http:///www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/38850.htm January 26, 2005 -- MEXICALI, Mexico — The widely publicized report of a terrorist plan to detonate a "dirty" nuclear bomb in Boston was a false alarm, authorities in the U.S. and Mexico said yesterday. "There were, in fact, no terrorist plans or activity under way," the FBI said in a statement. In Mexico, an official at the attorney general's office in Baja California quoted two Mexican smugglers as saying the threat had been phoned in because of a squabble. The official said the two men — a father and son suspected of smuggling Chinese immigrants from Mexico to the United States — admitted the story was "longer than a Toluca sausage," or a tall tale. The suspects told investigators that they had argued over a deal, and that one had anonymously called in the false tip in revenge. The caller told California cops that four Chinese nationals and two Iraqi nationals entered the United States from Mexico and were awaiting a shipment of nuclear material that would follow them to Boston — setting off a nationwide hunt for non-existent ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^terrorists. What I don't understand is that why the FBI decided to let it go public without corroborating the claims of that anonymous tipster. Im sure they recieve tips like this every day, and there must be a line as to when to warn the public and when to investigate quietly. In this particular case, I think they should have investigated behind closed doors. Instead, they went public and scared people.
Did anyone actually believe the story, anyway? When I saw the mugshots I was like: "They can't terrorist."
that's exactly my point. What made the FBI believe these illegal immigrants were terriorists? It's not like this is the first time they have dealt with illegal immigrants first hand. If you and i and many others can tell these people are just illegal immigrants, how come the FBI couldnt'. After all, they have proflilers. right?
i think you take these things seriously and live with the monday morning quarterbacking the day after when all the "experts" say, "see...i told ya it was no big deal all along! i knew it!!" because the moment you don't take one of these things seriously, then you live with the guilt of blood on your hands and those same "experts" surprisingly have a much different view of what you should have been doing with that information.
So, would you rather have had them not go public and have the plan actually come to fruition, thus having many more people killed or injured? Hindsight is a beautiful thing.
The point is you always take every tip/information seriously, but you didn't have to go public about it. Because the information made public is not of any use to the average people. On one hand you tell people there could be a terror plot, then you tell people to go about their business as usual. There isn't anything the people in Boston could have done based on the information. So what does this serve other than scare the public.
In this case, they published pictures of the suspects so how is it that the public could not be of any help exactly? It's kind of like "America's Most Wanted" in this case and any tipster could have provided a lead that cracks the case.
Timing could be the reason why this thing went public at the time. It is GWB's inauguration time and FBI cannot risk anything horrible may happen. FBI receive millions of tips per year and majority of them were dealt with internally and never leaked to the public, this case could be handled internally if not the inauguration time.
The strange thing is that I heard about it being a hoax while listening to NPR on a certain day. I don't remember what day it was. Then a couple days later I hear FOX News channel talking about this serious scary search for the guys in Boston. That channel loves hyping up terrorism. I don't mind posting the potential of a threat, but at least make sure that people also know that it a hoax is also a very real possibility.
I was watching Fox News on Saturday and they aired the story [of the hoax] right after the FBI announced it. They were also discussing it Monday evening. Not sure what you were watching.
they published pictures and they told people to be on alert. again...the same people who b**** about this stuff when it all turns out fine are the people who will scream from the rooftops about how leadership failed us by not giving us a heads up if the crap goes down.
Wrong, "America's Most Wanted" usually involves suspects that we are fairly certain they are guilty. You don't just post any picture you get that's unsubstantiated, uncorroborated. What was the public suppose to do? Checkout every Chinese/Asian they see on the way to work? Pretty sure this isn't the first time someone droped an unsubstantiated, uncorroborated tip to FBI, its FBI's job to take it seriously and investigate. However it does worry me a little when a phone call from Mexico would cause enough panic for them to go public with the info, what does it mean when the real bad guys are planing something.
Again, if they feel a need to go public for an unsubstantiated, uncorroborated tip from a call in Mexico. I worry about their ability to deal with any real threats. If they are asking the public to indentify the people, pretty much means they have no clue where these people are, and have no real means of finding them. Now if the threat were real (they probably woun't get a tip from Mexcio), how are the real bad guys going to be stoped?
Uh, how are you going to id the people in the pictures without checking out every Asian you see? And if they need you and me to crack a hoax, I feel real good about them protecting us from the real bad guys.
The day of the warning the gov't said, "Information... originating from an unkown and uncorroborated source regarding an unspecified potential threat..." Which translates to, "Regardless of the flimsy threat, we're going to cover our ass and make you worry." Any person with reasonable intelligence can deduct that these four 20-23 year olds are not scientist hell bent on detonating a dirty bomb in Boston. No Monday morning QBing either. The media should know better as well, but then you get the NY Post and Boston Herald putting their passport pictures on the front page with headlines like "FIND THEM!" Then the next day have headlines about "METER MAID RAGE" and relagating the terrorist threat story to page 12. If they're going to make a public warning of this magnitude, at least do it discriminately. The gov't said they receive thousands of these "tips". This one has got to be the least credible. This is an obvious "Green" turned into a level "Red" alert .
I'm talking about days before that on NPR They said the FBI believed it was a hoax. Maybe NPR had interviewed someone at the FBI and found that out, but the FBI hadn't made the official announcement about it. I was watching Fox News a couple of days later, and laughing when they were still showing the pictures and talking about the search for the terrorists and trying to uncover their plot. It might not be a big deal or anything other than NPR scooped FOX. I don't know.
