Slashdot Mirror
FBI Foils Attack by Monitoring Chat Rooms
An anonymous reader writes "A planned terrorist attack on New York City was reportedly foiled by FBI agents who monitored chat rooms frequented by extremists. Lebanese authorities captured an Al Qaeda member who confessed to the plot, and stated that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had pledged financial and other support for the operation. Although the planning for the operation was not far along, according to U.S. officials, they had already been monitoring the plot for a year." From the article: "A government official with knowledge of the investigation said the alleged plot did focus on New York's transport system, but did not target the Holland Tunnel. New York senator Charles Schumer said: 'This is one instance where intelligence was on top of its game and discovered the plot when it was just in the talking phase.' The Holland Tunnel is protected not just by bedrock, but also by concrete and cast-iron steel. One counter-terrorism source told the Daily News it was doubtful a plot to blow it up would be feasible, saying huge amounts of explosives and a detailed knowledge of blast effect would be necessary."
Well, that wasn't very fair to the lebanese. The New York Times should find out what screen names the FBI uses in these chat rooms and publish it as a page 1 story. It is our right as citizens to know!
I am surprised he did not go on to precisely estimate the amount of explosives needed and identify the specific point where the blast would be most effective. Most of these so-called experts cant keep their mouth shut once a media microphone is shoved in front of them.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The US isn't going to become a dictatorship in 8 years, in 2008 the ruling party is going to lose massively at the polls.
Be careful what you say indeed.
The gov't hasn't threatened me, but Slashdot has with a ban for not following group think.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Ah yes. You're one of the "terrorism is ok because cars kill more people" crowd. Well Mr. Scientist, I'd suggest you stick to your books and leave politics, law enforcement, and warfare to those of us who have at least a little bit of common sense.
And no, we're not all part of a secret plot to scare you sensless so we can "maintain a perception of power". Although your paranoia does nicely illustrate your point about how irrational human beings are. Government spokesmen and agencies generaly reveal information which they deem suitable for public consumption, which makes their organization look good, and which they feel people may be interested in. From there, it's out of their hands. As long as you're not one of the freaks running around screaming about a "zionist controlled media", you probably understand that most media organizations decide whether or not to publish something depending on whether or not it will bring them more customers. The government can try and shape their releases to make them more likely to be published, but in the end they get no real say on what makes the news. Most of the time, the media ignores positive government releases, or at best gives them a single paragraph mention burried somewhere in the back of a newspaper. Most "FUD" in papers these days is along the lines of "WE'RE LOSING THE WAR! IT'S ANOTHER VIETNAM! THE SKY IS FALLING!", which deffinitely has nothing to do with government releases.