Considering I live near Seattle and often fly to Chicago for the company I'm with (and have many friends in the greater Chicago area) this story certainly does not give me a 'warm fuzzy' feeling. Everyone should be constantly vigilent.
To relate another story, about 6 weeks ago we had the local representative from the Joint Task Force on Terrorism visit our location. We are an industrial gases manufacturer in the Tacoma, WA. area. Apparently that morning (about 5 am)a local police officer approached a man (no description was given to us by the JTF or the Tacoma PD) whom was filming our trucks entering and leaving the facility, from an overpass on I-5. These are 18 wheelers with Liquefied Argon, Oxygen and Nitrogen trailers.
Though the officer had no grounds to apprehend the individual he did file a report and it must have caught someones attention. Less than 3 hours later the local representative of the JTF on Terrorism, a Pierce county sheriff's deputy and a Tacoma city police detective, came to our location to discuss site security, among other topics, with us.
To compound the matter, and set our nerves a little on edge, the day before an unmarked white panel van was seen outside the fenceline with two people photographing the site. One of our employees approached the van and it left 'in a hurry' according to the employee. The next day (same day as the filming incident above) a car was outside the fence line doing the same thing, it also left hurriedly when it was approached. Unfortunatley we do not have any type of ID as to the nationality of any of the idividuals involved in the incident.
One point has to be remembered, we are considered a chemical manufacturer and we do have a lot of eco terrorist freaks in this area. It could as easily have been Green Peace or Earth Liberation Front goons looking for an easy target, as it could have been islamofacists.
Since then we have had no further incidents
Just WOW. Be careful out there.