

The report urged the Department of Homeland Security to give "specific information about the nature, location and timing of the threat, and guidance on action to take."

A failure to deliver specific information in terror warnings can leave agencies unable to gauge risk or develop an effective response, it said.

It recommended that the department publicize threats quickly and through multiple channels, and said many authorities reported they had first learned about threat warnings from media sources.

Government officials have said that the nature of terrorist threats and the classified information on which they are often based make it difficult to give more detailed information.

But Yim said recent warnings may be counterproductive.

"They didn't say what was new and they didn't suggest any additional measures to be taken other than please be a little bit more vigilant and please go about your shopping. I think that that really attacks the credibility of the government warning system."

GAO was formerly known as the General Accounting Office. Under recent legislation, it changed its name to the Government Accountability Office.

Copyright 2004 Reuters. All rights reserved.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/13/terror.security.reut/index.html

Posted: 14-07-2004 03:46 Post subject:

I too noticed the exquisite timing of the recent highly informative and helpful Speculative Warning of a Hypothetical Terrorist Act Possibly Somewhere In the Country At A Time Unknown, about which I have done precisely nothing as I have no information to act on. Maybe I'd better vote Republican and just hope for the best, huh?
However I noticed it came on the same day as Ken Lay, special advisor to Cheney and co's Energy Task Force, was led in handcuffs into a Houston court room. No-one really talks about Lay's tightness with GWB and the present Administration. What friends our Prez keeps! First the Bin Ladens, now the biggest corporate crook in history.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0708042lay1.html

Posted: 30-07-2004 14:41 Post subject:

Could it get any vaguer?

Posted: 03-08-2004 12:08 Post subject:

Posted: 03-08-2004 12:33 Post subject: KEEP MOVING! NOTHING TO SEE HERE!!

Remember back in the eighties the leaflet they sent to every householded informing us of what to do in the event of a Nuclear bomb dropping on England?

History repeating itself, right here, right now.

Move along...

Posted: 03-08-2004 12:35 Post subject:

They papers are adding to the problem. over here For example today the Times on line http://www.timesonline.co.uk/

Headlines say:

"Terror Threat to London Banks"

"Terror threat to London uncovered in al-Qaeda raid"

But actually go on to say in their reports :
"They included high-profile American institutions, such as Citigroup, which is based in one of the "twin towers" of Canary Wharf, and the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, which have headquarters in London, although security sources said that no specific threat had been made against any company in Britain."

"Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert is three or four years old, according to a report in The New York Times this morning. Intelligence and law enforcement officials reported on Monday the newspaper says that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way"

Posted: 03-08-2004 13:20 Post subject:

I've been asking myself what do we (the public) actually gain from knowing there is an (alleged?) increase in terrorist attacks in the UK or the US and I can't really come up with any answers.

Anyone got any ideas?

H.

Posted: 03-08-2004 13:30 Post subject:

You know, when they first broke the news about the heightened terror alert in NY and elsewhere, my first thought was that this was a way of stealing headlines from the Democratic National Convention.

Posted: 03-08-2004 14:34 Post subject:

Well, yeah. Ridge's press conference in July was held just as Kerry announced Edwards as his running mate (see above).

Two other things this does, is 1) Help intimidate or provide an excuse for police-state like tactics against protestors for the Republican National Convention. eg The city of New York has refused to issue any protest permits, their claim is that the protestors would "hurt the grass in Central Park".

Similarly, for about a month or more the FBI has been releasing hysterical statements and questioning the friends, family and members of a little anarchist group in town...these kids are about 19 years old and do stuff like Leonard Peltier support and serve Food Not Bombs, they could give two whits about the election or who is the president. But there's been twice now (once involving *intelligence* that the Feds gathered from reading the web about non-violent protests for some animal rights guy who's in jail, and the second during the Democratic National Convention, that there's these "domestic terrorist groups" in our midst.

And 2), if nothing happens during the RNC, the administration gets to claim "see, we're keeping the country safe. 'They' wanted to, but we stopped 'em".

People had tuned out the semi-regular announcements about threats, so increase the color-code, and hey, it's news again.

I suppose this reflects the worst kind of cynicism on my part, but I've simply reached the point where I assume the admin is acting in bad faith in furthering its own self-interests until proven otherwise.

Posted: 03-08-2004 14:41 Post subject: More on 'The Politics of Fear'

Study: Fear shapes voters' views
Responses to candidates differ after thinking about tragedy

Friday, July 30, 2004 Posted: 2:58 PM EDT (1858 GMT)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President George W. Bush may be tapping into solid human psychology when he invokes the September 11 attacks while campaigning for the next election, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

Talking about death can raise people's need for psychological security, the researchers report in studies to be published in the December issue of the journal Psychological Science and the September issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

"There are people all over who are claiming every time Bush is in trouble he generates fear by declaring an imminent threat," said Sheldon Solomon of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, who worked on the study.

"We are saying this is psychologically useful," said Solomon.

Jeff Greenberg, a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said generating fear was a common tactic.

"A lot of leaders gain their appeal by helping people feel they are heroic, particularly in a fight against evil," Greenberg said in a telephone interview from Hawaii, where he presented the findings to a meeting of the American Psychological Association.

"Sometimes that may be the right thing to do. But it is a psychological approach, particularly when death is close to peoples' consciousness."

For their first study, Solomon, Greenberg and colleagues asked students to think about either their own death or a neutral topic.

They then read the campaign statements of three hypothetical candidates for governor, each with a different leadership style. One was charismatic, said Solomon.

"That was a person who declared our country to be great and the people in it to be special," Solomon, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.

The others were task-oriented -- focusing on the job to be done -- or relationship-oriented -- with a "let's get it done together" style, Solomon said.
Fearing doom, choosing charisma

The students who thought about death were much more likely to choose the charismatic leader, they found. Only four out of about 100 chose that imaginary leader when thinking about exams, but 30 did after thinking about death.

Greenberg, Solomon and colleagues then decided to test the idea further and set up four separate studies at different universities.

"In one we asked half the people to think about the September 11 attacks, or to think about watching TV," Solomon said. "What we found was staggering."

When asked to think about television, the 100 or so volunteers did not approve of Bush or his policies in Iraq. But when asked to think about Sept. 11 first and then asked about their attitudes to Bush, another 100 volunteers had very different reactions.

"They had a very strong approval of President Bush and his policy in Iraq," Solomon said.

Solomon, a social psychologist who specializes in terrorism, said it was very rare for a person's opinions to differ so strongly depending on the situation.

Another study focused directly on Bush and his Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

The volunteers were aged from 18 into their 50s and described themselves as ranging from liberal to deeply conservative. No matter what a person's political conviction, thinking about death made them tend to favor Bush, Solomon said. Otherwise, they preferred Kerry.

"I think this should concern anybody," Solomon said. "If I was speaking lightly, I would say that people in their, quote, right minds, unquote, don't care much for President Bush and his policies in Iraq."

He wants voters to be aware of psychological pressures and how they are used.

"If people are aware that thinking about death makes them act differently, then they don't act differently," Solomon said. Solomon says he personally opposes Bush but describes himself as a political independent who could vote Republican.

Copyright 2004 Reuters.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/07/30/vote.psych.reut/index.html

Posted: 03-08-2004 16:49 Post subject: