05/21/03: Post by The Unknown Soldier
Posted by: BLOWBACK
"U.S. Terror Alert Raised on Hints of Major Attack""The government raised the terror threat level to "high" after intelligence chatter suggested that terrorists may be planning a major attack inside the U.S."This was the headline from a CNN/Netscape website, seems they may be just picking from an AP wire, I'm not sure. Regardless, judging at first glance from this headline and secondary line one is lead to believe our government has evidence that a MAJOR, yes MAJOR, attack is being planned in the U.S..Does intelligence chatter suggest that terrorists may be planning a MAJOR attack inside the U.S.???Let's read an excerpt from the article:"Federal law-enforcement officials said that among the intelligence picked up recently were two electronic transmissions that discussed the possibility of an attack on New York, Washington, Boston and more broadly the U.S. coastlines. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were doubts about the credibility of the threats and stressed that they were not the driving factors in the decision to raise the threat level."Reading this, would anyone describe this threat level as one hinting of a MAJOR attack???My point being. Are the news organizations trying to lure readers in by offering sensational headlines to semi-sensational stories (see also WMD discussions on earlier postings from this talk group) or is the government feeding the media sensational intelligence hints to be interpreted as evidence by individual reporters?I'm not sure myself but I don't like the tone of the original headline.In fairness to all here are the original links:The original headline site:(I don't know if this link will work, as of this posting it did but who knows if it may be changed)http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/default.jsp The story link from that headline:http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=NW_1-T&oldflok=FF-APO-1151&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20030520%2F203423581.htm&sc=1151&photoid=20030520FX107&floc=NW_1-TThe headline from that story reads:Terror Alert in U.S. Raised to 'High'A little different than a "Hint of a MAJOR Attack"