# Nyc Terror Attack Thwarted!!!!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-terror-attack-thwarted/363518
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [July 7, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-terror-attack-thwarted/363518 "2006-07-07T17:18:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-terror-attack-thwarted/363518/41 "2006-07-08T21:02:57Z")
[QUOTE=Eve]
> [@](#):
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> PATH train riders took the news of the plot in stride. “It bothers us, it scares us, but you gotta keep living, you know?” said Dudley Nosy, 21, a security guard from Brooklyn who regularly takes the train to Jersey City to see his girlfriend. “You can’t stay in the house all day long, you gotta do what you gotta do.”
A security guard named “Nosy”? Ya gotta love it.
All stories of this type should be prefaced with the following: “WARNING! Election Year Story Follows!”
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2006, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-terror-attack-thwarted/363518/42 "2006-07-08T23:03:17Z")
[Priority Shifts to Disruption of Plots](http://www.forbes.com/business/services/feeds/ap/2006/07/08/ap2865665.html)
Hillarious.
> [@](#):
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> “We don’t wait until someone has lit the fuse (to) step in and prevent something from happening. That would be playing games with peoples’ lives,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday as Assem Hammoud’s arrest in Lebanon was being announced.
Hell, we apparently don’t even wait for them to buy the fuse. It is enough that they’re thinking about buying it, one day.
But here’s the funny part, from Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
> [@](#):
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> “You may end up not winning it in court, but you get a bad guy off the street,” he said.
So, to get a job at Homeland Security, do you have to take a test proving you don’t know how the law works? If you don’t get a convictions, you’re not taking bad guys off the street.
It may be that I’m too jaded. I mean, maybe there’s some strategic advantage to keeping your enemies in disarray. Yet, my cynical mind can’t help but think that another word for ‘disruption’ in this context is ‘harrassment.’ What is this, a make-work project for civil rights attorneys? Can’t dig up enough evidence for a conviction? Surprise, we meant to suck at that!
I mean, if I understand it right, the people who are working to protect our nation are willing to swoop in on any knucklehead guilty of terrorist-related thought crime. All a terrorist has to do is get someone to make chatroom noise about a plot, and Uncle Whiskers will be distracted for months. And all the while we’re supposed to understand that it’s the terrorists being disrupted?
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### Author:  [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2006, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-terror-attack-thwarted/363518/43 "2006-07-09T19:54:37Z")
> [@Linty Fresh](#):
>
> **Mince** , your post was funny as hell, and I’m still laughing a little, but nevertheless:
>
> [These guys, for starters:](http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/09/12/alqaeda.911.claim/index.html)
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> There are also reports of the Iraqi insurgency using email and chatrooms to plan stuff.
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> On CNN’s video page, there is a short about how Jihad is going online with both a public propaganda front and a private planning angle as well.
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> Typing “Jihad Online” into any search engine will bring up disturbing results.
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> Bottom line? Using chatrooms for terrorism is very real.
Yeah, I’ve since discovered much of what you posted here. But maybe I’ll rephrase. What kind of _smart_ terrorist organizes an event on an internet chat board? This story is ridiculous. If true, we have nothing to worry about for it appears that all of the intelligent terrorists died on 9/11/01.
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### Author:  [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-terror-attack-thwarted/363518/44 "2006-07-09T21:18:36Z")
> [@Mince](#):
>
> Yeah, I’ve since discovered much of what you posted here. But maybe I’ll rephrase. What kind of _smart_ terrorist organizes an event on an internet chat board? This story is ridiculous. If true, we have nothing to worry about for it appears that all of the intelligent terrorists died on 9/11/01.
😕
Perhaps I’m just misunderstanding the question. The 9/11 hijackers _were_ smart. They _did_ organize the event on an Internet chat board.
I’m quite sure that plotters of future attacks will make use of chat boards as well.
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### Author:  [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2006, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-terror-attack-thwarted/363518/45 "2006-07-10T15:21:39Z")
> [@THespos](#):
>
> Personally, I blame the mainstream media for the dynamic they’ve created, which emphasizes being first over being accurate in such situations. Thus, perspective is often a casualty when a juicy bit about a potential terror plot comes to light. If we’re lucky, in a couple months we’ll notice a little one-paragraph story on page 26D next to the car wash ad, which will essentially say “You remember that terror plot we talked about two months ago? Yeah, there was pretty much no connection with AQ.”
>
> I think we would all be a bit naive to completely ignore the timing on this one. I personally believe it’s another weapon of mass distraction. I think the powers that be have a sort of “Terror Bank” where they make deposits of these little foiled plots, and they make withdrawals as needed in order to blunt the impact of certain other stories and revelations, some of which have been mentioned in this thread already. Call me paranoid, but it’s certainly not the first time an overblown story has emerged to take the spotlight away from a more important (but less interesting, for most) public affairs story.
Well said.
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### Author:  [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2006, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-terror-attack-thwarted/363518/46 "2006-07-10T17:37:01Z")
Election time is upon us. To make us feel dependent upon their over reaching and likely illegal snooping , they will trot out a few plots they claim to have disrupted. November is coming and it of course is not a coincidence. We have not had an orange alert for a long time. We havn’t needed it. It wasn’t election time.
We have not yet gotten as affraid as we need to.
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