[Capriole]

I have the feeling that increase to orange had a lot more to it than just the word of one Al Qaeda jerk.

Right you are. I live near DC and have friends who work for FEMA and a cousin who works, um, someplace else I won't mention. They say that we don't hear about a tenth of what goes on. In particular we don't hear about all the terrorist activities that get thwarted. We only hear about the intel failures.

And that, the anti-terrorist guys say, is how they like it. If you heard about their successes in the media, their informants would be compromised. If you do hear about their failures, or purported failures, the bad guys do to, and then underestimate our abilities and resources. It's to their advantage to be thought stupid and incompetent.

Which is not to say, of course, that some aspects of the FBI are not stupid and incompetent. I'm not disputing that.

[Coop]

a cousin who works, um, someplace else I won't mention.

It's to their advantage to be thought stupid and incompetent. Which is not to say, of course, that some aspects of the FBI are not stupid and incompetent.

Are you sure you won't at least give us a hint? :-)

[rwfromkansas]

I would still like to hear about some occassional thwarted attacks. Otherwise, the public doesn't know. Of course, they should not give info about every thwarted attack, just perhaps once a year or so.