[Miss Marple]

Let us suppose that we have a phone tap on a terrorist cell and we have heard plans to bomb a shopping mall. We don't know which one. We don't know who all the cell members are, nor where many of them live.

Now, if we say we heard on a phone tap plans to bomb a shopping mall, two things would happen: 1. The terrorists would know their phone is tapped and immediately switch to another form of communication. 2. They would switch from targetting a shopping mall to targetting another site, such as a football stadium filled with fans.

Ridge cannot be too specific because of these types of reactions by the terrorists.

[Lucy Lake]

Pinging you to # 266

[nmh]

I know what you're saying but I think Tom alluded to enough for me ... planes, transportation ... . I wasn't expecting him to say, "stay away from Times Square in NYC since we expect it to be attacked by a plane on 12/24/03 at 7PM. ;)

[nmh]

I know what you're saying but I think Tom alluded to enough for me ... planes, transportation ... . I wasn't expecting him to say, "stay away from Times Square in NYC since we expect it to be attacked by a plane on 12/24/03 at 7PM. ;)

I was referring to #266.

[FairOpinion]

"Ridge cannot be too specific because of these types of reactions by the terrorists."


===

Exactly. Some people are either in denial or totally lack common sense or both.