Terror Threat Level Raised To High

[Max Power]

Hey - everybody be careful - OK?

[JamesI]

Was there a specific threat, or just concern of retaliation for the war talk on Iraq?

[Max Power]

Lotta chatter combined with a Holiday - - I think that was it.

[Ytown Tribe fan]

We will never know how many domestic terrorist acts have been prevented by good intel and good luck. Dozens? Hundreds?

How many people didn't die in the last year because someone was stopped?

[pathogan]

...besides scaring the bejeepers outof people, this does nothing{except some very cynical things}

[Max Power]

I saw on the news last night that they are telling people to have 3 days worth of food, and plastics sheets and duct tape - - to seal off their windows in case of a chemical attack - - - - this is some scary stuff.

[gyb13]

check this stuff out:
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/areyouready/security.pdf

[Max Power]

Now I have to start worrying about EMPs too?

[gyb13]

and you thought it was just in the movies (http://www.netshrine.com/vbulletin2/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6119)

[Jim Rice]

Folks, this is just another step in the gross misrepresentation that is "homeland security". Any plan that involves stopping me from getting on an airplane with a gun or knife, but allows me to get on with a brief case full of office supplies and a walkman is pure folly.

Here's a realistic example of what a trained person could do - take a floppy disk out of their briefcase, which isn't really a floppy but is actually a plastic explosive molded to look like a floppy. (Unless there's a bomb-sniffing dog in the airport, it won't be detected. In the the times I've flown since 9/11, I haven't seen a single dog.) Insert a piece of wire from the headphones of the walkman. Heck, if you forgot the walkman, United or Delta will be glad to rent them to you - in flight - for $2. Attach a blasting cap, which, if you have ever seen one, doesn't look like any kind of lethal object by itself and can probably be carried around with loose change without being noticed. Now all the terrorist needs is something that will provide an electrical charge. That shouldn't be hard, given that a great many airplanes now include power sources, at least in first class, for people to plug in their laptops. Heck, the laptop itself has a powerful battery, and the walkman has a weak one.

This simply isn't that hard to do, folks, especially for someone who is so dedicated to his cause that he will gladly die for it. That's a focused person. Focused people tend to learn things VERY well. Training someone to enact this scenario would be simple. Training them to kill a stewardess with one of the pens in that briefcase would be even easier.

This summer I went back to Boston with my family. We took our kids to the top of the Prudential building so they could see the city from up high and we could get some pictures. There was a security checkpoint, but it was rudimentary at best. Four or five floors lower, there was no security at all. I could have ridden the elevator up to the 40th floor, dressed as a UPS delivery man with a large box on a dolly, without anyone thinking I looked out of place. In the box, if I happened to be a terrorist, would be a rather large explosive device. Setting it off on the 40th floor, with ten or twenty floors above me, would have largely the same effect you saw at the WTC on 9/11. Boston's tallest building would drop like a rock in a couple of hours.

And the sad part is that if I can think of these things - against which there is no defense short of a police state - then a terrorist can think of them too. It's not like I've given away some scientific secret here. Heck, terrorists know how to build nukes - they just can't get their hands on the uranium or plutonium.

Telling me to buy plastic and telling me it's an "orange" day are wastes of my time and yours.