[quote][size=6]Ridge Says There Is No Evidence of `Recent' Terror Surveillance [/size] Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said U.S. authorities have no evidence of ``recent'' surveillance of targets in New York and Washington, and his alert Sunday was based on information that might be three years old and was updated in January.

Ridge issued an alert for the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup Inc. buildings in New York, Prudential Financial Inc.'s building in Newark, New Jersey, and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington. Today he defended the security clampdown begun on the strength of the information obtained in Pakistan, describing the material as possibly the most detailed ever seen on al-Qaeda planning.

Al-Qaeda will act once it believes an attack can be successful, Ridge said. You shouldn't get too carried away by the time frame,'' he told reporters and an audience of Citigroup Inc. employees at Citigroup Center in New York, one of the threatened sites. When they are ready to move, they'll move.''

U.S. authorities assume al-Qaeda operatives are in the U.S., Ridge said. There is no evidence that they have infiltrated the targeted institutions, he said.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city is safe and is operating as usual, while New York Governor George Pataki praised Ridge for the warning and urged Citigroup workers to go about their duties.

Bloomberg is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

The plot suggested by the intelligence aims at major attacks on financial institutions symbolic of U.S. influence in the global economy, according to Ridge.[/quote]

[url]http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=abx675OiAEkE&refer=top_world_news[/url]

noone takes these things seriously anymore anyway.

i hope @ the RNC they bring out Bin Laden in cuffs to rally the votes!

Re:: Bush Administration AGAIN trying to scare America

[url=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20040803/ap_on_go_pr_wh/terror_threats_intelligence_10]Of course the fact that the warnings come from intelligence gathered in 2000 to 2001 makes them doubly credible.[/url]

I also just heard that some Bostonians unhappy with "taxation without representation" are going to start throwing some tea overboard from some ships. But that's strictly entre nous.

Just how stupid are these guys?

If they bring Osama out of where they're hiding him now in time for the convention it'll look like the set up that it is.

^ i don't have a problem with that. :twisted:

Re:: Bush Administration AGAIN trying to scare America

The Washington Post seems to suggest in an article today that not only did the surveillance at issue take place pre-9/11, our intelligence community has known about it since before 9/11:

[quote]"There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new," said one senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the alert. "Why did we go to this level? . . . I still don't know that." [/quote]

[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35466-2004Aug2.html[/url]

Has anyone else heard anything else about this? My understanding is that this "new" info was found on a laptop in a raid in Pakistan. It is one thing to find intelligence that happens to be old, and acting on it as the DHS did -- to borrow a term from NBC television, "if you haven't seen it, it's new to you!" It takes on a different light if the intelligence we uncovered merely corroborates something we already knew.

Which is it? I haven't seen anything that really answers the question, and even the quote above could be read both ways. Other officials quoted in the article suggest that the info was new to US intelligence:

[quote]Other officials also stressed that, however long ago al Qaeda operatives compiled the surveillance details, the information was new to U.S. intelligence agencies and was almost unprecedented in the depth of its details. "All this stuff was fresh to us," one official said. [/quote]

The Washington Post...now there's a credible source. :roll:

liberal media.

let me guess, it was posted in the Ny Times too eh?

[quote=Jenks] liberal media.[/quote] The so-called Liberal Media are owned by large Conservative corporations that dictate control over biased news reporting in major newspapers and on major television networks. The media are conservative just like their owners and sponsors. You're getting the "News" the way that they want you to see it.

[quote=Jenks]The Washington Post...now there's a credible source. :roll:

liberal media.

let me guess, it was posted in the Ny Times too eh?[/quote]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, liberal media, leftist commies, blah, blah, blah -- a quote is a quote...

With that said, my point is that the article isn't clear on what exactly it is saying on the issue. I'm actually giving the ruling party the benefit of the doubt on this one, until I see something conclusive to the contrary.

[quote=HoneyBearKelly]You're getting the "News" the way that they want you to see it.[/quote]

my point exactly, thank you.

[quote=toasty] Yeah, yeah, yeah, liberal media, leftist commies, blah, blah, blah -- a quote is a quote...

[/quote]

you, of all people, should know a quote is not just a quote.

[quote=Jenks]

[quote=toasty] Yeah, yeah, yeah, liberal media, leftist commies, blah, blah, blah -- a quote is a quote...

[/quote]

you, of all people, should know a quote is not just a quote.[/quote]

Fair enough, although if you look at the whole article, it makes it pretty clear that this is not the point of the article -- it was just a comment made in the body of the thing that I thought was interesting. The WP doesn't draw any conclusions from it at all -- that was me wondering aloud.

In the absence of some reason to think that it was transcribed wrong, it deserves a second look, at least, regardless of the source. I actually worked in the Gateway Center where Prudential is located in Newark during the period -- it gave me a bit of a gut check to hear that plans were already in place to attack that building while I was there, and perked me up even more when I saw something that suggested that our folks might have known about it well before that.

Again, however, I'm giving our heroes in Washington the benefit of the doubt on this one, that it was old intel that was new to them...

[quote=Jenks]The Washington Post...now there's a credible source. :roll:

liberal media.

let me guess, it was posted in the Ny Times too eh?[/quote]

Just for the record, what media do you find credible?

The Onion.

[quote=Jenks]The Onion.[/quote]

:RightOn: :RightOn: :RightOn: :RightOn:

[quote=Jenks]noone takes these things seriously anymore anyway.

i hope @ the RNC they bring out Bin Laden in cuffs to rally the votes![/quote]

they also will have the cure for aids and a plan to solve world hunger.