How Many Times Will We Let Them Cry Wolf? Inaugural Terra Lert Was a Hoax.

[Stephanie]

Seems to me they just wanted an excuse to lock down DC against the Inaugural protestors. Remember we saw this at the RNC, when they locked down part of NYC (the Citibank building, etc.) in response to the discovery of four-year-old computer files. And we have seen it again and again since 9/11. Who will stop them from using this ploy? It's horrendous, it's abusive, and someone should be called to account.



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Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, close to microphone, who skipped President Bush (news - web sites)'s inauguration to return to the state after learning of a terror threat, speaks during a news conference outside the Statehouse office in Boston, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005. Authorities now say the warning from an anonymous tipster was an act of revenge by an immigrant smuggler allegedly trying to get back at people who failed to pay him. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050126/480/ny11601261120

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[GetTheRightVote]

1. Down with the RNC and their wrong actions.

:kick:

[RoeBear]

2. Come on...

..it was an obvious 'target rich' environment for a terrorist attack.
It had to be done regardless of who was being inaugurated.

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

3. Come on...

...do you really believe a made-up group..al-queda...can attack? They don't exist. The only thing we have to fear is our own government.

[RoeBear]

4. Do you always flush away

your credibility like that? No Al-Queda? And what happened on 9/11 was a mirage? And Bin Laden is a fairy tale character?

[Stephanie]

5. Well I see they've convinced you, anyway

I live in NYC - wanna buy a bridge?

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http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4964.shtml

Increased Terrorism Alert Based on Political Needs, Uses Outdated Info
By WILLIAM D. McTAVISH
Aug 3, 2004, 08:47

The increased terror alerts in New York, New Jersey and Washington are based more on President George W. Bush's political campaign needs than any actual threat and the information used to justify the alerts is three years old, intelligence pros complain.

The alerts, planned weeks ago, came right after the Democratic National Convention in Boston as a carefully-orchestrated attempt to play on Bush’s strengths in the war against terrorism and blunt any momentum challenger John F. Kerry might have coming out of the convention.

Much of the "new" information cited as reasons for raising the alert dates back to 2001.

“The only real ‘increased chatter’ we’re seeing lately is between the White House and the Bush campaign headquarters in Arlington,” mutters one Homeland Security operative who spoke to Capitol Hill Blue only on condition of anonymity. “There’s no greater threat today than there was six months ago.”

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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30312

HOMELAND INSECURITY
Terror alerts manufactured?
FBI agents say White House scripting 'hysterics' for political effect
Posted: January 4, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jon Dougherty
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

Intelligence pros say the White House is manufacturing terrorist alerts to keep the issue alive in the minds of voters and to keep President Bush's approval ratings high, Capitol Hill Blue reports.

The Thursday report said that the administration is engaging in "hysterics" in issuing numerous terror alerts that have little to no basis in fact.

"Unfortunately, we haven't made a lot of progress against al-Qaida or the war on terrorism," one FBI agent familiar with terrorism operations told CHB. "We've been spinning our wheels for several weeks now."

Other sources within the bureau and the Central Intelligence Agency said the administration is pressuring intelligence agencies to develop "something, anything" to support an array of non-specific terrorism alerts issued by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.

"Most of the time, we have little to go on, only unconfirmed snippets of information," a second FBI agent, who also was not named in the report, said. "Most alerts are issued without any concrete data to back up the assumptions."

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http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0408/01/le.00.html

BLITZER: We're also following the terror threat level here in the United States, specifically in Washington, D.C., where the U.S. homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, is about to announce it will be elevated from yellow to orange. CNN will have live coverage of his news conference coming up a little bit less than an hour from now, 2 p.m. eastern.

Let's get some discussion on that, as well as presidential politics. Joining us now from Vermont, the former governor of Vermont, Howard Dean, joining us live.

Governor Dean, thanks very much for joining us.

And I want to immediately get your reaction to both of these developing stories. First, the decision by the federal government, the Department of Homeland Security, to increase the threat level here in Washington, D.C., from yellow to orange, from elevated to high. What do you make of this?

HOWARD DEAN, FORMER GOVERNOR OF VERMONT: It's hard to know what to make. None of us outside the administration have access to the intelligence, which led to this determination.

I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush he plays this trump card, which is terrorism. His whole campaign is based on the notion that "I can keep you safe, therefore at times of difficulty for America stick with me," and then out comes Tom Ridge.

It's just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there's some of both in it.

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