I guess you’ll be able to get a good deal on a room in Vegas now.
Do you think making this info public is a good thing? If this is true and Al Qaeda knows we have this info, won’t it just make them change their attack location? At least we have a better chance of catching them if we know where they’re going to be.
Could you give a source for the above news please?
Sure, it’s in my AOL headline news:
(I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to add that.)
Frankly, I’m suspicious of this this guy’s claim. Cellphones are very insecure; the signals are easy to intercept, both accidentally and on-purpose if you have the right equipment. I’d think that trained terrorists would know not to discuss criminal activity over them. Also, this Hamdan guy supposedly overheard the conversation because his signal got crossed. How many millions of cellphones are there in the U.S.? What are the odds that a random crossed signal would be picked up by someone who speaks fluent Arabic? Combine that with the odds that the terrorists’ conversation would get crossed in the first place, and this becomes an almost miraculous coincidence. Hamdan’s story is possible, but IMHO it’s more likely that he’s just an attention-seeker.
Why would an Arab want to seek that kind of attention?
The reason I’m is because I am sceptical as to whether anyone actually talks like this:
"We are in the city of corruption, the city of prostitution, the city of gambling, the city of unbelievers,’’ Hamdan told The Associated Press late Thursday. ‘‘We are going to hit them on the day of freedom.’’
I mean, really?
But I expect the FBI are taking it very seriously as is right and proper.
Bin Laden talks like that.
Yes, the leader of the Taliban talks like that to the press and to the public.
An Arab in America on a private cell phone when he doesn’t think anyone else can hear?
I’m not saying it shouldn’t be taken seriously, it certainly should. I’m merely cynically sceptical. People do falsely report terrorist threats - it’s happened again and again for many years in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Plus, stuff that has come out about pre Sept. 11th made them sound like a bad spy novel as well. I have no doubt that they would be saying things like that.
That being said, I tend to agree with Diceman. The odds of the cell phone conversation being picked up are pretty small. But it could happen. (I have no problem with them using cell phone. We tracked BinLaden by his cell phone for years before he finally dropped it.) The chances of the cell phone conversation being picked up by some random guy… Who HAPPENS TO SPEAK ARABIC! The odds are pretty dang small.
I’m still staying the heck away from nevada though. 
Dubious at best. Everything that’s been reported on these turds says that they take great pains not to discuss anything directly related to their plots over any form of communication that could be intercepted. And what would the odds be of them giving a nice, plain-text, one-statement summary of the where and when just when an Arabic speaker happens to be listening.
The only thing that bothers me is that July 4th would be an “ideal” date from a terrorist’s perspective. Think about how the date of September 11th has become linked with tragedy. If they could pull off something like that on the 4th, it would strike at this country’s national identity pretty hard.
That’s a frightening thought, Why A Duck. 
Actually, according to Fox News in Chicago last night, some of the detained Taliban members have said that there may be something planned for a major city on July 4th.
But if I were detained, I might make up stuff to entertain myself, too.
An update on this story:
Hmmm, could be a load of crap but just in case I think i won’t be going to LV. Shucks, I have never been there anyway.
Why bother blowing up vegas? They blow it up themselves every five years or so…
Further, if my time in vegas (born and raised) showed me anything, its that there are a LOT of Saudi Shieks who like to leave the harem behind and drop some mad bills in Vegas… I think the covert saudi support for the Jihad would probably dry up if the shieks heard about that plan.
On a serious note, in addition to the symbolic value of attacking vegas as a symbol of all things evil and indulgent about the west, there are also Nellis AFB (home base and testing facility for a number of advanced aircraft- and spaceships, so i hear), Hoover Dam (which supplies most of the power to southern California), an industrial complex in Henderson (just outside of vegas) that produces titanium, rocket fuel, and sundry other chemicals, and of course the major interstate artery for getting to the west coast from much of the US.
Sadly it makes pretty good sense it a lot of ways… But it does look like this guy is a little crackers. Heres hoping anyway. Dad still lives out there, and brother (a fireman) is moving back soon.
If they do anything that interferes with our scheduled trip in August, they’ll have my wife to deal with. Trust me, the wrath of the US government will seem like a slap on the wrist compared to her reaction to being denied her annual trip to Sin City.