[boomop1]

The only thing fascinating about the NY Times is that people buy it and believe anything in it.

[The Electrician]

The article in question was written by a person who is "a former analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation", etc. So, I believe that cavalierly dismissing the article based on the fact that it was published in the New York Times is an unhelpful oversimplification.

Having said that, though, there are other reasons to criticize the article. For example, it focuses on "chatter" as the prime reason for the upgraded Orange alert level of last week, notwithstanding the fact that, as reported in other places such as here, there were significant sources beyond the level of "chatter" that led to that step being taken:

"American officials also said today that the intelligence pointing to an imminent threat went beyond the communications intercepts, although they declined to provide details about what other specific information they had obtained."